what if you had a pen?

the monster made of circles, squiggles, zig-zags, & curves.

The having of a pen.
Swirls. Numbers. Colors. Shapes. Books.
Letters. Words. Airplanes. Trucks. Monsters.
Invitations. Celebrations.


Children experiment with writing and drawing tools throughout the school day... PERHAPS during early morning time before many other students arrive at school.
PERHAPS during a small group experience to try out a new technique or new drawing surface. PERHAPS during the open work time where students choose where they wish to explore for long periods of time.

the swirls, the dots, the letters...this penned piece even has a handle for flying.

friendship book all in purple...sometimes you just need one bright pen.

yellow 'space stations' and black-penned monsters...the having of your own idea

.

numbers are the most challenging shapes/lines to form when you are four.

making her own maze to follow in pen...well done.

Most of the children who have created the drawings, invitations, books, and designs in the photos today are four- or five-years-old.
The purposeful-ness of their work indicates that they have been able to explore and invent with pens for years leading up to these works. 

this boy started the school year uninterested in drawing or writing...voila!

can you tell that this girl named Sophie R. wrote a note to herself?

this boy had incredible hand-eye coord...he could mimic the fonts from different print sources!

these girls were hunting for words around the classroom for their 'word collections'.

one page in this boy's 'book of words' -  written in rainbow.

Their work indicates they value their own efforts on paper.
Their work indicates that the 'having of a pen' has given a voice and life to their explorations.
PERHAPS you will see the joy, the colors, the humor, the friendship, the focus, the calm, the intention.
The having of a pen. Is. A. Gift.

a program made by children for our performance play (credits written by the teacher).

 

the world of the easel

holding the brush can be tricky yet the exploration continues.

The easel.

It can be such a wonderful place for exploration of color, of tools, of materials, of drips drips drips. 

The easel can be a wonderful space for private work, for friendship painting, for group experiments. 

It can be a new experience to stand up to be an artist, to angle your arm, to hold the brush or tool just how you want it so it gets to the paper without paint landing on your shoe.

It can be a new experience to have your paint available on a palette in one hand while painting with the other hand. It can be a new experience to look down, look up, look forward. 


The easel is a wonderful place to create the world you know or the world you imagine.

Below are examples of many of the above ideas. 

There are a zillion other examples that could have been here - outside paintings, jars of paint, variety of paper surfaces and textiles, squeeze bottles of paint, rolling brushes, scrapers, HANDS in paint, things that sparkle, natural objects, murals being made, easel painting while sitting on a stool...oh, and Music playing or songs being sung while painting.
  
I hope YOUR classroom has so many different ways to investigate and explore the large tool that is the Easel!

stripes of color, mixed colors, and dedication to fill the paper.

purple is all this friend needs to form his lines and shapes.

paint colors, mixing, choices choices choices!

deliberate dots, lines and shapes - individual creations with a friend nearby.

have you ever created a piece of art WITH a friend??

respecting childrens' ideas, comparisons, and understandings of their world.

group painting is an unique experience to share ideas, laughter, tools, colors.

part 1: the beginning strokes of this boy's world...

part 2: the boy on the right, amid his friends at the easel, has his own plan.

part 3: the boy's completed easel painting... who could have known how he would describe his work unless we asked him, listened to him, ensured that his voice would bring his artwork to life. stunning.

The art of the easel.

To offer the large tool for children to experiment in ways that are unlike other classroom experiences is a gift.

When is the last time YOU used an easel?

What would YOU paint, explore, test out, invent?

What would YOUR paint colors have to say?

What would YOU have to say?

the umbrella hat

If I could be a five-year-old story writer, THIS is the story I would dream of inventing. There is mystery, intrigue, child-power, adventure, kindness, religion, quirkiness, truth, joy and cleverness.
It is a story that I had the privilege of documenting many years ago.
This is the story that made me say, "Oohhhhhh, so THIS is how a story can be told by a child. Oh, so this is how a teacher should LISTEN to a child to get the story told. Oohhhh, now I got it."

Ironically, for many of you who are familiar with Vygotsky's ZPD (zone of proximal development) - "scaffolding" - I realized that on the day that this story was created, Hillary, the author, was the one who scaffolded my technique of how to uplift childrens multi-page stories. 
Being a teacher means always being a learner. Thank you Hillary.

Lilly's Umbrella Hat, by Hillary.

Page 1.
This is a girl with an
umbrella hat.
Her name is Lilly.














Page 2.
Lilly went to her garden and wanted to plant a flower, which was a daisy.

Page 3.
She went to the beach then. Here is the shovel she used to scoop up the sand off the beach and she could make a sand castle. 
You cannot see Lilly because she is swimming underwater. Lilly knows how to swim.









Page 4.
Lilly was inside the rainbow because she found the ladder that goes up there and she climbed up.
She was o.k. up there.
You can see a little brown - that is Lilly's head - because she cleaned the black window a little to see out.

Page 5.
Lilly had dug a deep hole in the front yard. This tulip grew.
Then Lilly dug another hole and climbed underground.
So, you cannot see her again.











Page 6.
Lilly saw a low cloud so
she climbed up a flower to the cloud and then to this cloud and then to another cloud and then
to the sky.
Through the cracks in the sky,
Lilly could see God.








Page 7.
This is a baby flower that just got planted. Lilly is underground printing on the computer.
You still cannot see her because she always goes a lot of places.
Sometimes, she swims through puddles.

Page 8.
The End.

Things to note about Hillary: She was the daughter of a single mom. Her mom had her own gardening company. Hillary and her little sister were both spirited, happy girls who were allowed to experiment on the computer, help in the garden, and express themselves. Hillary's mom was warmly protective yet encouraged the girls to be independent. Hillary's world at the time - her family - was the culture that she incorporated into such strong elements in her Umbrella Hat story.

"If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet,
then you must write it."
Toni Morrison.

star pyramid

Anything that transforms is pretty cool for any child. To actually transform something into something else when you are three-years-old is developmentally quite spectacular.


Colin decides to duplicate the idea of a magnet star pyramid to a paper version. With an amazingly clear plan, Colin makes his own star pyramid in 12 steps:

step 1.

step 2.

step 3.

step 4.

 and then...

step 5.

step 6.

step 7.

step 8.

and now, of course....

step 9.

step 10.

step 11.

step 12.

voila. transformation complete.

the mermaid, the girl and the book

My five-year-old friend Mimi loved to draw. That's all she really loved to do.
Hmmm, let me be more clear: Mimi really really loved drawing mermaids.

Mermaid, by Mimi.

Really loved drawing mermaids.

Mimi would draw mermaids on everything. Sometimes, it would be one rather large mermaid that would fit on one whole paper. Sometimes a whole school of mermaids, looking quite similar yet with just a slight swish of tail difference in each one, would be across many many papers.

Mimi's challenge in class, however, was that she really couldn't be bothered with making friends. She would prefer to be alone, drawing mermaids, even if other children would ask her to join in their play. After a while, the children stopped asking, and Mimi kept on drawing mermaids.

The challenge as a teacher is to uplift the gift of drawing to which Mimi was already devoted and also to 'draw' Mimi into the class social culture.

At the time in our 4s/5s classroom, each of the children had their own blank spiral notebook call a Morning Book. They would use these as their own drawing book, using any page, upside down or backwards, crayons, pens, any images, crazy doodle, whatever they wanted. We used our Morning Books during arrival time - children could choose their Book to draw, or build in the block area, or read a book until parents departed. Mimi would usually choose her book to draw more mermaids, yet she would often sit at an empty table to be alone.

I decided to start using our Morning Books during other times in class, creating some small group experiences based around drawing and using descriptor language. Twice a week for about a month, we had Free Drawing time where groups of four to six children could lay on the floor in a circle with their own Morning Book and drawing tools to share.

As the groups began, I would slowly start making observations about how children used color, or how their line swooped this way, or how some images were small or tall. I would start asking open ended questions "wondering about this area" on someone's paper, or "curious about those lines near the top" of someone's page, or "seems like some of those letters are part of your name?" to someone else.

This Free Draw time was a no-assignment, no-direction, open time for children to use their Books, feel cozy laying on the floor, and to offer comments or remarks about what they might be exploring in their own books. 
"I am making a storm with all the colors."
"Here is a rainbow with a butterfly and two flowers under it."
"This castle has a knight guarding it."

Over the weeks, Mimi - surprisingly - became very comfortable with her peer group. She easily and quickly became the expert mermaid drawer and friends wanted ideas as to how to try to make a mermaid just like Mimi. She would tell children about the colors she liked for mermaids, how the head was looking straight, how the tail was tricky because it was sideways but "just do it like this..."- and Mimi would swoosh out a tail on her own paper to demonstrate.

Mimi gave gifts of mermaid art to all her friends, including me.

There is a deep felt joy when you see - SEE  - a child become a friend. It is powerful and almost unexplainable.

In early childhood, when you make a friend it is solid and true and dependable. It was as though in one flash Mimi had friends, was a friend and was eager to be part of a bigger world to share her love of mermaids.

sophia's train

The Middle

It was a new school year. In my class of four-year-olds, we had just started using the term "Plan" to think out our independent work.

Planning is a beginning for children to articulate an area of the classroom that they'd like to work, perhaps some materials with which they'll start their plan, and perhaps a concept already in mind ("I want to make a castle with blocks in the block area").

Children can change their Plan, their materials, and area in which they play any time they want - ideally, though, they will articulate that they are changing ("I am done in the block area - I want to plan to use the magnets with Alison in the science area").

Since we had been together as a new class group for only a few weeks, the teachers did not expect in depth plans at this point. More so, we wanted the term 'Plan' to begin to be incorporated into our shared language in class.

This day with Sophia in the art area turned out to be a special day to observe a very focused child who was already comfortable with supplies and - most definitely - had a Plan.

This story is from many years ago and I have shared it whenever I have talked with new teachers about listening and documentation:

The Upper Left Corner

I find Sophia working in the Art Area during the early morning work time. I see that she is working quite intently with her markers and crayons, having already done some cutting and careful application of red and blue tape around her work.

I am curious about her focus and also wonder about the one small piece of red tape in the middle.

The Bottom Right Corner

As I approach her, I ask Sophia about her work, wondering out loud about her tape and the interestingly cut paper...

"Oh, yes," remarks Sophia, "I had thought a lot about this before I did it.

I cut it like this to make a tunnel.
You see? The tape around the sides is the tunnel part. And the black circle coming through is the train. 

"It is a train coming through a tunnel.

The red tape in the middle is the light you see when you see it coming straight through."

"It is a train coming through a tunnel." sophia, 4yo.

  

Understand that this is the amazing part about working with young children.

You must listen to them and give them their time and let them teach you.

They always have so much to teach you.

As soon as Sophia explained to me about her train,

the only thought that entered my mind was... 

"Yes."