The 4-5 year olds in the Big Garden class began to delve into the complicated idea of transformation – for people, animals and things. This journal reveals the academic backdrop the teachers utilized as they gave their class real and sometimes tangible ways of exploring the idea of transformation.
Our classroom is a bustling, busy place, full of stories this year. The Big Garden children are active, lively storytellers who relish both listening to and telling stories with their peers and grownups. Children's stories connect them to each other and reveal their ideas and questions to each other - as educator and author Ben Mardell states about his storytelling curriculum, "It never would have taken off if the children weren't telling their stories to their valued friends and teachers. We tell stories to communicate, and the opportunity to tell the group is what drove the program.”
The same is true with our group - the social aspect of storytelling is a powerful experience. We observe over and over again how the children's stories are inspired by those around them and have the power to influence the entire group. This journal shares how one such story with themes of transformation gave clues to us teachers about questions the children are grappling with about identity, power, and how they can be agents of change in their world, and how we have delved deeper into those core concepts in the past weeks.
On Thursday, October 3, Fin, Dillon, Oliver, and Nicholas told a story using props (tunnel pieces, tubes, wooden people, buttons.) Fin and Dillon started the story by creating a setting (a beach house) where there was serious action happening - there was a tunnel where people were getting put inside and transformed into other, potentially less desirable, things - monsters or dirt. My (Petra) character was next in line. When I asked if I could decide my fate, Oliver sagely informed me, "You don't choose - the earth chooses." Below is the story the group narrated and played out using the props –
Once upon a time, at a beach house, there was a tunnel where people went in to turn into a monster or into dirt. The person turns into dirt. The dirt slowly sucks the person in and becomes dirt, and the dirt goes into the garden. In the garden they turn into flowers. And the dirt helped the flowers and the flowers then transformed into a bunny's bed. (Pictured: Oliver is planting the flowers in the garden.)
There was a definite sense of power within this story - having power over another person, especially an adult; power in exploring big and abstract topics (death and the cycle of life, what happens to you after you die, who gets to decide those things); power in transforming someone else's (or your own) identity.
The idea of transformation began to crop up in other stories in the following days, and we wondered what the term meant to the group as a whole. On Wednesday, October 9, after sharing the contexts we have noticed the term coming up, we had a group discussion about the meaning during Circle Time meeting.
Fin: You turn into something else...Like a magician is around.
Alexa: Some people can turn into
monsters...like in a story.
Petra: Oh, so people can transform?
All: Yes...no...(different opinions about this)
Oliver: Robots can transform, special robots. They just do it.
Nate: They push a special button.
Nicholas: Transformers can only transform into cars. Or a costume can transform you!
Petra: That's a way a person can be transformed?
Nicholas: Yeah. And if you're underwater you change into something. Only people do that, like you have drips down your face.
Petra: Hmm...a person could go into the water and turn into something else? Or they just look different?
Fin: My dad went swimming in real
life and he didn't turn into anything.
Petra: So your dad was still your
dad after he was swimming?
Fin: Yeah.
Elsa: Transform means someone goes
in the house and then they go out. Like a machine.
Thalia: You are disguised if you are
dressed like someone else (connecting to Nicholas' idea about people
transforming with costumes.)
Petra: Are you a different person if
you are dressed as someone else?
Thalia: No, you're the same.
Henry: Things can be
transformed...like this (holding the Talking Stick, a new tool in the classroom
that we are using to facilitate discussions).
Petra: How did that transform?
Henry: You put this on it (a furry
piece of fabric on top of the stick) - It was a plain old stick, now it's a
talking stick. And if something is something you don't want it to be they can
transform. Like a tree with leaves.
Addie: Only things can transform,
not people.
The group seems to have an agreement that "transform" means to change. But exactly who or what can transform, and why, was not as agreed upon. Analyzing this conversation in combination with the prior stories made it even more apparent that identity and power are indeed concepts the whole group has questions and theories about –
As with any concept or idea the children are posing questions about, we look for multiple entry points or windows for the children to access or "mess about" with the ideas. These entry points, developed by Howard Gardner in connection with his theory of multiple intelligences, offer ways for children to enter into relationship with materials and ideas –
My own belief is that any rich, nourishing topic – any
concept worth teaching – can be approached in at least five different ways that,
roughly speaking, map onto the multiple intelligences. We might think of the topic as a room with at least five
doors or entry points into it. Students vary as to which entry point is most appropriate for them and
which routes are most comfortable to follow once they have gained initial
access to the room.
– Howard Gardner
The five entry points are –
Tim and I, meeting with Darcy, brainstormed ways for the children develop understanding and make meaning of the concepts of power, change, and transformation through the above entry points. We are being mindful of offering the children practice turning thought into action, a learning goal we have for 4-to-5 year-olds, as well as opportunities to sequence, revisit, and create new understandings within the Cycle of Inquiry. Here are some of the avenues to access the entry points we are thinking about and in process with:
Storytelling is an obvious one, since the group is already very comfortable with that mode of expression. We discussed breaking down their stories even further - developing storylines, characters, the tools they use to transform, and why that transformation happens (foundational entry point) in small groups and then bringing the stories to the large group to see how their peers respond. It can be powerful to see another person interpret and add their perspective to your story. Other elements to explore within storytelling are - sequencing a story and then mixing up the sequence (logical/quantitative entry point); creating storyboards (aesthetic and narrative entry points); debating and deconstructing stories (foundational entry point); acting out stories (experimental entry point).
We tried the latter idea (acting out stories) at Circle Time on Thursday, October 17. We told the story that spurred this whole inquiry (Fin, Oliver, Dillon, and Nicholas' story) and challenged the children to try to transform themselves into the various elements of the story. Not just the characters, but all the elements - the tunnel, the monster, the dirt, the person, the garden, the bunny, and the bunny's bed! I wrote down the roles on the white board to keep track. The children jumped right on board, with Thalia offering to be the tunnel and Nicholas offering to be the person who turned into a monster by going through the tunnel. He crawled through Thalia's tunnel, emerging on the other side with an angry face.
Jai requested to be the role of "the dirt", acting that out by jumping into a kneeling position with his face resting on his hands on the ground. We started taking a video at this point in the recreation of the story, when Henry becomes "the person" who gets sucked into the dirt:
"We are players on a stage..." Finley commented at the end. So true! And some were the audience, fully participating (as you hear Rutledge commenting on different aspects of the story to Tim, who was filming, or Dillon requesting when it will be his part to be in the story). In watching the video we notice the children being able to take an idea they are hearing through story and turn it into action in becoming each story element. Each child represents their interpretation of the action in a different way, like the flowers in the garden transforming themselves differently (some standing flowers, some crouched, some lying down) while still keeping the idea of the garden. We also notice the players taking on the perspective of others, another important learning goal for this age. For example, Henry, when transforming from "the person" into "the dirt", used Jai's mode of being the dirt, jumping to a kneeling position, resting his face on his hands on the carpet.
We decided to connect to a material that the children have already been in relationship with in the Art Studio with Jamie - paper. On Wednesday, October 9, after our discussion about what transformation means, a group worked with George (parent teacher) to see the different ways to transform sheets of large packaging and tissue paper using their hands and scissors, and eventually tape, staples, and pens. Here are some ways that George noted they were transforming it:
Different ways to transform:
Ways it was transformed:
After two days of exploring transformation in that way, we next added water (something the children have experience with from working with paper in other contexts). To slow down the process I wanted them to connect to their previous connections or make new predictions about what might happen when the water was added. We want to keep the children connected to the scientific process (and parts of the cycle of inquiry) where they ask questions and pose and test theories, and this is a way in which they could research and share theories in a very hands-on (experiential) way.
Thalia: It will make paste.
Finley: It's really going to rip! Because once Cooper put some paper into water and it ripped.
Dillon: I know it will. I think there's a sharp thing in the water and it will grind it up.
Finley: I'm going to cut it and see if circles come out of it.
Rutledge: I think there's a pretend knight with a bread knife in the water that will cut it!
Fin: There's a sharp thing in the water. It's going to cut it.
Dillion. Actually, I changed my mind. There's oil (in the water) and that will break it.
We added the paper to the sensory bin, filled with water. You will notice in their comments many connections to what is changing in the moment, the aesthetics of the experience. Also, there is a strong connection to narrative and imagination for some - an interesting combination of fantasy and reality. Here are their comments as they worked:
Dillion. Actually, I changed my mind. There's oil (in the water) and that will break it.
Thalia: It's sticking to me like glue!
Dillon: I can flatten it like a pancake.
Fin: I'm pushing it...
Finley: Sometimes when it's moving it rips.
Fin: The white paper doesn't rip that much when we swirl it. It's still a big piece.
Finley: It's turning orange!!
Rutledge: Because rainbow turns it the color - the water sucks the color away!
Jack: The rainbow goblins (in the book "The Rainbow Goblins") would like that! When you leave the white paper in there it gets easier to rip.
Thalia: When is it going to make paste? An hour?
We make predictions about the time and set a timer...
Fin: 100 minutes
Thalia: 1 hour
Jack: 163 minutes
Dillon: 5 minutes
Fin: The tape is transforming! It's orange, because all of this is orange and it turns it orange.
Rutledge: The paper is going under the water and it's orange, so that's orange, not the water (changing theory that the water is sucking the color out of the paper?) If we paint it it will change color - blue. It will make spiderwebs.
Finley: We can look underneath here...
(The group does)
Thalia: It's so cool!!
Fin: It's beautiful!!
Stay tuned next week for the next steps in our power and transformation inquiry, both in stories, paper, and other mediums, like the school garden!
Warmly,
Petra and Tim
To see how the class continued to explore the concept of transformation, please see Journal 11/8/14, part 1 and part 2.
Stay up to date with all the latest updates about The Collaboratory. It’s free.
I notice – I wonder