easels were woven, wrapped and draped.
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OCRRT was invited to participate in the first ever OCAEYC Conference Play Space on March 16th. We set up an invitation using paper, an underutilized material that has so much potential. When we think of paper we usually think of it in terms of a flat plane used to write, draw, and paint on. If we give it more consideration we remember it can be folded, ripped, and crumpled. We wondered what would happen if we had frames and different types of paper. How would people engage? We offered a variety of paper, donated by The Child Creativity Lab and the Cerritto’s College Lab School. There were big rolls of paper that could be ripped, different types of 8x10 sheets, adding machine tape, large sheets of light weight cardboard, and four easels in a semicircle. At first engagement was tentative, there was a weaving and a little draping. By the end of the day the easels were woven, wrapped and draped. During engagement with this invitation many different learning modalities were used. Because we had no scissors, glue or tape, people had to problem solve and keep paper’s limitations in mind. While draping and wrapping the easels people were using both large and fine motor skills. Executive function was used to decide where the paper should go and how to work with it. As educators we tend to collect experiences for children but we don’t participate in them ourselves. Would children’s experiences be richer if we had a better understanding of the affordances and limitations of the materials and experiences we are offering? Imagine what children a group of children could produce with an invitation like this. Malaguzzi said “the wider the range of possibilities offered to children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences.” We invite you to expand your use of paper and see where the children might go with it. We also invite you to save the date for our ENC tour May 9th at 5:30.
The sign up will be available soon. Please save the date!
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