Today, I started the day by watching two movies: Environments to Support Playful Inquiry and The Wonder of Intelligent Materials. Both films were produced by the Center for Children's learning, the in-house research center at PCM.

The first film investigated the importance of space and environment in the Reggio Emilia approach. Many of the idea emphasized were the same as I wrote about in the other blog post. the DVD was mostly visuals, pictures of fantastically organized and designed rooms, areas that made me want to get up and play. Seeing these pictures, I became 100% convinced that the Reggio Emilia approach's claims baout the importance of space carried some weight. The video emphasized areas constructed for dramatic play helped children gain greater fluency. by introducing their areas of fantasy play, the class room becomes an environment of spontaneous thought, and kids think and act more clearly. Or something... At any rate, I can really see the connect between dramatic play intellectual fluency. For some students, learning in a conventional environment can be stressful and difficult. The Reggio Emilia method contructs an environment where learning is playing, and every child knows how to play!

The second film focused on the materials, known as intelligent materials that according the REA, can unlock a child's imagination and help them to learn by creating and experiencing. Some of the REA supporters and students spoke about the hidden conversation of materials, and the influence of materials on whatever the artist creates. I don't know how much I buy into this type of spirit of the paintbrush type BS, but I think that the materials that REA works with have unique capacities to help children learn.

• Clay: Clay is one of those things that many kids don't ever get to touch. It's too bad becuase clay is the ultimate tactile experience. A learner has complete control over it's form, which can be at once smooth and wet, or dry and rough. The process of making obersational sculpture serves a very effective teaching tool. Students must make exactly what they see and feel, which requires a heightened focus.
• Kapla blocks: K-blocks are one of those annoying gimmicky things that while they are cool, annoy me. The blocks are simply slender (1/4 inch thick, maybe) peices of light colored wood. They don't really merit a special name. However, the examples of student work using these blocks is quite imprssive: cavernous stacked hive like structure built on light tables, geometric representations of leaves and boats, great castles wich tower over the kids' heads. I think that these blocks most effectivly demonstrate the importance of materials in learning. Becuase the blocks are so well integrated into the curriculum, the kids use them like a pencil or paintbrush to learn.
• Tempra paint: Lots of talk of the "language of paint." A little too earth mother for me--it's paint.
• Card board: SO COOL. I remember making card board cities and villages in preschoool. It's really amazing what these kids can create. The Opal School has done a fantastic job giving the kids the right materials (plastic and metal hinges, battery powered box cutters) so that the kids can create easily and safely.
• Black pen: A lot of the art created by the REA and the Opal schools is based off of the same foundation: Black pen. We used black pen a lot in the Catlin Beginning and Lower school. Not only does it look better, but it also forces kids to be bold, draw what they see. So often, when kids work with pencil they lose sight of the goal, to draw whats in front of them. They spend more time erasing and redrawing than looking and observing. With black pen, students can get into that "flow" which best aids creativity and learning.
• Natural materials: This is another one of the things about the philosophy that annoys me most--the idea that a connection with nature will somehow seep into the pores of sleeping children and make them more creative, better at reading, making connections, and math. but, I must admit that the presence of natural materials is in part what gives the REA class rooms their whimsy and sense of fun. I would also give REA some credit in terms of their curriculum: by making natural materials one of the central focuses of their classrooms, REA students learn a lot about the natural sciences without being in a "science" class.
• Water: Haven't seen much of this in action. The water exhibit at PCM is a really fantastic part of the museum. For some kids, it won't be that important. But for other kids, the feeling of water, the control you can exert, the experiments one can perform, are a fantastic oppourtunity for learning and personal growth. I like water (duh) and would like to learn if water can be used almost theraputically.
• Watercolor: The REA and Opal schools use watercolors in many forms, often with the black pen I talked about earlier. I'm interested in investigating the intellectual difference between watercolors and tempra paint.