KGlearning

Come and join me next week in Brisbane for a day exploring the role of arts in our work with children!

https://www.thecreativecollection.org/event-details/the-creative-collection-on-tour-brisbane

BRISBANE - WE’RE COMING YOUR WAY!

Wednesday, October 21 is a day of hands-on exploration and shared inquiry.

This is where a playful approach makes connections between theory & practice, illuminating pedagogical pathways for your context.
We will explore many ideas including:
✨Why creativity matters
✨Multimodal learning
✨Approaches to arts practice
✨Designing environments for inquiry learning
✨Documenting the learning process

Come & join us for an invigorating day or session of learning! Find more information and your tickets on our website.

Welcome to term 4 in Australia where opportunities abound for teaching teams to start inviting children’s perspectives about the end of year celebrations before school transitions!

Let’s move past the traditional agendas that some ‘graduation’ ceremonies embody and ask deeper questions like: who is this for, who gets a say and how does this reflect our image of the child and childhood.

Take the time before term 4 gets too busy to reflect on HOW you celebrate.

If you want read more about a journey across 5 early childhood centres where over a one year period we critically examined what end of year celebrations meant and might hold - check out our action research project in this blog

https://www.kglearning.com.au/post/graduation-or-celebration

As an educator learning to listen for working theories took some practice - not just to notice what children know or do but how they are thinking.

I remember years ago viewing Rodari’s ‘The Grammar of Fantasy’ exhibition and reading about this idea of a ‘creative error’ or children’s slips and misunderstandings of words as a source of invention.

Rodari also talked about how children bend real words into fantastical new ones. What a wonderful way to come to understand working theories and the important role they play in creativity, language and thinking!

So I invite you to think about the possibility of listening with this lens in children’s play. Let’s challenge the notion of ‘cute’ and make visible the powerful nature of working theories in how children make sense and come to understand the world around them 🙌 The Learning Space Pascoe Vale

One of our professional learning systems we engage with some KGlearning Approach clients is a full day together on a Saturday each term - without children. We spend a couple of hours dedicated to a pedagogical topic together then the rest of our day in our environments designing layouts, invitations for inquiry and that real practical work of learning through doing. The teams are set for a new term, have quality time together and launch or relaunch their inquires with renewed connection. What you often see in a photo such as these ones from The Learning Space Pascoe Vale environment day happen only through regular organised time together to learn and to build knowledge and practice in real time.

I’m intrigued by the art of listening. Have been most of my career as a teacher.

Listening is the gateway to coming to know and understand others.

It can be a challenge when we work amongst groups and in busy environments to really cultivate the time to listen in genuine ways.

I hope these insights might offer some reflection in the pursuit of listening to children. (Video: Caleb at 5years shares his working theory about what it means to listen as he draws this)

Now here is a great FREE resource focusing on building relationships with food in ECE - such a comprehensive document!

We care a lot about meaningful meal times and this resource will be very much a part of sharing dialogue. Thank you to the team at Edith Cowan University for your research and time to pull this together!

Best Practice Guide for ECEC Food Environment | Free national resource A free national resource helping early childhood education and care services create food environments where every child from birth to five years can thrive. Download the full Guide or single sections.

It’s so satisfying seeing the identity of inquiry based learning come to life in a classroom.

In partnership with the team .pascoevale we opened the doors of this new service just 9months ago, it was a blank canvas, new team and we had a whole lot of pedagogical vision!!

These 4 images offer a ‘glance’ at the developing complexity over this time - as we engaged in meaningful pedagogical induction and coaching partnerships the life of inquiry has come alive.

The design of the physical environment sits within pedagogical values and positions children with rights and responsibilities - this converts to a practice of co-construction and is woven together with strong pedagogical routines!

Nothing sits in isolation.

It takes time, vision, commitment and dialogue to build such complexity and I’m constantly reminded that when all these things work together - the MAGIC happens 💥