October

Before sunset

October is so beautiful in Vermont. It takes your breath away. We are marveling at the landscape, the color, the light, the clear skies, the tomatoes still ripening, and the bright planets of Venus and Jupiter just after sunset. I was inspired to get out my “real” camera. So, this month we will post images of October along with Robert Frost’s poem with this month’s name as its title, urging us to “Slow, slow!” We will be back next month to share writing, reflections, and learning.

Delight in October wherever you are.

Misty Morning

October

BY ROBERT FROST

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

Aster amellus

Robert Frost Interpretive Trail, Ripton, Vermont

View from Hurd Grasslands, Weybridge, Vermont

The Power and the Pleasure of the Natural World

Looking for starfish, Mitchell Cove, Tremont, Maine

We were fortunate to spend several weeks with our three grandchildren both in Vermont and in Maine during the months of August and September.  On many occasions, I became intrigued with what happened when they engaged with the natural materials of the world, everywhere…in the woods, on riverbanks, in lakes, on the cobble beaches of Maine, in the vegetable garden! So much to see, so much to smell, handle, arrange, feel, discover, invent!  

I was reminded of a book that I love, Beautiful Stuff from Nature, edited by Cathy Wiseman Topal and Lella Gandini that came out a few years ago.  Building on their first book, Beautiful Stuff, Cathy and Lella sought out schools, both public and independent, where teachers had stories and examples to share about organizing learning experiences around collecting, playing with, composing and studying materials from the natural world.  The book is organized around the themes of Getting Started; Cultivating a Naturalist’s Sensibilities; Your Unique Place; Outdoor Explorations; and Bringing Nature Inside.  It is illustrated with beautiful photographs and is written by teachers of toddlers through elementary ages in both the United States and Canada.  It is a thoughtful, helpful resource that is well worth having in any school or parent library.

Stones collected by children on the beach

What is so clear to the authors and editors of this book, and to anyone who is lucky enough to be with a child outside, is that the out of doors quickly becomes a natural playground.  When our granddaughter, Delilah, age 6, first arrived in Vermont, we all headed straight to swim in a nearby, cold, clear, flowing river.  Frist thing, she climbed out to a big boulder in the middle of the river and began to organize stones in pools on and around the boulder.  She had stories to tell about what she was doing.  She was making an exhibit, she said, of different colors of stones in the different sized rock pools and she wanted us to come see! 

When two-and-a-half-year-old Jack was with us in Maine, one of his favorite things to do was to go out to the cobble beach and find stones to pitch into what his grandfather named the “muck and mire,” the beginning of a marshland behind a natural gravel wall.  He liked to imitate the sounds of the different size stones landing in the mud…a tiny sound, a medium slurp, and a big galump! 

Building a flag pole with found materials

Nine-year-old, Asher’s biggest adventure in Maine was climbing one of the steepest trails in Acadia National Park with his big uncle Chris.  It was a spur of the moment decision on Asher’s last day and a brave venture that he was so proud to have accomplished! 

And we all made collections…of stones, of snail shells, of crab shells, of sticks, and pinecones.  And we arranged them in various combinations and mandalas.  Delilah took a rock collection home with her to Boston.  And Jack took a snail shell shaker back home with him to New Jersey. 

Cathy Topal and Lella Gandini write: 

Exploring, experimenting, researching, designing, and creating with natural materials can act as an awakening for children-but perhaps even more so for teachers, [and parents and grandparents].  To notice and pick up a seedpod, twig, stone, piece of bark, draws us in and invites us to linger and to wonder.  We start to see-with refined vision-what has been around us all along. Holding a natural form is to look at functional design, transformation, time, weather, and the forces of nature. 

Tide pooling, Wonderland, Acadia National Park

The first project with the youngest children, (age three), that I observed in Reggio Emilia at the Diana School was all about leaves…such a collection of beautiful leaves of all colors from different trees..chestnuts, oaks, plane trees along with seeds and pods. The children collected all this outside with their teachers in the public garden right outside their school.  Then, they organized the collections so that they became like a grand palette to choose from. The teachers asked the children something like this… “What if you were like the wind and could make an arrangement of leaves on the ground, what would you do?”  And in small groups, on sheets of earth colored, recycled paper, they made their compositions, with one teacher as an assistant. 

Study Tour in Ligonchio, 2011

I was lucky enough to attend the study tour in 2011 in Ligonchio, Italy, organized and led by Reggio Children, Dialogue with the Atelier and the Natural World.  We spent the week playing outside in the fields, mountains, forests, and streams with materials organized for us, with prompts and Reggio educators there to guide us.  With Carlina Rinaldi, Vea Vecchi, Marina Mori, and Giovanni Piazza as teachers and guides, in a spectacular mountain setting, we were such a fortunate group. I will always hold that week close as one of my greatest inspirations.  

Before I lived, worked, and learned in Reggio Emilia, I never thought of natural materials as a category, a medium, to use to explore and compose meaning and beauty. To understand natural materials as a powerful, evocative medium was one of the unexpected and lasting lessons that I learned there.  

From Collection of Images from Reggio Emilia, 2009

Now, I can’t help picking up stones and shells, leaves and cones.  I line them up, put them in circles, keep them close by my bedside as reminders… of the constancy and beauty in the natural world, of the cycles of life and death, and of the calm and the wild of the world that we inhabit, and that we are inseparably linked to.  

On my 21st birthday, my mother gave me a smooth, white stone that she had found on the beach.  She wrote, “Always return to the stone to steady yourself, to know your place, to connect to the beauty of the world.” 

When we take children out of doors to look for treasures, when we stand with them at the window and marvel at wind and thunder and rain, when we hike mountains, when we sit still together and watch the sun set or the stars in the night sky, we are giving children a touch stone, a solace, a strong sense of place, and a home.  

Ode to Opal School

Opal School Preschool Classroom, 2012

I loved every part of Opal School…the joy and beauty of the spaces filled with engaged, focused children and teachers; the abundance of enticing materials, plants, books, and light; all kinds of places to gather and think, create and learn together; and the learning made visible on the walls through student work, teachers’ reflections, and powerful images of learning.  Opal was housed at the Portland Children’s Museum, surrounded by the rose gardens and forests of Washington Park, two miles southwest of downtown Portland.  The school opened in 2001 with founding director, Judy Graves and a development team. The school was named after the young Oregon naturalist, Opal Whitely, who kept a diary of her experience as a 6-year-old growing up in the logging camps near Cottage Grove in the early 1900s.

Judy worked day and night, along with collaborators, to open Opal as a publicly funded charter school with a tuition-based preschool attached, inspired by the work of the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, the pedagogy of play, the highest quality literacy practices, a foundation of teaching democracy and social justice, and a commitment to professional development of the local, national, and international community. Because of pandemic financial woes, both the Portland Children’s Museum and Opal School closed their doors on June 30, 2021.  

I was fortunate to know many of the educators at Opal from the beginning, before Opal opened. I became friends of the founder, Judy Graves, on a trip to Reggio Emilia in 1996, and we started a correspondence. Over the years, I participated in many professional development opportunities hosted by Opal. I was privileged to co-teach three Field Study graduate classes there for both Butler University and Lesley University.  We have been inspired by the work at Opal since its beginnings and have written posts along with Ena Shelley of Butler University, and Yvonne Liu Constant of Lesley University… here, here, here and here and here. Some of my closest and most esteemed colleagues worked at Opal.  I am fortunate to have them as friends and to be in touch with them, even though we live on different coasts.

Field Study Graduate Class for Butler University, 2012

The closing of Opal School is a heartbreak and loss for many children and families, teachers and leaders who put their hearts and souls into the school, as well as educators the world over who have been inspired by Opal’s example for so long. 

At the same time, what a wonderful thing that Opal was a thriving place of learning for 20 years and that we still have that example.  There is now an archive of work being developed for the public by Teaching Preschool Partners, co-founded by Judy Graves. Opal School Online continues to be available as a resource for educators while an interactive archive is designed between now and June 2022.

In addition to the archive, the world is so fortunate to have the new book by Susan MacKay, Story Workshop New Possibilities for Young Writers, that came out into the world just as Opal was closing its doors. 

This symbiosis of materials and words through play and inquiry is the essence of the foundation of Susan MacKay’s new book.  Susan and her colleagues at Opal School shaped a practice that weaves together literacy learning and many, varied materials to support children’s story telling, play, meaning making, and writing.  This practice grew over time at Opal and became known as Story Workshop, similar to Writing Workshop, but different in the way that it integrates work and play with materials as a way to “wake up” and find stories.  

Story Books in Opal 1 Classroom, 2012

I remember when I was student teaching in the third grade in Middlebury, Vermont, oh so many years ago, students were writing stories about what they loved.  One little brown haired, brown-eyed girl with a sweet, small voice wrote about her doll. But first she drew a beguiling picture of her doll with colored pencils and pen. The doll looked so much like her.  She said that she loved this doll so much that she just had to make this picture first. That words alone would not tell the story. 

When I was teaching art at Stowe Elementary School, a fifth grader made a clay sculpture of her dog.  She said that this dog meant more to her than anything in the world. That she was so pleased to be able to capture her in clay.  I suggested that she might want to write about her dog, to tell the story about her and her dog alongside the clay sculpture.  I often connected art materials and writing in the art room.  I learned early that this relationship is so very powerful.  That experience is shaped and remembered and held close because of both image and word…because we make meaning of our lives with both.  Story Workshop builds this truth into a practice. 

Reading Story Workshop New Possibilities for Young Writers is like taking a class with Susan MacKay and her colleagues. It starts with research and rationale, building the foundation for the practices of Story Workshop.  Each chapter shows us how to prepare and move through the sequence of phases that make up Story Workshop.  The book is illustrated with full color, gorgeous images that complement the text.   And what is the most wonderful part of it for me… it comes alive before our eyes with many links to videos of children and teachers at work in every part of the development of Story Workshop. What a treasure trove of live examples where we can connect with real children and teachers in the process of preparing, wondering together, creating in materials and words, and sharing stories.  Congratulations and gratitude to Susan and her colleagues and to Heinemann for this book and most wonderful compendium of videos and printed materials.  

Please go out and get this book.  It is a legacy of Opal that we all can treasure, continue to learn from and revisit again and again.  Thank you Susan and Heinemann, thank you Judy Graves and Opal School teachers over the last 20 years, and thank you Teaching Preschool Partners, (where you can find Judy these days), and The Center for Playful Inquiry (where you can find Susan these days), for keeping Opal alive for all of us out in the world who need your brave and joyful example. 

In their final letter to friends, June, 2021, Opal teachers ended with this hope for us.  

Often, when we’re not sure what to say or how to say it, we find wisdom in the children’s thinking. Tallulah, a fifth grader, shared this powerful message in her recent graduation speech:  

Opal has given me three things. Friends, stories, and myself. I discovered myself at Opal. And although the school and building may be ending, the lessons they taught us never will. We are Opal.

We hope Opal has given you some of these things, too. It's been a true honor to learn alongside you — to make friends, to hear your stories and share ours, and to discover ourselves within this beautiful community. We are so grateful. And Tallulah is right, we are Opal. We trust that the ripples that started here will flow for many more years. 

Capturing Summer

Hydrangea bouquet on Westport River, Westport. MA

It is officially mid-summer.  Wow, time is flying.  Maybe it is the sensation of coming out of a lockdown pandemic and feeling free to roam.  Free to go to a restaurant, a concert, visit with friends in their home, move about without a mask.  It all seems to have happened so quickly. With two shots in the arm and five weeks of waiting, all of a sudden, we were out of jail.  At least some of us. 80% of the Vermont population is vaccinated which is a really an accomplishment.

All this is good timing with summer arriving on our doorsteps with a bit more time, hopefully, to enjoy this new freedom.  With warm weather, the blooming world, gardens to tend and appreciate, books to read in the hammock, lakes to swim and paddle in.  I soak it all in. 

We just returned from a trip to visit friends and family in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.  Our son and his family, the ones we were so close to during the pandemic, moved to New Jersey in the end of May.  When we visited, we shared so many summer things with them and two and a half year old Jack…swimming in a pool and the ocean waves, lighting sparklers on a warm July night, eating ice cream cones, watching fireflies.  

Grays Mill Pond, Westport, MA, sketching with Liz

I have been carrying around a small sketchbook since last March and it traveled with me on our recent trip.  My friend and noteworthy author of many books on drawing in the natural world, Clare Walker Leslie, re-introduced me to the idea of a small, portable sketchbook and drawing and painting side by side with a friend…like an art making play date.  Clare and I met in March and set up a mini studio inside our cars and drew and painted snow-covered fields and a maple sugaring operation in full swing.  In a compact bag I now carry a sketchbook, colored pencils, drawing pencils, drawing pens, watercolor brushes, a water container, and a travel watercolor set. It sounds like a lot, but even if you only have a little sketchbook and a few pens, you can still draw! These additions start to make it more fun and add more possibilities.

Another COVID inspiration has been Karen Abend and her Sketchbook Revival two-week extravaganza.  Every year in the spring, she hosts artists who lead online workshops based on what they each do in life, two a day for two weeks!  Karen hosts this event every year and it is free.  I highly recommend it.  Among the artists that Karen featured in March were Danny Gregory, founder of Sketchbook Skool, who led us in drawing a sneaker, changing media every minute!, Karen Stamper, from the UK, who taught us how to make a concertina sketchbook, and Shari Blaukoph, who led us in painting a watercolor of a Province doorway. All of these accomplished artists and authors have exciting websites with abundant resources, workshops and classes.

Another wonderful companion along the way is Koosje Koene, from the Netherlands, who co-founded Sketchbook Skool and now leads workshops and teaches online and in person.  She was one of Karen Abend’s featured artists during Sketchbook Revival.  Almost every Tuesday, Koosje hosts Draw Tip Tuesday videos that are all archived on her Youtube Channel.  She is friendly, inviting, encouraging, and a very good teacher.  She always posts the materials that she uses and that is helpful. 

Rudbeckia from our VT fields in RI

This is a COVID silver lining…all these offerings online, that were there all along, but who knew? I did not. I discovered them and, thankfully, feel as if I have a whole group of new friends.  I have loved watching artists post their work with a sketchbook or small canvas held up against the landscape or still life that they are painting, so I started to do that too.  

Drawing and painting are ways to slow down and truly be present in the moment wherever you are. It is wonderful to draw side-by-side with children, friends, and family, to share materials, time together, discoveries, and joy.  I say, just do it.  You won’t regret it.  Take a look at this blog post and also this one, for more ideas and encouragement!

Watercolors with Jack in NJ

Awakened to Reggio Podcast

Study Tour on Children, the Natural World, and Materials, Ligonchio, Italy, 2011

Sometime in February, I got an email from Sandy Lanes asking if I would agree to be interviewed for a podcast she hosts called Awakened to Reggio.  I listened to an episode that she had posted with friend and colleague, Jennifer Azzariti and was taken in right away through Jennifer’s stories of the Model Early Learning Center in Washington D.C., working with Amelia Gambetti, and what it was like starting out all those many years ago.  Sandy’s interviewing style was relaxed yet serious and their conversation and their give and take was fun to listen to.  I wrote to Sandy and said, “Yes.” 

Sandy sent questions in advance and also told me that she was open to any questions I might want to consider.  She asked about what it was like to live and work in the schools of Reggio Emilia for a year, and what it was like to “bring this approach home,” to St. Louis where I worked at The College School and in collaboration with Clayton Schools’ Family Center, The St. Michael School, and Webster University.  She asked about my perspectives on collaboration…what does it look like? Why is it important?  She asked about the practice of having conversations with children…and how they bridge to learning.  She asked about what Ashley and I are doing now when we work with schools. 

Natural materials portraits, The College School.

This podcast was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on 30 years of my life and work.  It came out pretty well.  Sandy asked very provocative and pointed questions, and she is a skillful editor! 

Rather than quote myself here, please listen yourself. You will find it also, here, and here and here. It will be a way for us to have a conversation about these ideas, because I am sure that you will have your own experience and your own interpretations about what Sandy and I share.   

Listen also to all of Sandy’s podcasts and guests.  Among others, Sandy has interviewed Amelia Gambetti, Ann Pelo, Ben Mardell, and Jeanne Goldhaber.  All of her podcasts are informative and shed light on Reggio inspired principles and practices from the perspective and experience of her interviewees.  Together, the podcasts are like a kaleidoscope of views on an approach that is layered, many faceted, and also, a whole, like its own ecosystem.  What a treasure of an archive Sandy is building.  

Congratulations Sandy and thank you for inviting me to participate in your Awakened to Reggio podcast!

From collection of images from Reggio Emilia, 2009