Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts

Saturday, 12 March 2016

when looking closely reveals a bigger picture


Students in rubber boots may explore the otherwise "off limits" (to the big kids at recess) muddy puddle just outside of our yard. These three made many observations about the quality of the mud: sticky around the edges, splashy in the deepest section, squelchy when boots were dug in deep, "creamy" like coffee, slippery when dragged along the dry pavement.

The weather has changed drastically these past few weeks. We've gone from sledding to puddle-stomping to listening for returning birds, all in March. This time of year the season's cycle seems to affect kids of all ages, whether in anticipation of March Break or simply something ancient in us that responds to the longer days much like flora and fauna around us seem to sing with spring. Inside inquiries (rolling, balance, creating noise and music, exploring number patterns, and more) seem to hold interest for less and less students, and thus we naturally respond by looking around the room for what we educators may move, remove, or enhance. Outside, the world is in a state of rapid change that is near impossible to ignore.

A glorious day at the end of February. We spent a happy afternoon exploring a fresh snowfall.
March brought a wondrous new snowstorm, providing our class fresh material to explore in new ways - a large group of us played at this tunnel, big enough for a kindergartener to slide or shimmy through, and sturdy enough to walk upon the bridge (though we only tried one action at a time in case the snow bridge collapsed).

The next week at school followed an unseasonably warm weekend, melting all but a few large piles of snow which continued to melt into rivulets and trickle down the sloping tarmac into several drains. Our favourite puddle was back.

This year we have had flora growing in the classroom, from our usual green plants to our more recent "garden with and without soil" under the big windows. It began with a spark, one student's idea back in December. She'd brought her gardening tools to school and showed them to Pooneh, who encouraged her to draw up a plan for how we might start a garden in the new year, as it was close to the winter holiday. Upon returning in January, we noticed our classmates down at the far end of our pod, room 105, had started a window garden with vegetable scraps and herbs. This reminded me that we had a sprig of mint that had been sitting up on our windowsill all winter, quietly growing roots in the jar of water it was in, hidden by the bigger plant in front of it. It all came together perfectly to engage more students in FC's gardening plan. With visits to our friends down the the end of our pod in room 105 for inspiration, Pooneh and a group of students started a gardening centre under our windows. It began with scraps of vegetables in water (onions, garlic, carrots, anise, herbs), then some flower seeds I'd saved from my mother's garden, then finally beans (by request by students who remembered growing and eating our beans last year).


 The tweet above shows what inspired us to take a group of students to visit Lada and Carmen's class, to see how they were investigating growing in a different way than FC had drawn up in her plan. A small group went to see it with Pooneh and were excited about what they saw.






We started a documentation space to share the story of the garden, first with these few images and the letter three students wrote to the Kindergarten friends in room 105, requesting a visit to see their garden. As our garden began to grow, this space filled with their drawings and observations of the vegetables and herbs. It is now full, leading us to prepare a book for further entries so that we can add to it daily and have a place for students to look over the shared documentation.









Students definitely show interest in the changes they see at this table, but gardening is patient work. Students visit the garden each day, and may talk about or draw what they see, touch the plants, even ask questions... but longer exploration and play doesn't usually happen here.

A moment of longer engagement with the gardening centre - perhaps because mint is such a delightful smell, students spend time picking leaves to rub between their fingers to release the heady scent. AC noticed something unusual in the pattern of the leaves while she looked closely to the details in order to draw the fallen and picked leaves.

Gardening is patient work, but harvesting or exploring the end results is very inviting work - using a mortar and pestle to grind herbs or spices is always a popular choice in our class. In past years we've ground up dried leaves and flowers for our potions centre, while this year the ground herbs have been added to the play dough we make each week with students. It adds a lovely scent and colour that is more meaningful for those who did the grinding.
Nature inquiry naturally blossoms outdoors, and this time of year, as we strip off our winter warm gear, unzip our jackets, and finally feel the warmth of the sun on our hands and faces, well, this is the time that "looking closely" pays off even more than usual. Observation skills honed in the fall (those changing leaves and chilly frozen-puddle mornings), used during quieter moments outside in the winter (catching snowflakes, digging under snow to examine grass frozen under ice, listening to the creaking of trees or the shatter of icicles), these skills are naturally called upon when every day is different, such as in spring. What magical change might we see at the park?

This morning, while out with my daughter and her friend, I walked under a huge maple tree that was dropping delicate flowers. I picked up a handful and carried them to a chair in the sunlight. The girls came over to see me after a playing a while. They wondered, what were these weird and wonderful things on my chair? Out of context, they were exotic. I explained that they were the first sign of spring on a maple tree, preceding leaves. That little tidbit of information was enough for me, as a child, to be fascinated with phenology (though I only learned the word a few years ago). I became enthralled with birds and trees, insects and wildflowers, and other flora and fauna around me that showed patterns over seasons that I could learn to read. Little clues tied to other little clues (blackbirds returning, maples flowering, sap running, days lengthening) helped me see the bigger picture of seasonal change in all its sensational glory.

Maple flowers found nearly camouflaged on brown and green grass, looking more striking against the blue chair.

This moment today brought back a phenology memory from last spring. I distinctly remembered students searching and inspecting tree blossoms - delicate, tiny things that most people don't even notice amid the brighter flowers of spring. I had created the storify story below to share with our families how students in our class were developing incredible skills in observation and deduction. I was delighted and more than a little proud of these kindergarten scientists looking closely, noticing details and patterns in their environment, and creating meaning out of their experiences in nature.





Note: an interesting twist to this story occurred to me when I looked up the storify link today. This was our first tweet from that particular class at nearby Clifton PS. Our classes were linked by a common educator "hero" to our students, Rob Ridley. His questions and focused collaborations (like #KindergartenBioBlitz and "The Lost Ladybug Project") and his thoughtful responses to our queries lead many educators to follow and "tweet the Ranger" as our students do. The teacher in this class tweeted the query to us, in particular, because she knew of our year-long focus on the skill of "looking closely". I didn't remember it until now, but that teacher was Emily Krahn. We had met and collaborated on PD a few years back, and this year she'd moved from Clifton to join our growing team at Thornwood PS (where we now have 7 K classes). Emily is now my neighbour, in the middle of our long pod classroom that begins with room 105 (where the gardening investigation so inspired us) and ends with room 109, our room. I wrote a story about making connections, and didn't even realize how connected we were. After March Break I will revisit the documentation from this day with senior students who took part in the investigation. It may well spur more phenology study amongst our newest students who've joined our class in the last few months of winter.

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Wednesday, 9 December 2015

what a puddle taught us

 "When a curious child and a knowledgeable teacher explore the phenomena of the real world, genuine science begins." Frances Hawkins

Water leads to wondering... wondering leads to engagement... engagement leads to learning.

I love SS's story. It highlights her determination and growing self-regulation skills, the learning that happens when you look closely and observe changes in the local natural world, and most of all, the joy of playing in a puddle.

A photo I've shared in the past, when describing the "decisive moment" in capturing a mood in a photo. I couldn't help but notice how many of the photos I chose to illustrate moments of learning involved water.

I have long used the term "puddle jumper" to describe a certain type of person, a kindred spirit... someone who embodies playfulness and joy well into adulthood. Friends know I'm likely to go out when it rains, looking for snails or following rivulets that run down the street over leaves and stones. My penultimate post was an extended metaphor for documentation, seen through the lens of reflection on water. It was inspired by the idea that reflection is always changing, based on one's point of view. A few days later, I shared the incredible learning journey of a friend and colleague who embraced full-bodied exploration of a puddle with her students, and was changed by the experience.

Our class adopted a puddle last year - two, in fact. The year before, my AM and PM classes had each adopted a tree to visit weekly, but the idea just didn't catch on in our new FDK class. The water that gathered near the walkway to the buses, on the other hand, fascinated all. One puddle, near our neighbour's classroom gate, appears and disappears at the whim of the weather. It grows to a small pond after a hard rain, and dries up with nearly a trace after a day or so of sun. It is a wonderful thing - reflecting the school or the sky, depending on where you look. It grows large and deep at times, and later leaves only a darkened shadow of itself, a mere grey trace.


In September our returning SK students quickly taught the new JK friends what our class does after a good rain - here's a group of kids well dressed to enjoy the sometimes puddle with my teaching partner, Pooneh in the back (pink boots).

One day this fall several students were excited to discover how chalk reacts to getting wet, and conversely, how our puddle reacts to getting coloured on. The traces of this joyous play were beautiful for days afterward.

When I find a quote meaningful and wish to share it, I look for a photo from my own experience that illustrates the idea for me. It struck me this year that nearly half of the pictures I've used in the manner have involved discoveries or exploration of water. Noticing our environment means finding patterns, traces, and surprises in nature.

The other puddle, a little strip of water that forms beside the concrete bunker just outside our gate, is affectionately known by all in our class as the "muddy puddy". My teaching partner and I have joked that this puddle is the reason many students beg their parents to buy them rubber boots. Mud is magnificent stuff. We explore it near and far around the schoolyard.

The beloved "muddy puddy" is a perfect illustration of one of many quotes from Ann Pelo that speak to me of eolithism - learning in and from the immediate environment.


The picture above rather beautifully captures our learning one day  - a cold, muddy puddle can be utterly delightful, or utterly misery, depending on how well dressed you are, and how well you pay attention to the details: how deep the puddle, how high your boots, how thin the ice, how sloshy the mud, how splashy the other kids in the puddle with you. By encouraging self-regulation, we allow students to figure out for themselves whether or not the mud puddle is an appropriate place for them to play. These students on this day listened to their bodies and to the situation, and had a marvelous time. Many other students watched from a safe distance on the hard ground. We applauded both choices.

The muddy puddle exploration on this day left an indelible mark on my mind - and I believe it will be remembered by those students for a long time, too. We learned about bravery, made mistakes, and played on. It was a grand outing, even though we were only out on the yard.

Sometimes the rain winds up creating new puddles, like these deep craters in the post holes around our kindergarten playground. This girl tested the height of the water against the height of her boots, and was happy to find that her feet stayed dry. Math and science was all the talk around the puddle this day.

More math play happened when this student found a cup for scooping and tried to empty the deep crater that her friend had been standing in (see above). I didn't stay long enough to capture how many scoops she had to do to fill the wheelbarrow, but it was already 15 when I left to explore elsewhere.

It was the collage below that lead me to believe it was time to look back over our learning thus far this year, and try to get at the big ideas students were exploring in their fascination (and mine) with water. Several projects and inquiries are ongoing in our class at the moment, and the year is winding down towards the winter vacation, thus making new conversations harder to facilitate during our short knowledge-building-circle time. I knew there was a theme emerging, one I'd want to remember and be able to share with the children later in the year when it came up again (as naturally it does when snow melts and freezes anew).


A recent water wonder from our class. I can't help but wonder where the arrival of snow will lead us in our questioning.


This wonderful day at the park last year remains another favourite memory for several students, now SKs.



Puddles seem a perfect metaphor for emergent curriculum. Even more so in a difficult year, when the social curriculum seems the most important lessons being highlighted each day, the need to "get one's feet wet" remains. Through relationships forged over messy play outdoors, friendships and trust are born. If you see a problem to solve, learning is inevitable. I thank my friend Nadine for sharing her puddle story, and inspiring me to look back over my own. I will consider it a success if this inspires even one reader to invest in a good pair of winter rubber boots. If you've learned something from a puddle, please consider leaving a comment here. 


 
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Tuesday, 8 December 2015

what learning doth a puddle offer?

 I met Nadine Osborne this summer at YRNC's week-long "The Rhythm of Learning in Nature" course. In my role as one of the facilitators for the week, I was able to learn and explore together with a wonderful group of educators and parents, and alongside my daughter who was attending the forest-school-inspired camp. The incredible professional learning session was a meeting of minds of Reggio-inspired educators with Forest-school inspired practices, grounded in the eolithism of Hawkins-inspired learning. It was a deeply engaging week that helped us all connect more deeply with place-based, emergent planning education. I was honoured to be a part of the team and feel a strong connection to those educators who walked along the paths and talked over worries, hopes and dreams together at Swan Lake.

Like daughter, like mother - we met up along the path and had to laugh when we saw each others' boots - I had been wading into the duckweed, and she had been playing in "the mud kingdom". 

Holding on tight as I inch along a log over the shallow water at the edge of Swan Lake. Photo by Anamaria.

One of so very many frogs and other pond creatures seen during our week at Swan Lake.

We don't live near enough to bump into each other during the school year, but I often see Nadine on social media along with many other in the #ReggioPLC who participated in our magical week at Swan Lake last summer. One wonderful conversation took place about 6 weeks ago, when Nadine posted an inspiring story about her day at school. In it she referred to students jumping into the puddles with such force, it caused the water to go "so high it hit our faces". I burst out laughing, remembering similarly "messy" moments from the YRNC summer course, where boots got stuck in muddy ponds, or stagnant puddle water splashed our clothes, or a particularly messy moment when, while following a damselfly, I slipped down a bare-dirt stretch of hill and wound up knee-deep in the mud.

Reading her post, I was most touched by the following: "I learned that when I supervise my own students in risky play they show they can manage risk." Yes! That was so much the message of "Rhythm 2015" - that by embracing outdoor learning and trusting children to be curious and capable learners full of potential, we would discover a wealth of knowledge, passion and skill among our young learners, and ourselves. Together we could discover our limits, and push them outwards.  I couldn't help but ask if she'd be willing to share her story here on my blog.









Later, in a direct message conversation, we talked about what this post could mean, in terms of the larger documentation story I have been working on through guest posts and my own reflections.
We spoke about documentation and how different we all are in our outlook and approach. We talked about the possibility for one child (or a few children) to stand in for the learning story involving many students. By taking a magnifier look at a student's growth (as she did beautifully in her story), one can illustrate both how the larger class learns from direct experience, and also illustrate an event that many found surprising and rewarding. We discussed how the documentation can be a metaphor for learning - that some students direct the inquiry, while others partake or even just observe, but all will have a memory of that moment, and most will have made meaning from it.

At the time I said: "...there are kids for whom true exploration is just beginning... Handling loose parts and sharing space is about what they can manage. Later, they begin to ask questions, or attempt to answer those posed by provocations... Those are the meat of my shared documentation. My partner captures different things, and I like that. She captures snippets of events that I miss, lovely moments of art or sensory or language play that may not connect to big ideas we're playing with but which show a lot about the experience or the children. In fact, I think I should tell her this." (note: I did, in fact, tell Pooneh how much I appreciate her documentation, and what she captures from her perspective - often across the room from me). 

I read my quick words to her now, and realize I overstated the case somewhat - I try to listen to all voices in the classroom, no matter how they are "spoken" and no matter their interests and strengths. However I do appreciate the opportunity to think about the importance of one child's learning on any given day - that our job as teachers in a large early years classroom is to forge relationships with all students, and between all students, and to help all see themselves as learners. I think Nadine did this wonderfully, and I am grateful that she allowed me to share this here. Her words follow.

What learning doth a puddle offer? 

by Nadine Osborne
 
Yesterday we had 2 indoor recesses, one was announced before it started and the second one it was decided to call them back in due to rain after the first ten minutes. The children were challenged to contain their physical energy within 4 walls and a ceiling. I had to divide and conquer together with my teaching partner. Today after getting all ready it was announced that it would be an indoor recess before they even got out the door. Faces were long.  

I was in the room to witness it even though it was really my lunch. I was hosting a school club meeting so I couldn't just throw on my stuff and go out with them. But I promised to take them out after recess was officially over. So since we had six students away today we only had a total of 21. Seventeen of them had rubber boots & raincoats, 3 did not and were happy to stay inside. The remaining child had "outdoor shoes" but dissolved in tears at the thought of staying in. He didn't fit the spare boots that were available so I made the decision that he needed to be outside more than the shoes needed to stay dry. I really need to build a relationship with this student.  Last year he was in a different class with a different teaching team.  I know from the way he looks at me and from his body language and tone of voice in communication that he doesn’t trust me yet.  He doesn’t yet sense that I am on his side.  I have been trying. Today that meant understanding how very deeply he needed to be outside. So I took 18 children outside in the rain and into the puddles and the mud. They burst from the door like popcorn from a hot air popper overflows into the bowl.




 When they understood boots meant it was okay to stomp in the puddles they did a little more than stomp. After observing their obvious delight and assessing that they couldn't get much wetter anyway I suggested we have a contest. YES. I suggested we have a contest to see if we jumped in the puddle with all our might, who could make the water go the highest. That was me. Me, the teacher, with the provocation. Never would I have imagined it. After about 25 minutes of sheer joy the children were starting to get a little cold. I let the first group that wanted to go in with my teaching partner go ahead to start the process of changing into dry clothes. Another group remained outside with me to collect wet leaves. Then after five minutes we went in as well. We learned that most of the children could make the muddy water go as high as their bodies. Indeed they could splash their whole face with muddy water if they jumped hard enough in the puddle. We learned that we won't melt in the rain. We learned that school is not just a place with rules where we line up all day long and get prompted to sit criss-cross applesauce. We learned that we are strong, powerful and mighty. We learned that we can change our clothes, and dirty clothes can be washed. We learned that the world is a joyous place when we can explore it in ways that feel right. I learned that dirty clothes are better than notes home about behaviour. I learned that when I supervise my own students in risky play they show they can manage risk. I did not have any students who needed ice. If I made a rule they followed it because I didn't make any that weren't essential. I learned that today one child "had the most fun I ever had in my whole life".

He was the child who didn't have boots. He was the child who needed the messy outdoors more than all the rest. I am not sure if I can express the learning in terms of the curriculum. It might be possible. But I am sure that RELATIONSHIPS underpin all the success I will have with these children. Today was a day of building relationships. If it happens that they grow up and forget the day we jumped in the puddles until our faces were caked in mud and our hearts were ready to burst with joy, I know I never will.


EPILOGUE – Several weeks later the weather situation was the same, if perhaps colder.  My new teaching partner was not dressed for mud, and a little hesitant.  A few of the girls were also a little hesitant.  This time I gave them a mission.  We were not to just splash with wild abandon, but instead We would see if we could find things that would float in the puddles.  I didn’t figure this out the last week of August when I was doing my long-range plans.  It came to me in the moment.  It just fit.  While I was thinking we would just look for natural objects in the yard, an industrious child managed to grab a few lunch containers from the lost and found box on our way out the door.  It was a very engaging lesson and I just had to listen, observe, and occasionally pose an open-ended question:  “Can you find anything else that might float?”  “Why do you think your leaf floats?”  




When I think back to all the planning and gathering of materials for my sink or float lessons from previous years, I realize how far I have come.  The road ahead might still be long, but I am well on my way.  I trust the children and I recognize the value of a puddle.

(end of Nadine's post.)

 I love her reflection at the end - indeed, once you have harnessed the power of learning in the moment, it can be strange to look back at how we once were taught to plan for learning without taking the students' actual knowledge into consideration (for those of us who began in theme-based programs). When I think of the moments that change us most as adults - I mean change our outlook about what is possible and appropriate learning for children, I think of this powerful statement by David Hawkins.

"We who have been involved in the study of science and children have ourselves been changed in the process. In some ways not easy to express, we have been liberated. Those of us who knew children before science (are) now seeing the former, children, and ourselves as well in a new light: as inventors, as analysts, as synthesizers, as home lovers, as lover of the world of nature. Those of us who knew science first, and children after, have an altered and more child-like view of science, more humane, more playful, and even at its most elementary, full of the most unexpected delights".
David Hawkins as quoted by Karen Worth

A puddle reflected the world of possibility for Nadine, for her students, and for those of us who delighted in first reading her story. It was her story that brought me back to my (neglected for many months now) blog, only to discover the draft of a story about water as a metaphor for learning, and for reflecting on our learning. I thank you, Nadine, for sharing the joy.

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Monday, 24 August 2015

inspired by things both great and small

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must
keep moving.” Albert Einstein
 
A and friends consider the delicate balance they have achieved. The varied sized in the wood blocks make symmetry, and balance, a challenge. 

This particular story has been bumping around in my brain for almost two years now, though the desire to challenge gravity in various ways seems to express itself every year in my teaching experience. Something was different in the school year of 2013-2014 (my last year teaching in a half-day program with a morning and afternoon class). I've pored over photos and documentation from that year, and it seems to me that the decisive element was the presence of a boy *referred to as A in the documentation. Note: There were five children beginning with "A" in the morning class, and three "A" children in the afternoon. I soon regretted my choice of single initial for our shared digital documentation, but students were used to it and were quite happy to tell their families at home who all the players in their inquiry stories were. In fact, I took it as a sign of pride that students were going home, asking their families to show them the class twitter, and pointing out their stories: "No, that's not my building. Yes, that's it, see my shirt there?" Last year we decided to go with full initials, thus A in this story (who is now going into grade two in a few weeks), would be AK. There were other technical challenges as well; lost dates, problems with storify, lack of hard copy documentation (locked at school for summer). This post illustrates one of my favourite inquiry stories, but also gives insight to the process of collecting and reflecting upon the story. As I delve into my learning journey about documentation, I can't help but make my learning visible.

I too, like A, am fascinated with structures that seem too precarious to stand still. I have long been a fan of a local balance artist, Peter Riedel (mentioned in previous posts here and here) whom I finally got up the courage to approach and chat with one day while he was at work on a beach near my home. I told him how I'd shown photos taken at the beach (over several years) to my students, and how an incredible inquiry unfolded (in previous years before A was in Kindergarten). I asked if he minded me using my photos and his on his website in PD, showing the beauty of exploring with loose parts. I am grateful that he welcomed the idea.


A treasure left on my local beach this summer by stone balancer Peter Riedel. I was delighted to find it, but sad I'd missed seeing it the day it was created. Often 15-25 of these sculptures appear, and over a few days some are knocked down (by large waves or more likely by human hands). When I found this one it was one of four remaining.

My own rock play - not a gravity-defying tower, certainly, but the patience and perseverance required to balance the top stone gave me a thrill, when I managed to set it just so. I think I may be "catching the balance bug" - I wanted to play here all day after a family swim last week on this very stony stretch of shore in Oakville.


A structure inviting perspective taking - as I picked up the bricks to stack, I turned them in each direction to find the flat side, the slope, the holes. Peering through at each point gives a different view of the horizon and the waves. Students often relish the opportunity to include such elements in their structures, inviting their peers to look through this door, this window.

In fact, it was discovering Peter on twitter last week that led me to revisit this story once again, after he suggested he could someday visit to do a demonstration. To say I was excited at that prospect is an understatement. I dug through old photos to find evidence of his impact upon my students.


And so it is, re-inspired, I came back into this year-old draft and found the title, the captioned photo below, and seven point-form notes about what I intended to share (in blue).

First week of school: R's recreation of one of the "Marilyn Towers" which we can see clearly from our schoolyard.


A and the building challenge
balance
representational work and whimsy
perseverance
reflection
audience
critical eye

My words intrigue me, now. Even my title seems like a lost story: was I thinking about how students found inspiration in great works of art and their own creations? Was it a reference to materials, both enormous stones and tiny beads or beach glass? Was it a reference to "looking closely", so much a part of the culture of our class, and how students needed to both look closely and look from afar, in order to recreate those structures as challenged by their peers? I no longer know what made me think of the title, but I feel the need to honour it as part of the journey.

There were so many inquiries ongoing in the last months of school: line in design and in nature, symmetry, mandalas, birds and bird feeders, spring change (#Kndspring), beyblades, potions, nature weaving, number patterns, and incredible caterpillar-to-butterfly experience. I remember being amazed at how often ideas from one inquiry would spin off into another, though the players were different. I see in the list I'd made those themes repeated: balance appeared in so many ways, and perseverance developed as students deepened their study of one or another idea through the use of their choice of materials. Reflection was apparent as students commented upon their peers' work, either finding solutions to their problems or finding inspiration for their own work. Most exciting was the way in which the morning and afternoon classes communicated with each other as they looked at the documentation unfolding from each others' work.

There were other teachers, too. It was before our school joined FDK, but I was fortunate to have a fantastic ECE student join our class in spring. Daniel Kerr was much like my wonderful current teaching partner, Pooneh - an adult with a serious love of joyful learning and no fear of fully-engaged participation as a co-learner with students. Another player in the way the inquiry grew in the spring was Kelly Wright, an inspiring educator (and now friend) with an FDK class in nearby Clarkson PS. Our classes connected often through twitter, but it was her thoughtful action in April that transformed the building inquiry into an exploration of design and an exercise in critical thinking.

As this is an old story, many of the photos from that year are assembled in albums saved in dropbox. I was able to find only the upload dates, and thus no timeline. Physical documentation in locked up safely in class, so my next step was a visit to "tweet tunnel" to find old tweets. The furthest I could go back was February 2014, so the earlier photos I found can't be dated accurately. These photos give some idea of how materials and ideas came into play over the year.

A provocation from fall 2013: photos of large balance structures found in a park near to my home. Early on A demonstrated an interest in form, matching images and later seeking new inspiration in books we found together in the library.

One of the reasons I so loved this inquiry was the way in which it allowed me to see A's true character. He had been my student for a full year already, but in his first year he was a quiet, cooperative boy who made friends easily and joined in a variety of explorations: a beyblade inquiry, a months-long marble-run project, indoor and outdoor cooperative games. He was not yet, however, a leader. What developed in A's second year of Kindergarten was his ability to follow his interest at great length - he was entirely happy to work on his own but equally patient when others wished to join in with his increasingly complex structures. A became a leader, though very quietly and without ever dictating roles. He demonstrated for me so very clearly the importance of embracing the theory of "the hundred languages". I had already begun to understand and relate to the theory through several other types of learners - those whose need for motion in order explore an idea, those who learned to use language later than their peers but whose mathematical understanding excelled early, those who were 'young' socially but full of ideas and mature expression when focused on their interests, those whose passion for nature made them comfortable and confident outdoors even if they experienced difficulty remaining calm while inside the classroom. These students who "stood out" in a highly-structured classroom, whose natural way of interacting with the world would be seen as "behaviour" when the student was required to do something difficult for them (such as lining up, sitting to listen to a story, completing a task such as putting on a snowsuit) were those I most delighted in seeing with fresh eyes, years ago when I first read "The Hundred Languages" poem. Students like me as a child, wearing my emotions on my sleeve and interrupting constantly when an idea popped into my head. But here was A, a well-adjusted student who demonstrated interest in many things but rarely spoke about it or asked to share his ideas, showing great maturity, creativity, and capacity. It must have been there, in the year before, when he explored similar ideas with his friends, all senior students. His parents laughed to hear how he was quiet, during that first year interview. They assured me that at home he was the one who told his older brother what to do. I missed it... had he been leading the play back then, or at least influencing the direction of their explorations through the materials he brought out to use? I cannot know, but what I do know is that through "listening" to his play, watching and asking questions and supporting his communication by taking pictures as he directed ("Now from here. Let me see. No, this part.") I witnessed something wonderful: A found his voice. Perhaps it would be better to say I heard his voice. An inquiry unfolded, crossed over into other inquiries, cooled down like a dying campfire only to have a spark catch anew... and A grew, and with him we all learned so much. As an educator I am greatly inspired by the theories of David and Frances Hawkins. I see how important it was for me to be present, if not actively involved at least actively listening and observing A at play.
"We who have been involved in the study of science and children have ourselves been changed in the process. In some ways not easy to express, we have been liberated. Those of us who knew children before science (are) now seeing the former, children, and ourselves as well in a new light: as inventors, as analysts, as synthesizers, as home lovers, as lover of the world of nature. Those of us who knew science first, and children after, have an altered and more child-like view of science, more humane, more playful, and even at its most elementary, full of the most unexpected delights".
David Hawkins as quoted by Karen Worth

Some ways in which balance and symmetry came into play in our class that year: at top, A and friends on their "motorcycles", several late-in-the-year examples of balance structures, and at bottom left, an example of how an idea inspired an entirely different expression of balance in the afternoon class: body balance challenges.

Several girls challenged each other to stack the clay curves in tall towers. J, on the left, counted each piece. N, blurry in the right corner, estimated the height of the two stacks in order to judge which was taller. I don't recall who mentioned it but there was a discussion about how they couldn't compare number of curves to decide which was tallest. The conversation gave me much insight into their understanding, as they pointed out side-by-side curves (thus not taller) and also the differing sizes of each piece. Math play happens everywhere in Kindergarten, but if you want to find it, go looking in the blocks and construction area.

A structure by A and friends. Note the printed documentation on the whiteboard, at left. This places it sometime after April, as those images are messages sent to us by Kelly Wright's class, @KinderWonders  during our collaborative inquiry around balance. That story is told in more depth below.


Documentation by Daniel Kerr, made in collaboration with A. Note: due to another tweet by A on this day (see below) I know that this collage was from  March 3rd.

From the photos above you can see the patterns that had emerged since the beginning of the school year: play with symmetry (while using not perfectly-matched materials), balance, recreation of known structures, beauty, function and form. Below, reaching back as far as I could using tweet tunnel, I gathered examples of how A's passion for building, and in particular for balance, inspired his classmates and those students in the afternoon class.






















It was not long this time that I realized something big was unfolding in class and that I'd need to share it with families, beyond the tweets we'd been sharing all year. I started compiling a thread in storify, saved in draft. Now, before I can move on to that story, I need to offer an explanation, and a caution. Storify can be a wonderful tool, but it has limits. It is not able to reach back very far, like tweet tunnel (the examples above could not be found by using storify). It also requires a link for each tweet, which contains your handle (name) within. Herein lays the problem I encountered when I went to publish the story last year: when our class became an FDK class with two educators, I wanted to change the name to reflect this. My own name was the previous handle. I considered starting a new account, but this wasn't best for the families, especially those senior students who'd been with me while the account was called @FynesKs. Thus I changed the name on the active account. I only discovered later, when I originally went to publish the story, that my storify draft was no longer functional. It had a long list of these no-longer active links, such as: https://twitter.com/FynesKs/status/453243389396258816 (first tweet below). 
Last year I was disappointed to see the story disappear. I'm thankful that I didn't delete the draft. I saved it, more for the comments I'd added at the beginning of the story than for the now-defunct links. This morning I copied the introduction I'd written (see in blue, below), then got an idea... just as a test, I substituted "109ThornKs" in the link where "FynesKs" was. It worked. It meant tedious copying and fixing each link in a new window, but the story came back into view before my eyes. Here then is a window into that large balance inquiry as it grew over spring.
An amazing balance challenge unfolds in our class.
Balance is one of the big ideas we explore over the year in our class, and it shows up in many ways: body balance, testing materials, challenging one's self or working with friends. Students became truly proud, & even more motivated, when other classes joined in & challenged us to greater 'heights'.

The balance and building work has gone on since September, with skills and ideas deepening each month. Storify won't allow me to reach that far back, so I pick up the story here, in early April, when my favourite clay curves (which had been sitting unused for over a month) were brought out by both my AM and PM classes on the same day. In the first tweet we were responding to class friend (an outdoor educator and coordinator extraordinaire) Rob Ridley, who sent a tweet to show he'd gone to visit the source of my students' beloved clay pieces (broken and water-softened clay pipe bits from a nearby foundary).













































































































A powerful illustration of the Hawkinses theories: eolithism, "messing about with materials", "I, Thou, It", and "Teacher as Learner"; science and math ideas are evident in deeply engaging, socially constructed play. Their desire to share with their families and friends in other classes made this a truly exciting inquiry. This image repeated from the tweets above. 


I look back at my original draft, my list of words and the title I left as a trace, and I know that how I see the story now is influenced by all the learning that has gone on since that time. I've been joined by a truly delightful, incredibly talented teaching partner, Pooneh. I've seen another year of students, (some who were in that class as year ones) tackle the challenge of balance in their play, many of those students inspired by the work that went on the year before. I've deepened my knowledge of the works of David and Frances Hawkins, through reading and discussions with fellow Hawkins-inspired educators. I am constantly amazed and delighted by the minds of the students I work with, and by those fellow educators, like Kelly, who embrace the wonder and thus make the classroom a place where magic can happen. Or, as I often say about our always-evolving (and let's be honest, not the prettiest, we're always catching up with our documentation) classroom, "It's not a beautiful place, but a place where beautiful things can happen".
 

“One of the very important factors in [meeting and talking with children] is that there be some third thing which is of interest to the child and to the adult.” David Hawkins
“In sharing enjoyment with a child there is a communication of the fact that as observers and learners we are of the same stuff.” Frances Hawkins
“Without a Thou, there is no I evolving. Without an It there is no context, no figure and no heat, but only an affair of mirrors confronting each other.” David Hawkins

The tweet below, created and sent by a student very proud of her ability to write about her discoveries, says it well.

    S typing: "we call it play and learn because we learn while we play" wow, S summed it up beautifully #reggioplc

    — Beyond 4walls (@109ThornKs) May 7, 2014

And so I ponder that first quote, the one that spoke to me today:
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein
and I wonder if it isn't a good metaphor for being teacher as researcher, learning from students through pedagogical documentation. To keep understanding, I must keep moving through the ideas. I must keep reflecting.


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