I have been thinking about how we set choose, present, invite participation with materials for young children. Partly because I have been looking back at some of my old project work in schools dating back some 15 years gulp! Usually, my bag contained textile transfer paints, shimmery fabric paints, silk paints, foils, micro glitter all materials that guaranteed success no matter how they were applied. Really, that was my criteria! Often I created a set of materials for schools to use post project but sadly often they were not and I would find them sitting on shelf in the art cupboard two years later, untouched, when I had been invited back into the school to do more of the same.
It was unsustainable as the children would not be able to ever master these materials in school because to be frank, once I shipped out of my weeklong residency, they would most probably never use them again.
After my first study tour to Reggio Emilia I began to evaluate some aspects of my practice that I wanted to change. One major factor was the materials that I was using with children on a daily basis. I had shied away from the traditional materials paint, clay, drawing, and collage and instead focused on my specialist area from my degree in textiles. I figured that the everydayness of these materials were things that the educators I was working with were expert in.
It lead to a significant chunk of my Masters research that you can find Here. I am not going to go into here the ins and outs of what I found out, you can read the research for that β but there were several things that during this time I found myself thinking more and more about.
They were:. In looking back there has been a shift in thinking in the UK about the early childhood learning environment and the materials provided within. The resulting spiders would be identical because all the elements body, eyes, legs etc would have been pre-prepared.
