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Cardboard Marks On The World
We revisit cardboard in considering how we personally engage with cardboard in the community. Outside of these moments in program what does cardboard look like in our lives? “It comes out every Tuesday to be collected. It’s recycled.” “it comes into my home carrying everything, food, materials, furniture.” “It is a universal shipping material.” “It holds my milk, my eggs, my new TV.” We discussed the complicated, and sometimes troubling nature of cardboard. It led us to ask how we could include community in this dialogue? The constant sounds of development around us remind us that our immediate neighbourhood is changing as new pavements, building and human urban sprawl engulf…
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Noticing With Cardboard and Engaging the Artistry Within
Today we shared our curiosities around cardboard – questions we’ve considered and continue to think about. We are curious about… How do we construct and deconstruct knowledge with cardboard? What are we learning? What are the children learning? How can we engage or connect the research with the community? What happens when we stop verbal communication in the classroom? What drew us to the silence? Is the cardboard still valuable to us when it is falling apart, broken, tattered? What do we shy away from the “less strong” cardboard? How do we connect our experiences with cardboard to the forest or vice versa? We are noticing… We are paying more…
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Disturbance
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Paying Attention to the Sounds of Water: A Simple Encounter with a Storm Drain
listening on a simple walk around the parking lot We can’t stop too long in this frigid weather but even a brief listen and look at the run-off drain provokes a range of meanings and possible thoughts. It is loud. We peer down and look and listen. Where is it going? What is down there? What is happening? Are there fish? Where does the ladder go? We discuss this simple, often overlooked feature so prevalent in urban worlds. It prompts us to look at the road and wonder what’s underneath us? A storm drain is an innocuous item yet part of our system of living. It connects surface to soil,…
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Disturbance
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The Tensions of Considering Nature When Confined to the Indoors Due to Bitter Winter Temperatures
Even with a good snowsuit and cold weather gear, taking infants out in a polar vortex is unwise. It presents particular challenges to our role as caregivers and educators.. The cold weather can foster perceptions of nature as ‘other’. In January in much of Canada this is an annual reality leaving us all stuck inside staring longingly out of the window from our place of warmth. How do we engage meaningfully from this physical and mental space? The answer is simple – we talk and remember and observe. We sit together by the window and look deeply out at the ever changing view. We take the time and choose to…
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Disturbance
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We Did This (Leaving Our Mark With Charcoal)
We sit on the floor and revisit our work together. Who did this? Using a finger we trace the marks left on of the page. There are long ones, smudged ones, short marks, dark and light marks. The variety is endless and evolving. Every touch, with or without charcoal, changes the marks. We observe and discuss these communal offerings, sometimes asking who made this? Sometimes we are silent and trace the marks with our fingers. We revisit our experience. We lie on the floor and look up at our work. We flatten our faces to the wall and observe up close. We point out features of interest to each of…
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Disturbance
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Slowing Down Time Through Charcoal Encounters
I wonder about time… We live fast-paced lives instilled early on to talk fast, move on, check in but something keeps happening to me during these intra-actions that move us into a different time zone where a minute can become an hour. During the charcoal encounters, which often happen with a single child, I lose track of time. I don’t remember what else was happening or who else was there. I am caught trying to remember when it happened – before or after the walk? All I can remember is an intensity -that distinct squeaking sound. It is less disturbing than scratching a chalkboard but it makes my inner ear…
