Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Autumn Tree-Working with Loose Materials








“Loose Materials” are powerful in
provoking children to think and
construct knowledge.
Their very suggestive nature calls the
children into the process of weaving what they already know and have
experienced in the world with new
potentialities and perceptions of what could be. These materials encourage children to
notice beauty, diversity and detail.
In this way, as constructivist would
suggest, children build and rebuild, while
engaging with the materials, an
increasing awareness of the world and their place in it.
Each material offers its own particular qualities to the child and each child
offers his or her particular qualities and
experiences to each material. As the child
engages he/she builds a new
understanding of the richness and
complexities of the world.
(Caldwell 1997)

5 comments:

  1. That is amazing! So cool.
    Would love to have that as a mural or piece of art work in my home.

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  2. that is lovely...just wondering if they came up with the idea on their own though?

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  3. Yes-the children did come up with this one their own-This happens all the time because loose materials are a part of school life!

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  4. This experience developed during the autumn where the children kept commenting on how beautiful the leaves on the trees looked, so I provided the children with the loose materials and asked them to create something that they saw outside during our morning walk and their first thought was, "A tree with lots of colored leaves".

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  5. It's amazing to see what the children can create based on what they saw on their walk. They used such detail to create this beautiful tree.~Sabrina

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