Settings Day 1 - #playiceland

I was lucky enough to spend 3 days visiting a variety of preschool & primary settings in the wider Reykjavik area in the company of 33 other education practitioners from across the UK & USA. The whole scenario came about through a vision that Tom Shea & Hulda from Fafu Play had way back in March/April. Tom wanted people to see & experience the 'ethos' of Icelandic society first hand, by visiting settings & also for us to share our good practice & experiences with peers from Iceland. Hulda did an amazing organisational job of sorting everyone into groups & managing to find 2 settings a day for us all to visit - no mean feat!

Our group spent the first day in 2 very different settings, the first was a Hjalli school, where they follow the philosophy of Margret Pala and teach the children from the age of 2 upwards in classes divided by gender. Having grown up in a society where children are separated by religion and gender at times, I was intrigued by this system. On reflection I could see why some were in favour of this system but in my opinion it was more for the boys to flourish than to empower the girls, as women in Iceland already seem very independent & strong thinkers. The whole gender divide challenged me less than the lack of resources available to the children. I can see the point of pairing back on 'stuff' & do feel we have too much in our classrooms but I'm not sure how much progression there can be in 3 years spent playing with just hollow blocks. This is one sector I would like to revisit & see as many of the different schools within this model as possible. We observed 2 English lessons & from that it was easy to see why everyone speaks such impeccable English in Iceland, the lesson reminded me of how the children in the main school learn French back home - it was fun & all done through games & songs. I like the pictorial signs in the foyer to encourage as much independence as possible - getting dressed for outdoor play in the snow must be like a military operation!

Learning colours & body parts through play

This I could copy for getting on wet weather gear

The second setting was very special to me, Steikkjaras preschool, as I have had links with this school for over a year & was hoping to be in a Comenius partnership with them for 2 years but were unfortunately unsuccessful.

Bottle babies greeted us at the entrance!

This school is inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach & has close contact with the wonderful nature that surrounds the school. We went off into the forest to meet up with the class who were out on their weekly visit. This setting felt most familiar to me as I could relate the time spent out in the forest to our visits to Peatland or An Creagán but on a larger scale. The children were busy & engaged for the 2.5 hours we were outdoors with them, they played happily on old pieces of machinery & scrambled up on rocks & over river beds & stone bridges. It was very apparent that these children feel a particular affinity with this space because they visit once a week. They wanted to show us an area where older children had cut down trees to make shelters, not that this was an issue, but the fact they left lots of rubbish about made the children cross! The time spent in the forest was unhurried & the children were totally self directed, every teacher kept saying that this was their favourite day of the week & they couldn't believe they got paid to spent the day in the forest having fun. I know from experience that when we had funding to go to the forest once a week for 2 years, it was definitely the least stressful day ever.

After meandering back to the school, the children went to their classroom for some snacks & drinks while we were taken to the staff room to do the same. Staff rooms in Iceland are for relaxing, no computers or work related info on the walls, just coffee machines, candles & flowers. We had a chance to share some photos from our settings & ask questions before being shown around the building. 

A home corner created in a store cupboard!

The rooms in the classrooms are much smaller than any you would see in the UK or Ireland but have lots of different room branching off for the variety of activities. This school, being influenced by Reggio had dedicated studios spaces for art activities & a specialist teacher too.

A room just for art!

I noticed lots of schedules on the walls for children on the Spectrum but could never have picked any child out as having ASD. It made me realise a child who uses a schedule with the Boardmaker symbols could travel anywhere in the world & be able to follow their schedule.

There was a very warm feel to this school, with parents wandering in & out to collect children & stopping to talk with us & ask about our stay. Luckily, in Iceland, they can still have the school doors unlocked.

It is always good to see familiar resources when you are visiting settings elsewhere but also to see things that could be introduced back home. I was very taken by the way choices were made in the Hjalli school & could see me introducing this in 3rd term - the children chose were to play by picking cards & obviously some didn't get their first choice. These choices were also recorded by the staff so they could see which areas a child preferred to go to to or tended to avoid.

Choosing areas to play in & tracking where the children tend to go.

The art work on display in the Steikkjaras preschool was inspiring & something I would like to try with my class - I loved a mobile made up from all those lost 'things' that gather up as the year progresses.

I am eternally grateful to Tom & Hulda & all at Fafu Toys for making this trip possible. I hope they know how much the experiences I had on this visit will influence my practice for many years to come.

Loose Parts Exchange.

I got chatting once with another preschool teacher in the US about gumballs & how I wished we had them over here, so Ayn from Little Illuminations sent me a box of them over for my class to enjoy painting last year, you can read about that activity here.
So imagine my delight when Lesley from Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School told me she would gather some more this year for me & send them over along with some hickory nuts.

The box arrived in the first week of school, the gumballs will be saved for painting nearer Christmas time but the hickory nuts went straight out into the playground along with the painted gumballs that Ayn had sent. I put them onto the 'forest area' of the playground for the children to use as loose parts in their play. 

The children embraced these 'props' immediately & began to incorporate into their play scenarios - we had lots of pine cones - they became treasure to be carted around in the back of bikes or the special ingredients in making the perfect soup!

They have enjoyed filling the red tops up with all the fallen leaves & stirring in hickory nuts, pinecones & gumballs with sticks before serving their soup up to anyone willing to 'taste' it.

I love that through friendships forged through social media I am able to add a little extra ingredient to the outdoor play area & it's lovely to watch the children exploring these props/loose parts as they settle into nursery.

Outdoor Play Party - Guest post 4 - Loose Parts Underfoot

I'm back to work next week & soon I hope to be able to share some new outdoor adventures of my new class but in the meantime I am delighted to have Lesley From Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School write a second guest post for the OPP this summer. Lesley has been incredibly generous with her time, this is her 3rd guest post & the school's 5th but more importantly she is going to share some of her loose parts with me!!
We have three annual work party days. Our first one is two weekends before school starts and our Tracks (4-/5-year olds) class' parents are on tap for this one. That class is the largest class and they are assigned this first work session because there is always so much to do before the school year begins.

I don't always attend these sessions. Our buildings and grounds chair is in charge and the whole thing is so perfectly orchestrated, but this year we had a couple of big to-do/s on the list so I wanted to be there! The first, was to build a wall with the large logs we harvested from a fading locust tree on the property. The second was to collect the bumper crop of hickory nuts that blanketed the playground.

The first big to-do was planned -- parents arrived with pick-axes, extra shovels, and resolve -- we knew how big the logs were and the vision for the wall was just as large. I wanted the logs tipped on edge and planted, so we knew the holes would have to be deep. The second to-do with the hickory nuts was kind of unplanned, but almost more important than the logs. I asked the Chair of the committee to add it to the list "if there was time."

The collecting begins

The bottom of the bucket

The reason why this second to-do was so important was that the wood chips were going to be delivered on the Monday after the Saturday work day -- a company comes in and blows the wood chips in with a hose, evenly distributing it across the yard in a lovely and lush carpet. That is all well and good, but that would mean that all the hickory nuts falling would be covered and an important loose part would be lost.

Never a dull moment

Almost full

The children use these hickory nuts for all kinds of adventures. They are dragon eyes for magic stews, they are a currency for buying cakes, and they are ingredients for those very same cakes. Hickory nuts are sorted by their color -- they fall from the tree green as the leaves and as they sit on the ground they turn brown, then black. The children sort them further by the teeth marks left on them by squirrels and other rodents. Some may only have a stripe or two, while others have been scraped over and over.

Well, these are precious to the children and therefore precious to me. When I arrived and found parents waiting for the to-do list to arrive, I improvised and moved the hickory nuts to the top of the list. And here is what I love about parent cooperatives...They all immediately started picking up nuts, even though working beneath the hickory tree was hazardous -- the hickory nuts WERE falling. As the large bucket filled, the parents started imagining out loud, where and how I would present this harvest to the children. For our collectors, I want to make sure that I capture and share some photos of the moment the children see it and how they use those nuts over time.

Completely full

In other news, I discovered a bit about myself and why I am comfortable with 3- and 4-year olds -- I am reluctant to share and I am working hard to learn how to, just like them. I wanted to send some of these nuts off to Kierna and to Suzanna from Pop-up Adventure Play and when I went to scoop some out of that obviously vast quantity of hickory nuts, I found I couldn't. Just couldn't. So there I was on a Sunday afternoon, collecting a NEW batch to send away!

Wood chip blanket and new log wall

 Happy loose parts underfoot, everyone!

There were lots of great post linked up this time again & thanks to all those people who took the time to link up. My favourite post was from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails on their home made obstacle course with tyres/tires. I think I may have been persuaded to spray paint some of our tyres after seeing how bright & colourful these ones are.

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

• Any kind of children's outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We'd appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we'll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.

Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the 'featured' button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week! 

Comenius In Service Training - Smart Solutions Malta 2013

I have been involved with Comenius since 2004 both through whole school projects & in-service training. I was intrigued when I received an email back in October from a company called Smart Solutions (smartsolutionsmalta.com)about an ICT course being run in Malta over the school holidays. I have been fortunate to have been able to take part in in-service training (a week long job-shadow in Norway) before during school time but this one seemed perfect as it wouldn't incur any sub cover costs for the school. I forwarded the email onto the ICT Technician & we both decided to apply together for the 2nd week in July.
Emil from Smart Solutions was very helpful from the start & helped us to make sure our apllication forms were filled in correctly & as we were both applying from the same school we had to ensure that nothing was similar about the 2 applications. We duly submitted our forms to the British Council for Comenius funding to cover the course fees & travel & subsistence (hotel & meals). We heard back in March that had both been successful in our applications. Smart Solutions set up a Mixxt social media site for course participants to 'meet' up on before we went on the course. Through this site, we were able to swap mobile numbers & chat about where to stay etc. There were 12 people on our course in the 2nd week in July.

The course began on the Sunday evening with a gentle session over a meal at a hotel overlooking St George's Bay. This was a chance to introduce ourselves & learn a little about our colleagues who were also on the course, it was also when all the information regarding which buses to take etc. was shared by Emil, Franco & Dennis. The 12 of us were from Ireland (North & South), Scotland, Portugal, Germany, Iceland, Poland & Macedonia. There was a mix of primary, secondary & further education teachers, so the age range we taught was from 3 right up to adults.

The course ran from Monday - Friday, 9.00 to 4.00 except Monday & Thursday when we finished at 2.30 to go do some sight-seeing. it took place in an old military hospital turned school & we were very grateful that the computer lab was fully air-conditioned as it was extremely humid, around 36c everyday.

During the week, we learnt about the latest editions of the following software: Powerpoint, Prezi, Photostory, Moviemaker, Stop Motion, Photosynth, eTwinning, Podcasting, Weebly, Hot Potatoes & Comic Life. Sometimes we worked individually, other times we were in groups. The best aspect of the course for me was that you got to see how all the software can be interwoven to enhance a class/school project as well as just used individually for a one time task.

At the end of the week we had to present a final project created in groups showing how we used a variety of the software. Our group consisted of the 2 of us from a primary with 2 secondary teachers, one from Germany & one from the Republic of Ireland. We created an eTwinning project for our schools to work on over the next year called 'Our world - Our Lives'. In our rough draft of a website (created over a morning) we used Weebly, Photosynth, Photostory, Prezi & Comic Life. The 3 schools also plan to embark upon a new application for Erasmus Plus (the replacement of Comenius) in the new year.

The skills you learn can only enhance your teaching & the course is very professionally run by teachers who are therefore, realistic about what can & can't be achieved in a real school environment. 

Franco, Emil & Dennis

The work/down time balance is well managed, as were free 3 of the nights after 4.30 but our groups chose to meet up for an evening meal in a different restaurant each of these nights. On the Monday & Thursday we were taken sight-seeing with a very enthusiastic tour guide (and teacher during the school year), we managed to see The Blue Grotto, Mdina, Hagar Qim & Valletta during this time & have wonderful meals with all the course tutors & their families. 

The Blue Grotto

Mdina

Paula (our ICT Technician) & I can't wait to get back in September to share all that we have learned with our colleagues & pupils & to begin our new eTwinning project.
Here is a short animation I made with 3 others, Breda & Aoife from the Republic of Ireland & Antonio from Portugal using Stop Motion:

I would thoroughly recommend this course to any teacher/assistant working in a school.

Outdoor Play Party - Guest Post 1 (Tink 2013 Robots)

Once again, as I am on summer break I have turned to another fellow educator & friend that I got to know & respect through the wonderful world wide web, Andrea McDougall, teaches the Bugs (2s/3s) class at Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School, in Maryland, DC, USA. Andrea did a fab guest post last year for me on the cardboard adventures of Tink 2012, you can read about here, so I was delighted when she once again agreed to be the first guest post for the summer Outdoor Play Parties.

As part of our Tink 2013: Land locking Plastics camp at The Cooperative School we made robots. 

Step #1: Design:  The children were allowed to explore our collection of plastic lids, bags, containers, bottle caps and miscellaneous plastic pieces.  They were asked to think about how they wanted their robot to look as they explored.  What would the body look like? Will your robot have arms & legs and how many? Will it have a head and/or a face?  Will it still be a robot?

Step #2: Collect materials needed and build a model using tape or dry stacking to get an idea of what you want to build.

Step #3: Put it all together: How are you going to connect the pieces without using tape?  Will it stay together and be durable?  We offered a glue gun, rubber bands, brads and small plastic pieces as connectors.  This step required revisiting as everyone played with different ideas and made multiple attempts with different methods until each robot was complete.

Step #4: Adding a level of fun, exploring electronics and creating many learning opportunities.  I didn’t have enough motors for each child to make moving robots but I did have old holiday lights, batteries and electrical wire.  A few of the challenges we faced were that some of the batteries were old and didn’t work well.  When we got new batteries they quickly burned out the lights.  The kids decided to try stringing two lights together to handle the output of the batteries.  After figuring out how to string them together and maintain a circuit we had success!  The final challenge was finding a way to attach the lights and batteries for the most dramatic effect. A couple of kids started making switches out of paperclips and brads to they could conceal the battery inside the robot.  Others chose to mount the battery on the outside and manually connect and disconnect the wires when needed.

Step #5: Light them up!!

After working hard each morning to make robots out of totally recycled materials the children at the Tink 2013 get to enjoy the fab outdoor space at Takoma Park Cooperative school. It's lovely to see older children enjoying some of the activities that are familiar to anyone who follows this amazing coooperative school.

What lucky children that they get to enjoy this fab playground

Making moats & paths in the sand.

Adults versus children for a tug of war!

Enjoying the tea house

Once again there were so many great posts linked up, many with a muddy theme but my favourite was from The Boy & Me on cooking marshmallows on a campfire. I love that this mum is working her way through the '50 things to do before you are 11 &3/4' list & have loved watching the various adventures The Boy has had because of this list.

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

• Any kind of children's outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We'd appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we'll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.

Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the 'featured' button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!