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This book by Sonia Sotomayor called Just Ask! really reminds me of the way discursive practices work. Children are very curious individuals who often times have wonderings that they want to ask. Sometimes, adults will tell children not to ask people certain things, or try and have avoid certain topics with children that they do not think they can handle. As we have talked about in this class, it is so crucial that when children have questions or worries about hard topics, that we as educators are there to facilitate them through these things. This book really promotes the ideas of discursive practices and reminds me of the quote from the article Conversations that Matter: Talking with Children About Big World Issues when it says, "children rely on their trusted adults to help them make sense of the confusing messages the world sends them about what and who are safe and okay. Children need direct, truthful responses shaped to meet their developmental level of understanding," (Edwards & German-Sparks 2020).

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Empowered.Parenting instagram post about how caregivers should handle children crying

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There is a lot to unpack when it comes to typical norms of caregiving practices when it comes to crying children. I remember several times where I would see parents, whether on social media, in person, etc., where they are constantly just telling children to "stop crying" or "be a big kid" when they are expressing their emotions. Children have a lot of big feelings and at this young age they are still learning to express them. When I saw this social media post form Empowered.Parenting, I thought this really displayed the values in the Leavitt and Power article; specifically when they said "when caregivers attend to and respect children's embodied experience, they - we - embrace, validate, and empower the body and the child," (Leavitt & Power 1997). It is important that in caregiving practices we take into account the child's emotions, and I think this post did a great job of showcasing how we should aid and explain children's emotions.

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Growing up, I always had the very bright, colorful, pre-made decorations type of classroom. Never did I think about the importance of letting children create their own space until I took this class and learned the importance of materials. I came across this article called What is the Role of Materials in Children's Learning Through Art? and it really did a great job at summarizing the importance of materials in the classroom. Children need to have that creative freedom within their materials in order to be able to explore the space around them. I felt this article really went well with the quote from Making Their Marks that read that stated, "by inscribing these spaces, which were previously non-spaces for art, the children gave them new meaning, defining them and turning them into places," (Cabral, Fincham, & Templeton 2019). In my future classroom, I am going to strive to make sure children have the materials they need to explore and be creative each day.

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This post discusses the possibilities of materials and material play in children's learning through art. I draw on the theories of loose parts and new materialism to argue that materials play an active and participatory role in opening-up children's divergent thinking and inquiry-led learning.
Why do materials matter?

Materials and material exploration have long been a part of artistic inquiry. Since Frobel's development of the kindergarten in the late 1700's, they have also held an important place in early childhood settings. In the 1970's Simon Nicholson presented the theory of loose parts - the proposition that young children's creative empowerment comes from the presence of open-ended materials that can be constructed, manipulated and transformed through self-directed play. It is fair to say that material content, including artworks and art materials, hold tremendous possibilities for facilitating children's inquiry-led learning in new and divergent ways. I consider materials to be one of multiple forces that learning can emerge from in an art museums. Others may include social interaction between people, spatial layout of things and the delivery of curatorial content such as through audio guides or information resources.

As reading and writing are often privileged in school curriculum, experimentation with different materials can provide new opportunities for alternate and aesthetically-driven pedagogies to be produced ( check out this blog for how I define pedagogy). This is to say that different materials may encourage different ways of thinking, learning and being. For example, in a previous posts on 'suggesting as a technique for facilitating children's learning through art' I talk about the different cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic learning pathways that two different materials: plastic cylinders and large paper sheets may present. Whilst the cylinders may provoke explorations around stacking, placing, dismantling, balancing, arrangement and construction, the large paper sheet may suggest gentle movements, swaying, rolling, folding, hiding and enveloping. Through experimentation, the properties and abilities of a material may change, creating new starting points for further inquiry and experimentation.

Materials in art practice

In the arts, different materials such as paint, clay, paper, resin, fabric, wood or plastic can be experimented with in a myriad of ways. In art forms such as dance, live art and socially engaged practices, materials may be slightly more abstract such as the human body, sound, participants and society. I believe that art materials are not just a tool for self-expression or a thing for children to manipulate; they are an active and participatory force in the production of learning and knowledge. For example, check out this lovely video by visual artist Shirazeh Houshiary in which she talks about the active role of materials in her practice:

I really connect with this, especially the comment: "... they are not representation of the form but a pulsation of the form. I am not interested in painting. I am not interested in the processes of making in the conventional sense of representation. I am trying to get into how something works. This process has taught me a huge amount about who I am, which is surprising. It a process of learning for me more than anything else." The paint and paintings are active, participatory and dynamic in the artists's creative experimentation.

Materials as an invitation to experiment

Material play has the ability to encourage emergent thinking processes, allowing children to produce new understandings as well as experiencing the world from multiple perspectives. However, materials also have the ability to be used in static and predictable ways that shut down creativity and divergent thinking. Whilst I do love Instagram feeds and craft blogs that share ideas for children's art activities, I am cautious that these may unintentionally encourage imitation and fixed ways of using materials with children. This may then reduce the ability for experimental thinking and practices to emerge.

The challenge to me - and everyone working in learning settings with children - is to keep experimenting, keep questioning, keep venturing into the unknown and the yet-to-be-discovered of art, play, materiality and pedagogy.

I am sure many of you have really interesting insights on this topic and it would be lovely to hear them. Why is children's play with materials important to you? What are your favorite materials to experiment with?

Further links

The Institute of Making at the University College of London has a great online material library - perfect for anyone who likes to nerd out about different material forms.

My friend Nina Odegard has written a brilliant article on children's learning with recycled 'junk' materials. Nina formally ran a creative recycle centre in Norway.

Professor Pat Thomson, Nina Odegard and I recently did a conference symposium on children's material play. Check it out here.

You can read my blog post on Simon Nicholson's theory of loose parts here.

I also love the book 'Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education' by Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Sylvia Kind and Laurie Kocher.

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What is the role of materials in children's learning through art?

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This post discusses the possibilities of materials and material play in children's learning through art. I draw on the theories of loose parts and new materialism to argue that materials play an active and participatory role in opening-up children's divergent thinking and inquiry-led learning. Materials and material exploration have long been a part of artistic inquiry.

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Learning through nature has been a big topic I have learned in my education classes over the course of my time at UNT. When I came across this TikTok of a school that is dedicated towards ecological practices I was very intrigued by the idea. At the Ecology School, children/students use nature to develop everyday life skills and lessons. As stated in this video, these students learn things like how to grow your own food, patience, empathy, etc. These students who have gone to this school and have learned these things through the outdoors/natural environment really strive to bring their teachings home into their everyday lives. This video really reminds me of the nature playground at the CYC. I love how the students that were in Miss Katie's class got so excited to just learn and explore the natural world. While most lessons in a public school cannot take place in the completely outdoor environment, I love the idea of incorporating nature in anyway that is possible.

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My 3 year old cousin showcasing children's play practices in the dirt 

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One of my favorite assignments we did in this class was the observations of play one with the CYC children. Throughout my time at the CYC, I was constantly watching children play, but it wasn't until this assignment and the week learning about play practice that I really began to understand what a child thinks of play. Now, as shown above, every time I see a child play, I really begin to think critically about what this means in terms of the way a child's mind works, but also in terms of how they understand the world. I was babysitting my cousin last weekend, and he wanted to bring his toy cars/machines outside. Instead of running first to his premade toys outside, he immediately ran to the mud pile that was present from the rainstorm last night. My cousin would take the mud, pour it over his monster truck, and then use his green pick up machine as his "car wash."  I immediately had to pop out my phone and capture this moment because it really showed what we learned in terms of children using play to understand the world around them. My cousin was using the mud from the rainstorm and the scoop from his toys to understand how rain can create mud which makes things dirty, and then why we have to wash our cars off when that happens.

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I think one of the best schooling practices that I have learned from this class is the idea of morning meetings. Throughout this course we have learned that children have big feelings, and are a lot more intelligent and observant than we mostly give them credit for. The idea of morning meetings allows us as teachers to connect with our students and help them work through these big ideas or feelings that they are experiencing. The idea of morning meetings reminds me of this quote from Co-inquiry, Co-construction, Collaboration: The Emergence of Curriculum when it says, "opportunities for co-inquiry emerge when we invite children's lives (typically reserved for their peer cultures and home) into school," (Leu, Templeton, & Yoon 2016).

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Morning Meetings: Building Community in the Classroom

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Discursive Practice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4sGcaA6bFk&feature=youtu.be
Caregiving Practice:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ciu4JrTr7ps/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Materials & Aesthetic Practice:
Penfold, L., & Khmelnitsky, S. (2019, December 18). What is the role of materials in children's learning through art?Art. Play. Children. Learning. Retrieved May 2, 2023, from http://www.louisapenfold.com/materials-childrens-learning/
Ecological Practice:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRwy7jHn/
Play Practice:
Personal Image Taken
Schooling Practice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6_pLkwaCeY&feature=youtu.be