One of the delights of new friendships is what you can learn, especially from people who have already enjoyed a lifetime of experiences. Artist and educator Cathy Topal this week opened my eyes to a new world of exploration to share with young children.
Cathy, a long time teacher at the Smith College Campus School in Northampton, Mass. has just published her 8th book, Beautiful Stuff from Nature, More Learning with Found Materials. It's co-authored with Lella Gandini, whom Cathy met during her first "mindblowing" visit to the town of Reggio Emilia in the late 1970s.
I had never heard of the schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy which have pioneered a movement across the world to change the interaction of children and their teachers, in part by the use of "found materials" and teachers taking note of the child's reactions as part of a shared learning.
I was intrigued by the idea, and in particular by Cathy's book on using found objects in play and wanted to learn more about how to start substituting rocks and acorns and old faucets and ribbons for some of the Legos and toy trucks in the toy chest I keep for my grandchildren.
Cathy says she was first inspired to write a book after experimenting with clay in an eighth grade class. "I wanted them to explore," she said, but before she knew it "clay balls were flying all over the classroom. I resolved that if I'm going to do this I'd better learn what it means to explore."
Eight years later, she published her first book, Children, Clay and Sculpture.
Later, while working at the Campus School, she traveled to Reggio Emilia and was overwhelmed by what she saw. "First of all, it's not a lot of plastic, primary colors, store-bought posters and materials. It's pretty much natural materials. and children's interactions with those materials. Importantly, it's also documenting the children's interactions – really looking at what the children are doing, transcribing what they say, photographing the process of creating, looking and talking about what you've noticed in those interactions and asking questions. Teachers are part of the process [as could be parents and grandparents] and are learning, too. It's not just giving children something to learn. It's constructing learning together."
Returning home, she began to put this method into practice. "We gathered materials, we sorted materials, we organized spaces. We had the children explore. We had piles of materials. Bottle caps and all kinds of things. I was envisioning sorting the materials. But the children just wanted to explore it: what is this? where did it come from? The tone in the room blew me away,"
Some examples: "One little girl, I remember, had this container of
ribbons, old ribbons, and had spent a long time touching them, playing with them, mixing them up. Finally, she holds up her work and we see she has made a little marionette, a little dancing girl out of these ribbons. It was so perfect and unexpected. She was four. Another little girl had brought in an old faucet to contribute to the classroom's materials. She says, 'I'm going to make a horse.' She takes the faucet and attaches two beads for eyes and it looks amazingly like a horse!"
If a parent or a grandparent wanted to change the nature of play in their house, what should they think about, I asked?
Cathy recommends collecting with children natural materials–stones, seedpods bark, shells– or having them look through objects in your recycling bin such as bottle caps, things that are broken. Start out by laying them all out and just looking, and then grouping objects in some way– by color, by size, number, etc. "There are all kinds of ways to sort. By talking with the children about how things fit together that brings out descriptive language that touches on math, science, technology–all the STEM subjects. It's a great way to explore and play with your kids. Once you can see what you have gathered and organized, designing a way to display the discoveries or create something with them seems to emerge naturally."
Some types of activities which she and her collaborator Gandini describe in their Beautiful Stuff from Nature book, are on a video, and include incorporating drawing, building in three dimensions, constructing portraits, and, frankly, wherever a child's imagination and love of exploration might send them.
Cathy Topal and Lella Gandini, are doing a workshop on Beautiful Stuff from Nature on Oct 21 at the Eric Carle museum in Amherst, Mass. Their book is available here or at online booksellers.
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| Cathy Topal with a flower that could be a "J" |
Cathy, a long time teacher at the Smith College Campus School in Northampton, Mass. has just published her 8th book, Beautiful Stuff from Nature, More Learning with Found Materials. It's co-authored with Lella Gandini, whom Cathy met during her first "mindblowing" visit to the town of Reggio Emilia in the late 1970s.
I had never heard of the schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy which have pioneered a movement across the world to change the interaction of children and their teachers, in part by the use of "found materials" and teachers taking note of the child's reactions as part of a shared learning.
I was intrigued by the idea, and in particular by Cathy's book on using found objects in play and wanted to learn more about how to start substituting rocks and acorns and old faucets and ribbons for some of the Legos and toy trucks in the toy chest I keep for my grandchildren.
Cathy says she was first inspired to write a book after experimenting with clay in an eighth grade class. "I wanted them to explore," she said, but before she knew it "clay balls were flying all over the classroom. I resolved that if I'm going to do this I'd better learn what it means to explore."
Eight years later, she published her first book, Children, Clay and Sculpture.
Later, while working at the Campus School, she traveled to Reggio Emilia and was overwhelmed by what she saw. "First of all, it's not a lot of plastic, primary colors, store-bought posters and materials. It's pretty much natural materials. and children's interactions with those materials. Importantly, it's also documenting the children's interactions – really looking at what the children are doing, transcribing what they say, photographing the process of creating, looking and talking about what you've noticed in those interactions and asking questions. Teachers are part of the process [as could be parents and grandparents] and are learning, too. It's not just giving children something to learn. It's constructing learning together."
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| Learning from seeing |
Some examples: "One little girl, I remember, had this container of
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| Arranging nature as she sees it |
If a parent or a grandparent wanted to change the nature of play in their house, what should they think about, I asked?
Cathy recommends collecting with children natural materials–stones, seedpods bark, shells– or having them look through objects in your recycling bin such as bottle caps, things that are broken. Start out by laying them all out and just looking, and then grouping objects in some way– by color, by size, number, etc. "There are all kinds of ways to sort. By talking with the children about how things fit together that brings out descriptive language that touches on math, science, technology–all the STEM subjects. It's a great way to explore and play with your kids. Once you can see what you have gathered and organized, designing a way to display the discoveries or create something with them seems to emerge naturally."
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| Limbering up on logs |
Cathy Topal and Lella Gandini, are doing a workshop on Beautiful Stuff from Nature on Oct 21 at the Eric Carle museum in Amherst, Mass. Their book is available here or at online booksellers.
