March 2016 focus on Collaboration

With Spring just around the corner in Vermont (or winter never really showing up) we have spent a lot of time in KPAS talking about how we want to change around our classroom displays to say good bye to winter.  We have had our KPAS tree farm bulletin board, our happy snowman bulletin board and our Perfect Square bulletin Board for quite some time now.  My recent visit with The Opal School in Portland, OR inspired me in several ways.  The nature of the KPAS program can be tricky for inspiring community and collaboration.  With an ever changing group of children, I decided that a large group project may help us with the idea of collaboration.  The Opal school has several "guiding principles."  One of the principles that I found to be evident across the grade levels was that of Children as Collaborators.  No child lives or learns in isolation.  A child is always in search of relationships.  Children learn and become themselves through interaction and relationships with other people, ideas, objects and symbols.

As I thought about the many art projects that my KPAS students love I realized that most of them were my ideas.  I would introduce a project, present the materials (many times pre cut or sorted), I would show an example and use a wonderful piece of literature to further inspire their project.  For our newest project.  I took down our KPAS tree farm display and left a blank wall for over a week.  The children kept asking me "what will we make next?"  "Are we making a new project?"  "What will it be?"  Every time my answer was the same..."I am not sure!"  "We will have to figure something out."  I was amazed at the immediate shock on their faces...they were ready for me to present them with the newest art project.  Over the next week as we enjoyed play and inquiry, talked about our classroom, the changing weather, the idea of creating one big group display on our empty bulletin board a theme started coming to life.  My morning group became very interested in rainbows.  We read books about rainbows, talked about nature and what weather creates rainbows.  We looked around our classroom and found several visual examples of rainbows and we discussed the pattern of rainbows.  The morning group was adamant that they wanted to create a rainbow display.  I found this to be wonderful but reminded them that we needed to discuss this with the afternoon group because it is their classroom too.  

My afternoon group was thrilled with the idea of rainbows but they had a different idea for its creation.  My morning group wanted to use paints and markers to create the rainbow and my afternoon group wanted to use glue and paper.  I asked the question "can we do both?"  The afternoon group was thrilled at that idea but to my surprise my morning group did not like the idea of using such mixed media...however they instantly agreed that they too wanted to use glue and paper and not their original idea. 

Our rainbow is coming to life and is so happy.  The students have taken full ownership over this creation and have even added a water color sky that is such a wonderful touch.  

Very quickly the students were very focused on ripping paper, gathering glue sticks and adding some "shine."  I set out baskets for the project and they quickly filled and organized their colors...a job I typically would have taken on for past projects.  

During one clean up time I looked around the class and noticed...there was only one space that needed cleaning...our bulletin/project board space.  I was amazed to see that the sand table, the blocks, the kitchen are and our puzzles were all perfectly untouched!  Our bulletin board collaboration has brought us together as a stronger group sharing ideas and working together.  KPAS has been so excited to add new details and hear the rips of paper each day and have worked together as an ENTIRE group to create a truly student driven piece of work!  It has been so inspirational to step back, listen to the students and hear their ideas.  The difference in their level of excitement is palpable.  My only role in this display has been to listen, provide materials that they ask for and to smile as they ask one another questions and marvel at their work!

I am excited for future collaborations between my morning and afternoon group.  The excitement between the groups has been amazing.  They enter the classroom excited and eager to see what new details have been added.  Stay tuned for our completed project...who knows what else we will add...ask your child what ideas they might want to bring forward!