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100 Languages Of Children Uk Tour


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Hope this is in the right place!

 

You may know already but I havent seen it mentioned anywhere but the "Hundred Languages of children" is on a UK tour - I can't wait and luckily for me it is in Cambridge which isnt too far for me to travel.

 

As far as i know it will be visiting Manchester, Newcastle, Cambridge, Kent and Birmingham spending about a month at each one.

 

There are workshops and seminars and all sorts!!!

 

You can find more details onwww.sightlines-initiative.com

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Hello! This is my first post, I am an Nursery teacher. I went to see the 'Hundred languages of children ' exhibition last week in Manchester and found it really inspirational. Although our education system isn't totally set up like this :o (oh how I wish it was!) it does give you wonderful ideas about how to really explore an idea from lots of different angles. I love their ideas and work on a crowd. You must go and see it if it comes near you. The supporting pack which costs £3 is full of ideas too...well worth it.

 

Best wishes

Galleon

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Hi Galleon and welcome :)

Thanks so much for making your first post, and for giving feedback on the exhibition. I missed it a few years ago, and am determined to go this year (probably Cambridge, so we'll see you there, too!)

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Hello Sue and Helen ! I'd love to see what you think about the exhibition.

The Reggio Emilia nurseries obviously concentrate on listening to children and exploring their interests with them.

One of the projects started from the children being fascinated by the birds they saw in the garden. One of them thought the birds might be thirsty and after lots of discussion they came up with the idea of an amusement park for the birds (swings for baby birds, rides with music and water skis) and then they planned, designed and built it with the support and enthusiasm of the adults !

 

As I said before inspirational stuff. I'll stop babbling on about it now until someone else has seen it.

 

Best wishes

Galleon

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:o I have just looked at the details again and it seems that Cambridge is the only venue that does not have any seminars or workshops xD

 

I have tried phoning but its Mr Anwser machine. Some of the ones at other venues looked very interesting.

 

I hope I am wrong but there is noting on line suggesting otherwise. Will keep trying to find out for sure.

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:D Hello again... this is the only topic I've commented on so far...I'm just warming up and getting in the swing. I thought you might like to know the dates of the tour if you don't already !

Manchester 7 April - 4 May

Newcastle 15 May - 13 Jun

Cambridge 24 Jun - 21 Jul

Kent 8 Oct - 31 Oct

Birmingham 8 Nov - 15 Dec

It might be a bit of a wait but it'll be worth it...and that type of inspiration lasts for ages! :D

 

Best wishes

Galleon

 

P.S. How do I put a whizzy picture at the side of my posts. I did say I was new to this lark !

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There should be seminars and workshops at Cambridge also, they are mentioned on the poster I have. Also notice that the info packs will be £4 here!

Try looking at www.refocus-cambridge.co.uk for details

I also hope to see some of you here in Cambridge

Jean

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Hi Jean -

Hope so too. I know Helen is hoping to go and if I can make it up I certainly will. We'll have to arrange a time and place to all meet up! :)

 

Galleon - haven't said hello yet! Welcome to the forum and thanks for getting stuck in so enthusiastically! :)

 

Whizzy things = Avatars. If you you to My Controls at the top of most pages of the forum you'll find a link to change your avatar. A lot of the members here have uploaded their own, but you'll find a good selection of not so whizzy ones to choose from.

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hi everyone - im going to see the exhibition next week

looking forward to it

 

i did go on a course to Holland to visit pre-schools who had adopted the Reggio Approach - what a fantastic trip

 

i have lots of exciting photos of materials and good practice - maybe i should send them to steve to put on the site

i might be tempted to write something to go with them

 

seeing junk and clay modelling as one activity, children making their own paper plans before starting on a project

 

lots of exciting stuff going on

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Oh :D Thank you Jean

 

I am delighted to be corrected on the seminar/workshop issue!

 

I had previously looked at the page but it was blank - all other venues had details and poor old Cambridge had nothing!

 

I have now printed 3 pages of details and over a cup of coffee will try and decide which day to go!!

 

Be great if some of us could meet up!

 

Thanks again

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Have just found some info about Reggio so have cut/paste/etc etc, here it is

 

 

Teachers act as guides, taking care not to impose adult ideas and beliefs upon the children. Children learn through meaningful activities in which different subject areas are integrated. Open-ended discussions and long-term activities bring together whole language activities, science, social studies, dramatic play, and artistic creation. Activities that are meaningful and relevant to the child’s life experiences provide opportunities to teach across the curriculum and assist children in seeing the interrelationships of things they are learning.

 

Teachers have many opportunities to integrate curriculum. For example, the arrival of a new sibling is a common occurrence. Teachers’ might ask parents of children in their class to contribute photographs of their children as infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers, so that children who are interested can make scrapbooks. If such photos are unavailable, the children can draw or cut pictures from magazines, or dictate stories about remembered foods, toys or bedroom furnishings. Such activities are designed to help a child deal with the arrival of a new baby but also provide rich opportunities for spoken and written language and selecting and organising resources.

Young children benefit from in-depth exploration and long term, open-ended projects which are started either from a chance event, a problem posed by one or more children or an experience planned in a flexible way by teachers. The adults act as resource persons, problem posers, guides, and partners to the children in the process of discovery and investigation. They take their cues from the children through careful listening and observation, and know when to encourage risk taking and when to refrain from interfering.

 

Creativity does not follow the clock. Children need extended, unhurried time to explore and do their nest work. They should not be artificially rotated, that is, asked to move to a different activity while they are still productively engaged and motivated by a piece of creative work.

 

Children need a place to leave unfinished work to continue the next day, and a space that inspires them to do their best work. A barren, drab environment is not conducive to creative work. Rather, children’s work is fostered by a space that has natural light, harmonious colours, comfortable child sized areas, examples of their own and others work (including work of teachers and selected artists) and inviting materials.

 

Without spending great amounts of money, teachers can organise wonderful collections of resource materials that might be bought, recycled or found. These can include paper goods of all kinds, writing and drawing tools, materials for construction and collage such as buttons, stones, shells, beads and seeds. Sculpting materials such as gloop, dough, clay and shaving cream. These materials are used most imaginatively when the children have helped to select and organise them.

 

The classroom atmosphere should reflect the adults’ encouragement and acceptance of mistakes, risk taking, innovation and uniqueness, along with a certain amount of mess, noise and freedom. Mirrors or photos in the art area can inspire children to do self-portrait work, as they are able to study their faces.

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This article is very interesting to me as I try and do this every day. I try not to hurry and interrupt the children in their play. We take our lead fom the children.Today some of the children found some snails so we put them on damp paper. The children watched them ,drew them,used the magnifyers,counted their age,had snail races. We found many interesting articles about them.I think my enthuisiasm transferred to the children and they arell going to bring me nice things tomorrow. i.e. slugs ,snails ,woodlice and spiders. Alas when the dreaded inspector is looming we are encouraging children to play with things that they may have no interest in at all. Today we covered nothing on my daily plan but the children learnt so much today.

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I wish everybody realised that

how true it is, so many opportunities are missed because we work to inspection standards

the reggio thinking does have 'loose' planning and constant communication with the practitioners ensures that learning objectives are met but also that there is still excitement, fun and flexibility in the curriculum

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Lesley, I do feel I am being pulled 2 ways i.e What is right for the children against what is right for Ofsted. At the end of the day the needs of the child must come first. With 24 years experience I now have the confidence to put my point across to the Inspector. Hope they continue to see my point of view otherwise I will be in trouble.

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I think if we are confident in what we are providing and the interests of the children are in the forefront then ofsted should not be able to comment

 

I think anything is possible - you just have to have the confidence or knowledge to justify it

 

certain things or routines are often said to be preferred or are things ofsted like to see, but sometimes its a case of saying -

 

'we tried this several ways and this works best for us'

 

'we do this because'

 

'we find children benefit because...'

 

'we have tried several ways to engage with parents but...'

'we are consulting with our Early Years Partnership as we are finding this particluraly difficult, here is the documenation to show what we have done so far and the training we have accessed in this area'

 

'children in our catchment area are mainly from a deprived area and we find too challenging an environment at the beginning of the year is setting unrealistic expectations - so resources are reduced and introduced slowly, we find we are working on other areas at that time'

 

If you are confident you are providing a caring and rich environment for the children - stand up for yourselves and show evidence of your good work,

 

DONT BE SCARED OF THEM

 

IF YOURE GOOD - TELL THEM

 

OFSTED ARE ONLY PEOPLE TOO!!!

 

right I'll get off my soap box and go to bed

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I've been to see the Reggio exhibition today with my head teacher. It was really wonderful to see the fantastic work these young children have done. Apart from enjoying the art work and the comments made made the children I am amazed at their standards of drawing and painting. It made me feel very small.

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bubblejack -

 

Keep on doing it!! It's the only way to be effective in the early years. How else are we going to make things 'real' for the children? Spontaneous learning and opps not missed are, in my experience, big with Ofsted - so don't worry! Go with it, after all, 24 years is some experience!!! :D

 

Sorry. I, too, will get off my soapbox. :o

 

Sue

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I am hoping to go to the exhibition in Manchester this weekend. I just hate driving in so my daughter has said she will come with me. It is in the new Urbis site which will kill 2 birds for us as I haven't been in there yet.

Linda

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its really late so i will be brief

went to the reggio exhibition at the Urbis today - fabulous and inspiring - i have some good photos which i will forward to steve so we can put them on the forum

 

will do at the weekend if not earlier

 

im off to bed inspired

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