Charcoal

We are inviting the children to engage in the arts of slowing down, paying attention and noticing. Because the children and educators are interested in visiting and sharing stories about the nearby forest, we want to extend what happens in the the forest into the classroom.

For the past few months, we have been observing children’s engagement (even fascination) with sticks/branches/logs in the forest.  In order to connect to children’s interests, we are inviting children to explore charcoal and paper. It matters deeply what materials we invite into our classroom.  Paper and charcoal link us directly to forests – they start in forests… The sticks that children are fascinated with become charcoal through industrial processes. The trees become paper.  We don’t necessarily want to tell children about these links yet, but we want to immerse ourselves in these deep connections – which might (eventually) become visible for children in a few months from now (our goal is to allow the time and space for these connections to emerge).

Practicing the arts of slowing down, paying attention and noticing with children is not easy task.  To begin, we will simply explore charcoal and paper. We want to stay close to children’s processes (sit down with the children, actively engage with their questions without rushing through them), invite children to follow the movements of a charcoal stick, to think about what charcoal does, to stay with the difficulty of charcoal, to wonder with charcoal/paper, to be curious about what a charcoal stick might do.  We are bringing children together and closely observing the movements that take place in the classroom between charcoal and children. We want to support children to notice, to focus, to pay attention to charcoal and paper as art media.