As you think about Gray’s message, what is one idea you agree with, one idea you might argue with, and one idea you aspire to act on or bring into your own practice?

(Three A's Protocol: Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routine).

Extend: What new thinking or perspective did the poems give you about children and learning?

Challenge: What ideas or assumptions in your own practice do these poems challenge you to rethink?

(Harvard Project Zero Thinking Routine)

Sample Certificate Task

Last week I showed my students how to trace leaves and paint them. I decided to offer the same materials again—real leaves, paint, and paper—but this time without giving specific instructions. I invited the children to “see what they notice and paint what they imagine.” Some began printing leaf shapes by pressing them onto paper, others mixed unexpected colours—yellow, green, red, even blue—saying things like, “This one looks shiny in the rain!” As they worked, new ideas began to emerge. A few children started collecting twigs and flowers to make their own patterns, while others noticed the veins on the leaves, calling out, “Look, it’s like a road!” or “Mine has tiny lines!”

By stepping back, I saw how the activity naturally shifted from a teacher-directed task to a student-initiated exploration. The children’s curiosity led the process—they became artists, observers, and young scientists, using language to describe, compare, and question, while connecting creativity with their own discoveries in nature.

Level 1: Select a sentence from the article that made you rethink play and language.
Level 2: How did it push or extend your thinking?
Level 3: What do you see as the implications for your own work with children?

Please share your reflections on Padlet by October 22.

Sample Certificate Task II:

4 year old Ali is busy with spoons and pails of water. He picks up a spoon and begins stirring slowly, watching as the water swirls. He adds a few leaves and small pebbles from the sensory tray, stirring faster now to make them spin. He pauses, watches the water settle, and then starts again — faster, slower, back and forth — experimenting with the movement.

Ali appears to be exploring a rotation schema, fascinated by circular movement and how his actions cause changes in the water. He’s developing an understanding of cause and effect, motion, and control through sensory exploration.

Me:  “You’re discovering how your spoon makes the water move — that’s just like how wind can make waves or storms swirl in the ocean. You’re experimenting like a scientist, testing what happens when you change your speed.”(Connecting language)

Ali grins and begins stirring in patterns, saying, “I’m making a storm!”

My scientific vocabulary validated Ali’s sensory play as an intentional experimentation, showing growing agency as he tested ideas and expressed his discoveries with confidence.

As you watch, notice the invitations Sally (the educator) creates for children.
What stands out to you about the materials she has chosen and how they are presented?

Note:
In Reggio contexts, cross-pollination refers to how ideas and materials move between spaces or groups of children—allowing discoveries in one area to inspire new explorations in another.

Please share your reflections on Padlet by November 5.

While 3 groups of students are independently reading different novels (at their own level), the teacher is running a guided reading group of 4 students to scaffold their reading process.