Art-Making

We love to make things, experiment, figure stuff out. We take a process approach to art at CPP. That means that we focus on the doing, not producing a product. Children are given many, many opportunities to explore materials and processes. Preschoolers benefit greatly from using their whole body when exploring materials. We do lots of that in our program. Children have free access to materials. They are figuring out how to make ideas happen. For this reason, we don't often draw for children and we rarely present a model when offering art experiences. Children are making things all day long. Sometimes these things make it home. Sometimes they don't. Many children have no interest in the finished product. If they do want to take it home, we'll do our best to pass it on.

Community Play Project is a playwork-inspired program where visual art, drama, music, and movement are woven into everything we do. We make a lot of noise, work on big projects and get messy.

While the art your child makes may not look like “something” to you, the “what it is” is not always as important as the “how it’s made.” When we paint with fly swatters we explore texture, color mixing, sound, and space. With clay we strengthen our hands, hone fine motor skills, explore positive and negative space, and 3-dimensionality. Those pencil and crayon scribbles are expressions and the early stages of writing and figure drawing. Of course, we”re always figuring out how to be together and making is no exception. We do work on more craft-oriented projects that follow steps and result in a finished object, and this too has its place, but it isn’t art. It’s craft or handwork. We sew, glue. carve, and make books together during these times.

We strive to give our students the freedom to explore and experiment with materials because it’s beneficial, but mostly because it’s fun.

Death And Dying

A few weeks ago a bird seemed to drop out of the sky and onto our playground. An adult noticed it immediately and adults and children gathered curiously to look and to speculate. Children spoke about their understanding of the situation and teachers used plain language to answer questions and do their own speculating. We used the word “dead” and let children lead the conversation while sharing information about what this might mean, focusing on the bird’s physical body, that it had stopped working.

We have read books about death at school many times. Tough Boris, The Dead Bird, Good-By Mousie. While I did put The Dead Bird back into rotation after this big event, we didn’t whip it out in the moment. We have already laid a foundation of understanding about death and dying through the titles I’ve mentioned and through listening to children’s stories about their own experiences with the death of a grandparent or other family member or friend, fictional characters, and pets.

Speaking openly about death is a gift that we can give children. Bringing age-appropriate books about death into your family library is a great way to start conversations. All of this helps children build an understanding if it’s done outside of the immediate pain of death, during relaxed daily life.

Sometimes We Fight

I think there’s a notion that play is always joyful. We imagine scenarios that include sunshine, harmony, and laughter. That’s not really what play looks like. Sometimes that’s the scene, but not always. It can be loud, tumultuous, and sometimes we get really, really mad when we play. It’s hard work.

I think it’s important to recognize these things about play because they are where so much of its value is held. It’s how we learn to be together and It’s also how we discover who we are and how we fit in the world.

At our program, we see value in getting along and working together, but we see equal value in conflict. In angry, sad, frustrated feelings. We work through it together, in the safe place of our relationships.

Children have a spectrum of feelings. We all do and we, as adults have to make a decision. Do we try to change children’s minds about how they feel? Talk them out of it? Do we ignore their struggles? Do we label those less pleasant feelings as bad or unwanted? We’ve made the decision to see the value in these feelings, to support them, and to make sure that children know this is a safe and supportive place to let those feelings out.

Most days, children spend a lot of time playing happily, cooperating, and finding the flexibility that it takes to be together. These are sophisticated skills and we often get to them through struggle. We have to embrace the difficult feeling with as much attention and presence as those joyful, cooperative experiences.

Your child might get pushed or yelled by another child in our program. We do our best to be right there, to step in to keep children’s bodies from landing on each other or to redirect hurtful words. We spend our energy on making the hurt child feel cared for and supported. We also try to understand the aggressor's need to hurt. Chances are, your child has played both roles. We don’t ask children to say “I’m sorry” at our school. We do ask them to look at each other, and sometimes we say what we believe everyone is feeling. And then, we move on…

Being together is hard work. It’s true for all of us. We are learning how to advocate for ourselves and empathize with others. It’s a hard lesson and it takes a lot of practice.

It’s worth doing.