Camp Creek Blog

Via Stork Bites Man

Jordi Ferreiro - Workshop with Kids

Jordi's Flickr

Wonderful reader Jill asks:

How do you corral the projects?? Do you let them sit out for an indefinite amount of time? When do the projects get thrown away, if ever? I want to encourage creativity, but it bugs me to have all the "pieces" spread out all over the place if making something takes longer than 5 minutes.

As Jill has already discovered, the only thing more beautiful than a basket of garbage is a room full of pieces of garbage taped to other pieces of garbage.

Of course, your child knows that the macaroni box taped to four soup cans is a turtle (or a lunar rover, or a brontosaurus, or a fax machine), and maybe even you know that (if s/he told you), but to everyone else, well, it's a look, yes, but maybe not the look you were going for.

How do you corral the projects? In the classroom, we had shelf space for ongoing projects, and we interspersed shelves filled with beautifully displayed art supplies with shelves filled with garbage, i mean ongoing projects.

At home, I have ongoing projects on top of the bookshelves, scattered across the table, and on the floor. SIGH.

At school, we dealt with ongoing work by sticking a Post-It note on it recording what it was (according to the maker) and their plans for it ("I will paint it", "Add eyes and nose", "Add Steering Wheel", etc.). We would reference those notes when reminding the child of the work they had planned to do and also when asking them if they were finished yet.

At home, with my two students, I don't usually have to put a Post-It on anything, but I do write down in my notebook anything they have planned so I can remind them later and also so I can make sure I get whatever they need from me to finish their project.

(I could never keep track of anything if I didn't have a designated homeschool journal/notebook.)

Do you let them sit out for an indefinite amount of time? Yes. The amount of time I let them sit out is definitely indefinite.

Let's talk ideal situation. Ideally, you are writing down what they are doing along with their requests for additional materials ("I need green and brown paint for the turtle's shell", "I need another soup can for my rover", "I need something silver for the top", etc.), their plans (see above), and their questions ("What goes on top of the rover?", "What does a turtle's tail look like?", "I need to look at the seatbelt in our car"). You use that information to keep things rolling:

"You said you wanted to see what was on top of the rover. Let's look on the internet."

"The green and brown paint you asked for is in the art studio. WEAR A SMOCK."

"Do you want to go look at the seatbelt in the car today?"

and etc. So, things are moving along. A project is done when the child says it is done. However, if it hangs around, the child may decide they want to do something more to it, which is a very good thing. In the classroom, children will copy each other's creations, which is an excellent thing. Child #1 makes something, child #2 copies it and adds something interesting, then child #1 goes back and wants to add it to his as well. It's all about extending the work. If you have more than one child, and they are close enough in age, maybe you can enjoy the same effect.

When do the projects get thrown away, if ever? Basically, things hang around until I'm sure the child is good and completely done with them or until I am convinced they have been completely abandoned or because I am in a bad mood and want the room to be clean.

(Guaranteed, if you throw something away, the child will ask for it the next day.)

(Buy black garbage bags for cleaning the studio. There is nothing like the face of a child who just found his or her beloved art project in the trash.)

I want to encourage creativity, but it bugs me to have all the "pieces" spread out all over the place if making something takes longer than 5 minutes. Ah, I feel for you, Jill. Rome wasn't built in a day, however, and neither is a lunar rover made from a macaroni box. It all takes time, and you just have to figure out a way to lessen the effects of helping your child become incredibly intelligent, creative, and expressive.

Designate one shelf for ongoing projects. Make room for two or three things per child and that's it. If they want to make something new, they have to finish their old thing first.

Work with them, however, and facilitate their work by paying attention to what they say they want to do and supporting them (by reminding them of their plans, by giving them requested materials) so they can reach their goal. I repeat, it is all about extending the work. The more often they work on one particular thing, the deeper and more layered the knowledge will be.

When they are finished, help celebrate what they have accomplished. Take pictures of it. Show it to people: family members, friends, delivery people. Make a big deal about it; show them how impressed you are. (Don't be fake about it, though. Be sincere.) Kids see what is important to you and they want to impress you. Your attention is a powerful motivator.

5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

via swissmiss

Okay, you aren't going to believe this, but once again I managed to piddle away the day and forget to take my photographs before the sun slipped away.

It was a beautiful day, too! Warm, and we continued trying to winterize the Airstream so it won't bust a pipe over our cold midwestern winter.

Thank you everyone for your book recommendations re: yesterday's post! We have an absolutely enormous home library, partially due to the fact that we are out-of-control biblioholics and partially due to the fact that when we closed my school we brought home a good section of the library (including doubles and triples of our favorites, because why not?).

Today I thought I'd continue the bookish theme and list some of our all-time favorite read-alouds.

Of course, these books are just as enjoyable read to oneself, but you know, there is just a perfect read-aloud book. Mm, what are the criteria. The chapters must be long enough that one or two make a good evening's read. Not too much cliff-hanging action at the end of the chapters, causing undue agony to small ones writhing in their beds begging to read "just one more!" (Mommy needs her sleep.) I like a read-aloud that sparks some good conversations. And, I suppose, the most important thing to me is that it be written beautifully, so that reading it aloud is a pleasure in itself.

Anyway, here are some of our top favorites. We've read all of these two or more times, no more frequently than once a year.

The Little House books. I've read all the way through the series three times. The first time I read them, Jack was so small (two, maybe?) that I didn't think he was really getting it, although he always lay quietly in the crook of my arm. Then one morning he told me he'd had a dream. I said, oh really, what was it? He said, "I dreamt Pa made eggs for me and Mary and Laura!" So I guess he was getting it, after all! Their top favorite of these books was Farmer Boy. I think my top fave is Little House in the Big Woods. The descriptions of the harvesting, butchering, and putting up stores for the winter! Farmer Boy is also a paean to everything gastronomical. My advice: don't read this if you're on a diet.

A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you're a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You'll be free and independent, son, on a farm.

Mother was frying doughnuts. The place was full of their hot, brown smell, and the wheaty smell of new bread, the spicy smell of cakes, and the syrupy smell of pies.

One of my favorites from my own childhood: Rabbit Hill. How I loved this when I was a child. I must have read it every year since I was five. The boys love it, too.

The houses were all asleep, even the Dogs of the Fat-Man-at-the-Crossroads were quiet, but the Little Animals were up and about. They met the Gray Fox returning from a night up Weston way. He looked footsore and sleepy, and a few chicken feathers still clung to his ruff. The Red Buck trotted daintily across the Black Road to wish them good luck and good morning, but Father, for once, had no time for long social conversation. This was business, and no Rabbit in the county knew his business any better than Father — few as well.

Another favorite from my own childhood (in fact, I read them my childhood copy) is Rascal. We have probably read this aloud at least once a year the last three or four years. They absolutely love this book.

My harmless skunks had further complicated matters on a recent Sunday evening. These pleasant pets that I had dug from a hole the previous spring were now more than a year old and somewhat restless. They were handsome, glossy creatures — one broad-stripe, one narrow-stripe, one short-stripe, and one black beauty with a single star of white on his head. All four had perfect manners. Having never been frightened or abused, they had never scented up the neighborhood.

But one night in June when Wowser must have been drowsing, a stray dog came barking and snarling at them through the woven wire, and they reacted predictably. Sunday services were progressing at the church not seventy feet from their cage. It was a warm evening, and the windows of the choir loft were open. For the first time in his life Reverend Hooton shortened his sermon.

I'm afraid they're perhaps (sob) getting a little too old for Winnie-the-Pooh, but we own the big treasury that has all the books and poems in one volume, and I have read it all the way through, front to back, several times. This book, by the way, would make a great baby gift.

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day." But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.

Already mentioned yesterday, but worth mentioning again, we've read aloud and loved (more childhood favorites of mine) A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door. The rest of the L'Engle books they've read themselves, but these two we have read aloud several times.

"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?"

"Yes." Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

This year we read aloud for the first time Treasure Island, and both boys absolutely loved it. I hadn't read it myself since I was a child and I had forgotten how exciting it was. A few weeks after we read it aloud, my older son sat down and read it again to himself.

He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stick, and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered sea cloak with a hood, that made him appear positively deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure.

Even though the boys are now 8 and 11, I still read aloud to them every night. They have been reading on their own for years, but they still love to be read to, and I love to read aloud to them. They also love to take their turns reading aloud. Sometimes meals (at which everyone is allowed to read, always — they were aghast to find out this wasn't allowed when I was growing up!) turn into a free-for-all with everyone trying to entertain everyone else with selections from their book.

I don't know what the secret is to growing great readers, but reading aloud can't hurt.