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. 


 

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.

Magic

I don't know how it happens. I don't know when it's going to happen. On my week-at-a-glance planner, there is a box for "sparks and provocations". There I record interesting ideas that come up over the previous week, or I plan experiments and invitations. I look over my anecdotal notes for great "I know!" or "I wonder" moments with my students. Still... I don't know how these magical days can be so different from other days.

Today was another day of ramps and marbles, water beads and colour tiles, cars from home and wooden train set, big blocks and play food. A day like many others in class, these days: too wet to spend long outside, library in the middle breaking up our long "activity" exploration time. My morning friends and I had a great time outside: shoveling new paths, making mountains, sliding down mini hills on the yellow sleds. We read a great book in the library:
"Rain Brings Frogs" about looking at life with a positive outlook, followed by a discussion of ways in which we are lucky. We chased runaway marbles and water beads as they rolled under every piece of furniture. I joined some friends at the snack table with my thermos of tea. We listened to two friends as they read aloud from a letter to mom and dad, and a short story about a favourite doll brought to school. I was pleased to see more phonetic spelling and reading aloud. But, all in all, this morning was a day like any other: we said goodbye to February, and off everyone went.

After lunch I was somewhat dismayed to see the state of the yard. The lovely snow was compacted, dark, and surrounded by enormous puddles. Indeed, like yesterday, the "big kids" had less options for recess because the hardtop yard was flooded and the grounds were turning to mud. So, I pulled off the picture for "outdoor play" from my visual schedule, and added "movie" at the end, thinking another dance party was in order. We went off to library as in the morning, where I expected to read "Rain Brings Frogs" again. Then, half-way up the stairs, I had to stop. The lake that had taken over the "smiley face" side of the school was gone. In its place, we saw a surprising sight.

We stopped on the landing while students stood on tiptoes and peered out at the wonderous scene below. A pumper truck was sucking up the enormous puddle and spraying the water out the back of the truck towards the open grate. So many observations and questions arose, and I knew this was no longer going to be a day like any other. I quickly snapped several photos and a short video clip. We finally left the men to their work (with a cheery wave from them and a big whoop from my class) and headed to the library. There was just too much to talk about, so we left the story aside and instead talked about how we might go about testing out ideas and gathering materials for our new inquiry. We came up with elephants (who spray water with their trunks), beavers (who build dams), ponds, sponges, and trucks, for starters. Our wonderful library teacher quickly gathered some books to add to our interest table. After choosing books, we headed back downstairs where we saw that the workers were still hard at work. 

Ideas were flowing as fast as melt-water back in the class. We needed a water table (now in another class while we have the light table). We needed large blocks. We needed sponges. We needed plans. Plans! Off they went, those whose minds were lit up with the spark of ideas. Other students happily resumed other inquiries or headed to eat snack with friends, knowing they would hear all about it at sharing time later. I tried to take as many notes as I could while the "I wonder" group were abuzz. I looked up a pertinent episode of "Peep and the Big, Wide World" with the beaver friend making dams, while helping two boys write out their ideas for how we could clean up the puddle blocking the gate to our yard. Here are a few of their ideas that made it to paper today:

 

And then, seemingly only minutes after we started to play, it was time to wrap up our snacks, tidy the room, and gather for our share time and goodbye circle. Many were still buzzing as they left, excited to share their story with someone at home. I went back inside, sat at my computer, and wondered why the room felt so different, even though no new toys or materials had been introduced. I marveled at how my plans to build a snow fort had been waylaid by something spontaneous, and what a gift it is to be able to follow those spontaneous leads with eager learners. I thought of how excited the morning friends might be to hear of the afternoon's events. I thought of materials needed to support the new learning directions. And I thought, again, how grateful I am to be teaching Kindergarten in Ontario where emergent curriculum is becoming standard practice.