Interesting Patterns!

When you look at this child's work you know she understands simple patters. However, there is a great deal of complexity in her work. She first stacked the large spool to make two three tier to towers. She then began to place the smaller spools around the base of each large spool in one of her towers. Then each small spool welcomed one wooden stick. Those that didn't fit were tossed over her shoulder (which was quite funny. The teacher asked her to drop them into a bucket instead) Once the first tower was complete she proceeded to work on the second tower, this time using translucent cups. Each cup welcomed one wooden disc or plastic button topped off with one mosaic tile. A total of two hours of work. She also had to figure out how to reach the top towers. She asked that a stool be placed on top of the table!

Begin at the Beginning!

Where do you begin?

Naturally you must begin at the beginning!

You have a new group of preschoolers or kindergarten children, your environment is ready, the room is full of loose materials, provocations....

The children arrive and chaos erupts.

Your materials are everywhere. Dumped, disposed, and disheveled best describe your classroom.

And you wonder how and why this happened.

Aren't the children supposed to know how?

Did you?

Extraordinary work, must be supported by solid foundations. Begin slowly, introduce your hundred languages, one at a time. Children like artists needs skills to create masterpieces.

After 15 years of this work, we now find ourselves back to basics, as we have lost most of our proficient  ECE teachers to school board full day kindergarten.
It is somewhat discouraging to have to begin anew, teaching teachers to work in the "Reggio Inspired" way but we forge ahead committed to the process.
Rome was not build in one day!