Art Outside

I have written before about outdoor music, and I present workshops on this topic. I am a musician, not a visual artist. But outdoor visual art embraces so many of the values we early childhood educators hold dear. We value creative partnerships between children and teachers. We value the outdoor environment for the health and welfare of children (and teachers!). Children need nature more than many folk realize. Just digging in the dirt enhances children's immunity,  It increases feelings of well-being as well (did someone really have to study this to find out?). Whole community organizations are advancing the idea that learning outdoors is inherently crucial to the development of healthy children.  So why not do art outside? Isn't this a no-brainer?

Painting on a sheet with spray bottles is an oldie but goodie. Liquid water color works well, and children can investigate the way color sinks into or runs down fabric, provoking questions for discussion. Pumping a spray bottle brings up scientific inquiry (how does it work?). Children will most certainly come up with other techniques and ideas. Teachers need to be flexible. If a girl asks to use a brush, then those brushes must come out! Should we say no to mixing color with mud and smearing it on the fabric? No! Everything is food for thought and fun.

Using "loose parts"  is another way to include visual art outside. Use loose parts from nature, such as stones, logs,and "tree cookies". Include manufactured items such as tires. These entice children to create. It is more productive when teachers consciously prepare children with stories, pictures, and anecdotes inside the classroom. A child's imagination needs to be fed something beyond Ninja Turtles and Princesses! Feed their imaginations with stories about  outdoor creations. The work of Andy Goldsworthy inspires all ages. Alexander Calder's early life demonstrates what children can do with found objects and scraps.

Finally, taking children to see outdoor art installations that adults have created legitimatizes this work. They need to know that what they are doing isn't just something adults have them do to fill time! Children need to see that what they are asked to do is meaningful in the adult world. Investigate your community's cultural resources. Not every town has a National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, but even Marfa, Texas has outdoor art!

I hope this post has given some teachers and parents not only ideas, but reasons for doing art outside with children. I can't think of a greater gift to give.

"Once there was a baby tree..."

"Once upon a time there was a baby tree who was lost in a big, dark woods. She couldn't see her home because it was too dark. She asked a leaf, "Where's my home? Have you seen it?" The leaf said, "I saw a brown tree like you!". "Thanks," said the baby tree. "I see something brown and straight", said the tree, "That must be my home!" And it was. THE END.

This was one of the many stories my friend, Opal, told in our woods. Other children are joining us. I've resorted to using my iPhone recorder rather than writing, as I would in the classroom. Taking dictation is better, because the storyteller sees the progression of the words from left to right, and has to slow down to make sure you are getting all of her/his words down. They patiently repeat what you don't get the first go 'round, which is immensely humbling. But in the woods, writing is awkward. Maybe you could do it. I am using technology. 

In any case, as difficult as it sometimes is to record stories and watch other children in the woods--I am supposed to be supervising, after all--I am delighted to accommodate the storytellers. Their faces shine with the light of discovering that their own imagination can create something very much like the stories they read in picture books. 

The story Opal told also demonstrates that children's stories reveal universal themes of being lost, found, searching for home, and wanting to be with one's own kind. Vivian Paley wrote about this very thing in her amazing books. This video link shows how seriously she took children's words. "Cute" wasn't a part of her vocabulary. A child's words were important to her. And so I will continue to listen to their stories as long as they want to tell them. Ms. Paley would approve, I'm sure.

Stories in the Woods

Anyone who knows me knows I worship Vivian Paley. I have asked children to tell me their stories for over 25 years, and we have acted them out in the classroom.

This school year I have a new job teaching young children half days where the playground includes a wooded area that provides children with the opportunity to do what children love to do in the woods. Running through, staying still, gathering natural items in their hands and pretending these items are supplies for soup or ice cream, they are free to do what I loved to do as a child. They are free to be children. So how does this relate to stories?

I have a new friend I will call Opal. Inexplicably, Opal has adopted me and made me a member of her group of friends who gather in the woods and tell stories. Much of the time the stories are more like newspaper headlines such as, "Do you know what wonderful thing I am going to do? I am going to Disney on Ice!". Today Opal found me on the playground and asked me to come into the woods and tell her and her friend, Annie, "scary Halloween stories". So I went. We sat in our usual place, a crossroads of tree roots, covered with fallen leaves. Here I began recounting the story, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. Opal and Annie didn't know the story, so they were trying to "help" me by including monsters and ghosts, then, when they understood the nature of the benign evil in the story, underwear that walked on its own. I offered that maybe they would like to tell a story of their own. "I can't tell stories", Opal wailed. "We don't do that in my class". So I started a story about one of the many children who had come over to us to see what the fuss was. Soon each child was adding part of the story, and even more interestingly, an item from the woods. Children came and gently laid bark, berries, sticks, and leaves in my open palm as if conferring  a sacrament. With each item we named the next character of the story.

I couldn't write it down, and with so many children coming and going with pieces of nature in their palms I don't think I'll ever remember what we said. But we left the items in the "story circle" for another time. The next time I'll come with paper and pen.

Story offerings

Integration of Curriculum Outside

We didn't put the trash can and dry wall buckets out for drumming around the tree yesterday. Drumming wasn't set up, but cooking was. We have laundry baskets full of plastic dishes, and metal cookie sheets, muffin tins, and bowls, along with plastic and wooden spoons. All are adult sized (why use children's expensive toys when the children themselves prefer what adults use?). Somehow, while my back was turned, these items were purposefully laid out all around the bench that envelopes our tree. And the children were making music.

The four and a half year old girl on the left drummed a pattern, quarter note, quarter note, half, over and over. She told me it was a "pattern".

 Another boy found a bowl that sounded like a bell when he struck it. He was experimenting with the different sounds it could make, and comparing it to another item. His face was lit with joy as he struggled to find words to describe his discovery. My job, and the job of all teachers of young children, is to assist him in finding the words he seeks. (Kindergarten SOL's are cited here, to show that these preschoolers are on the way!)

Why did these little ones make music around our tree?

Because we had set the environment time after time for the pleasure of outdoor music making. With our hammock-like xylophone, our trash can and dry-wall buckets, our drum-sticks and shovels, we modeled the pleasure of rhythmic expression. Dancing and singing happen spontaneously.

Our playground is set up for such activities. The tree (shown before the bench was enlarged to allow tree growth), is a focal point for music, shows, hide and seek, and ball-hiding (in the crook of the tree), and other adventures invented by the children. The playhouses were constructed with cob (see earlier post) for the children to enjoy (and drag everything from toy trucks to old tires to dolls inside).

We talk about integrated curriculum constantly, now. Mostly it is discussed in the form of activities designed to teach certain skills and content areas. Some even integrate the arts. But children learn naturally by integration, and the job of the teaching staff is to scaffold (guide, then stand back) learning, including the learning of language and social skills. On our playground science, math, language arts, music and movement, and dramatic play all co-exist and intermingle through a carefully set variety of materials, with whole-hearted adult involvement. Children move at the speed of light (it sure seems that way sometimes) so adults need to think at that speed. Keeping ahead of their needs isn't easy (especially for a teacher of my age!), but to do otherwise is a disservice to the children.

I hear from my adult students about directors who do not allow materials that we use routinely because of safety concerns. I hear of teachers talking to each other teachers almost exclusively, occasionally shouting out admonishment to the children on my students' own playgrounds. I hear of my students' frustration when they want to try an idea from one of my courses (Northern Virginia Community College--Early Childhood) and then are shot down by an administration that prefers static playground equipment, with indoor worksheets and flashcards (inappropriate for early childhood). What a tragedy for children! Integration doesn't mean sticking two things together! It means that what is being done for children allows them to integrate organically! What better place to integrate curriculum than outdoors where the environment beckons? 

Peinture en Plein Air

Ou, la la! The story of Pigasso and Mootisse continued today!

We have been experimenting with colors indoors, mixing black and while, black, white and green, and the usual primary colors into secondary colors on paper with tempera. The children delight in "discovering" combinations. Some already know that blue and yellow make green. They've read Little Blue and Little Yellow for some time. Fewer know The Color Kittens, but are veterans of science experiments where other combinations have been tried. I asked my small group what they would like to do that the characters in When Pigasso met Mootisse did and one little boy suggested painting the fence!

Instead, we painted a big piece of cardboard.

I brought out a variety of bright colors, along with white and black. The children took turns being painters and art critics. The art critics were to tell the painters what they liked about what they were doing and what colors they saw evolving. This was slightly challenging since there were other children playing on the playground while they were critiquing their friends' art! Considering the distraction, they did well. 

Next we added leaves. This girl decided that, rather than stick leaves to the paint, she would make sure the leaves stuck by painting them individually. This worked well. 

The task took longer than I imagined it would, and so we stowed the painting in the shed to continue with tomorrow. We will see what transpires! 

A little Reggio, a little Vygotsky: A snapshot of how to provide arts experiences for young children.

We discussed in "staff meeting", which is our version of the Reggio Emilia approach to teacher collaboration, how we wanted a new set of materials for our art shelf. This shelf is an array of materials children can use on their own to create art. We had sequins, buttons, pipe cleaners and paper out and decided we needed to go natural for a while. There was a lively discussion about how, using natural materials could end up being colorless, or at least multiple shades of brown. So it was decided that some paint would make it into the mix.

We brought a tray of paints and fat brushes outside. Children gathered thin sticks and brought them to the picnic table for painting. "That one's mine", one girl told me later. "I'm going to use it in my art". Luckily there were several deep blue sticks so that she ultimately could claim whichever one looked like "hers".

On the lowest shelf of the art center inside we placed small squares of corrugated cardboard. Above that are bowls with seeds saved from years past that never made it into the ground. Tiny shells and stones, some of which I brought from the Jersey Shore invite children to touch and examine them. I added non-toxic "Tacky glue" so that the heavier items would adhere. Children worked with intense concentration on constructing their art with some help from teachers. Here are several samples.

I am looking forward to seeing what the children do with these materials, and what else they decide to bring to the mix. Building upward isn't something they think of instinctively and my teaching partner, Sue, taught some of them to "go up". By the end of the month I know we'll have a collection of masterpieces. 

Art in preschool is always process art. I have written about the importance, though, of demonstrating  new ways to use materials so that they learn by example. Vygotsky wasn't against this approach. On the contrary, he said that children learn through social interaction. How they express themselves depends on the quality of the environment, and that includes the quality of interactions with more experienced children and adults. Adults can give children permission to explore and delve more deeply. Sometimes they need just that little push to go further than they thought they could. 

I don't recommend coercion or taking over, but the reason we as early childhood educators say, "Great job!" all the time is because we want children to feel good about their work, and fear discouraging them. But we have neglected the needs of children to be taken seriously. We give them encouragement to pursue their ideas at our center, and offer new and different ways of looking at things. Children will benefit to the degree with which they are developmentally ready. That's all we have the right to hope for!