Learning to Grow

Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago is The Place Where Awesome Lives! On this blog, you'll find awesome resources, thoughts, and ideas that build on experiences discovered at the Museum. Join us as we as we explore best practices of early childhood education, the Project Approach, and activities that can extend learning through play in the classroom or informally at home!

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Summer Dental Health Tips

Summer is finally here and can be a wonderful time for families to spend time together and for kids to explore and have fun.  However without the routine of school it can be hard for children to maintain their oral health. Your family’s dental health is very important to our partners at Yummy Dental & Orthodontics and they have some tips to having a tooth-healthy summer!

Between traveling, sleeping in, sports events and other summer fun, it can be easy to become relaxed with your children’s normal dental routine.  Kids are unlikely to wake up or go to bed at the same time everyday like they do during the school year, but sticking to a regimented dental routine can help prevent future cavities and oral complications.  It’s important to brush twice a day for two minutes at a time and floss once daily to remove debris and keep the mouth clean and healthy. Events will happen that will disrupt the routine of course, but going back to it every time will reinforce its importance.

Being on summer break can also mean gravitating towards less healthy foods and indulging in more sweet and starchy foods such as cookies and chips that can linger on the teeth. While indulging in some summer treats is fine in moderation, it’s best to set a limit on these types of foods and choose healthier and more teeth friendly options such as fresh fruits, cheese, and veggies and dips.  Also be sure to keep hydrated and drink plenty of water instead of juices and other sugary drinks that can lead to tooth decay.

Yummy Dental & Orthodontics’ friendly staff will be more than happy to provide you with more helpful tips to keep your teeth healthy and clean during the summertime. They also recommend that you schedule your regular appointment with one of our Yummy Dental doctors to get your teeth professionally cleaned and checked out to prevent any cavities or decay. Before you know it the kids will be back at school so be sure to get any school dental health forms in advance!   For people who are new to the area or are looking to change their pediatric dentist, feel free to call their Chicago office (773.281.8100) or  Glenview office (847.729.4700) to schedule an appointment!

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Keeping That Summer Smile!

Summer is officially in full swing, which means warmer weather and clearer skies for outside activities. Whether you're planning a getaway trip or spending some quality time at home with your family, we hope that you're having an amazing and relaxing summer vacation.

Along with our partners at Yummy Dental & Orthodontics for Kids, we also hope that during this time that you're away, you're keeping up with your daily oral routine. Your dental health is very important to us because we understand the positive effects that a beautiful smile can have on your self-esteem and confidence.

During these summer months, we tend to eat more sugary foods and drinks such as ice cream and soda to keep cool in this heat. Without brushing or flossing your teeth daily, bacteria can build up on your teeth and eat away at the enamel that protects them, leaving your teeth exposed to sensitivity. 

Fluoride, a mineral found in water sources, is commonly used to reduce the number of cavities found in patients of all ages. Yummy Dental’s professional fluoride treatment ensures that your child will receive an adequate amount of this mineral to strengthen the enamel in his or her teeth. Fluoride can also treat early stages of tooth decay before it becomes visible, which makes it an amazing cavity fighter!

Yummy Dental’s friendly staff will be more than happy to provide you with helpful tips to keep your teeth healthy and clean during the summertime. They also recommend that you schedule your regular appointment with one of their doctors to get your teeth professionally cleaned and checked out to prevent any cavities or decay. For people who are new to the area or are looking to change their pediatric dentist, feel free to call the Chicago office (773.281.8100) or the Glenview office (847.729.4700) to schedule an appointment!

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Five Easy Steps to Preventing Children’s Cavities

February is National Children’s Dental Health Month. Yummy Dental and Orthodontics for Kids (a valued partner and supporter of Kohl Children’s Museum) is celebrating by sharing five easy steps to helping your child avoid cavities.

Did you know that childhood cavities are the #1 childhood disease, even more prevalent than childhood asthma, childhood obesity, and juvenile diabetes?

Here are 5 easy steps to help your child:

1. Brush two to three times per day and floss every night.

Use a spin brush or electric brush – they are infinitely more effective than regular brushing to removing cavity-causing plaque!

Remember to brush all surfaces.

Floss is the best way to remove all food and bacteria from in between teeth, where the toothbrush can’t always reach!

2. Use an age-appropriate toothpaste.

Children under age 2: use non-fluoride toothpaste that is safe to swallow. This is sometimes sold as training toothpaste.

For ages 2 and up: use tooth-paste that has fluoride. If your child cannot yet spit, then only use a very small amount of fluoride toothpaste, about the size of a grain of rice.

For ages 6 and up: add mouthwash to your routine.

3. Visit a pediatric dentist every six months. Enamel in kids’ teeth are different than adults’ teeth. Cavities can spread very quickly in kids.

4. Ask for digital x-rays. They are safer because they reduce exposure to radiation by 70% or more compared to traditional x-rays.

5. Remember that it’s not just candy that causes cavities.

Do not send babies to bed with a bottle of milk – milk contains sugar.

Avoid too much juice due to its sugar content – the AAPD recommends no more than 4 oz/day.

Avoid snacks that stick to teeth such as dried fruit or candy.

For more information, visit www.aapd.org and www.ada.org

-- Dr. Grace Yum, Founder of Yummy Dental & Orthodontics for Kids

                     www.yummyddental.com

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Artist Tree: Local Artist Bryan Butler Showcases the Museum’s 30th Anniversary

In celebration of Kohl Children’s Museum’s 30th Anniversary, the Museum partnered with six local artists to create Trees on Parade, a collection of whimsically painted fiberglass trees on display through October 7 at Northbrook Court Mall. In March, Trees on Parade was a featured exhibit at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier. The six fiberglass trees (representing stylized versions of the Museum’s logo) stand five feet tall and are captivatingly decorated to celebrate the spirit of childhood and the Museum. Four of the trees will be auctioned at the Museum’s An Evening to Imagine gala on October 8.

The first of the series of trees was designed and created by Bryan Butler, a local artist specializing in illustration, fine art, and graphic design.  Over the course of his career, Mr. Butler has worked with such prestigious organizations as Lurie Children’s Hospital, the Chi-Town Jazz Festival, and Moody Bible Institute.  

Working on a project for Kohl Children’s Museum was a bit of a departure for Mr. Butler, but he was extremely intrigued with the project and opportunity when the Museum’s Board Chair Paul Sutenbach and his wife, Linda, reached out to him when the project was in its infancy.

In order to gain a better understanding of the Museum, its mission, and vision, Mr. Butler asked to meet with staff members and pay a visit to the Museum in order to visualize the physical space, take pictures, and capture its spirit. While he looked at this project as a challenge, he also felt that he could impact the Museum by creating a work of art that would help portray the many facets of the organization and its impact on children. For example, the front of the sculpture represents the architectural design of the building and the geometric yellow mimics the roof of the museum. The blue represents the sky. where one can note the presence of a small aircraft soaring upwards and skywriting “30 Years and Growing.” The aircraft is a tribute to the former airfield that the Museum now sits upon.

The green represents the landscape surrounding the Museum. The red color on the side of the sculpture is meant to draw the eye upward and also to trigger excitement. The artist chose to use primary colors, as these are colors with which young children identify.

The back of the sculpture is an intricate display of white on blue with inspirational words about raising children well. These words are layered upon each other to create texture and interest. Kohl Children’s Museum’s familiar green logo is also present with a subtle nuance – the artist’s handprint is playfully overlaid on it.

This project was extremely rewarding for Mr. Butler, who looked at it not only as a great challenge, but as a chance to work with and support a great organization.

--Sheila Hornthal, volunteer writer

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From Garden to Table: the Adventures of Kitchen Creations

This past fall as our gardening season came to a close, we began a super exciting program to keep our focus on the growing power of the garden. Fresh foods and vegetables became our anchor for our new program that focused on cooking, called Kitchen Creations.

It has been amazing sharing this experience with our visitors. Plus it has been fun to be able to share what we make! The experience completely echoes the idea that kids should and can help in the kitchen. Last fall, the New York Times ran an article titled Cooking With Kids: 5 Reasons You Should Be Doing It

It outlines five key points that go beyond supporting bringing kids into the cooking process; they cement the idea of participation. Facilitating the Kitchen Creations program here at the Museum, we see these play out in real-time. Their five points ring true every minute the family sits down with us during the program!

1.     Children who cook become children who taste, and sometimes eat. 

2.     Children who cook say “I can,” not “I can’t.”

3.     Cooking is a way to talk about health.

4.     Cooking is a way to talk about healthy ingredients.

5.     Cooking brings cooks of all ages closer. 

This sounds all well and good, but it takes a lot of mental and physical prep to make this happen. Cooking with kids can be like a roller coaster; it is definitely an exhilarating and fun ride! Here are a couple of tips we have figured out to help to add in that extra safety net if you are ready to take the leap. 

1.      Be patient.

2.      Be organized. If you can, help create a context. Large context: Wonder where the ingredients come from. Local/in-the-moment context: Use your senses to explore each ingredient; this makes it a game later to see if they can taste each one after they are all mixed together. 

3.      Let them use real cooking tools and model correct usage. When it comes to cutting fruit and veggies, from apples to avocados and zucchini, we have found that pre-cutting the fruit or veggie into large wedges, then having the kids use a pumpkin carving blade to cut the pieces smaller is a magic moment. 

4.      Break up a recipe into manageable steps (not easy steps—we want a challenge! We want ownership of this process!) 

5.      Don’t be worried if they don’t eat it. The whole process is a win no matter what. We are exposing children to new ingredients and flavors. Think ahead: if they are exposed to the same ingredient over and over again, familiarity breeds comfort and willingness to try.

Knowing your child’s abilities as an individual is important in helping to determine what they are capable of doing when helping in the kitchen. Our final tip is a simple guideline as to what your kids can do at different developmental stages and how you can challenge them to do more.

Preschoolers, 2-5 years, can start by learning the basic concepts that they will need to succeed in the kitchen. It is important to keep in mind that small tasks that don’t require much prep work by you will be best. These tasks can include:

Stirring

Rinsing and straining fruits and vegetables

Measuring and pouring liquid and dry ingredients

Spreading peanut butter and jelly

Mashing potatoes and cooked vegetables

Using cookie cutters

Cutting soft fruits and vegetables with child safe knives or dull butter knives. (As we mentioned earlier, after modelling correct use, we enjoy letting the kids use pumpkin carving knives.)

School-aged cooks, 6-8 years, can be helpful in not only following your verbal directions, but also helping read recipes as their reading skills develop. It is during this age period that you can allow them to begin using different appliances, such as the stove or oven, with your close supervision, as well:

Whisking eggs

Frosting and icing cupcakes and cookies

Mixing batter

Using a can opener, juicer, and garlic press

Grating cheese

Peeling fruits and vegetables

Using a hand mixe

Using small, paring knives

Boiling pasta

Making grilled cheese 

How do you invite your child chef into the kitchen? What are your favorite recipes that you like to enjoy at home?  Let us know on our Facebook page! We hope to see you at the Museum next time during Kitchen Creations, so we can create great food together! 

--Tim Abel & Amy Rohlman, Museum Education Specialists

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Kohl Children’s Museum Artist-in-Residence: A Conversation with Rachel Davis

by Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

I am glad to share the Museum’s Art Studio with artists! It is such a fantastic opportunity to share a new perspective and art making style with the visitors. As an added benefit, I get to ask them about their art making, ideas about working with children and collaboration.

This past February, I was able to work with Rachel Davis while she shared her practice of monoprinting with our art studio visitors.

Tim Abel: You brought a lot of great natural materials from a nest to shells to shed antlers for the visitors to explore during the residency. It was great to see a child interact with these items and draw their own conclusions about them or to see how surprised they were when they figured something out, like how to put the lobster claw back together. There was care in the selection of objects you brought to share, so I guess I have two questions.

First, do you have a favorite item of your own that you have found from the natural world?

Rachel Davis: A favorite item from the curiosity box:

I collect objects from nature all the time, whether I am on vacation and am beach combing or just on a stroll in the neighborhood. I like to pick up things that catch my eye. I choose things based on their texture, color and shape. I am drawn to the lumpy, organic shapes of dried seed pods, oyster shells, snail shells and the texture of snake skin.

I have some stones at home that are special for their markings: gray with white stripes. One stone I shared at the residency, I found in Montana. It has beautiful lichens covering one side.

And second, a larger question: how does the natural world inspire your own artmaking?

These materials are important "supplies" in my work in the same way that paint and paper are supplies. I look, draw and study these items when I begin creating a new work of art.

I grew up in a rural area in upstate New York and played in the woods and in creek beds and loved building forts. I think of this open ended playtime as similar to my art making process. When I make compositions in a print or painting it is a process similar to play and often begins with objects I have found in nature.

Rachel Davis’ artwork, clockwise from top left: shellcave, horn, fishnet and hillside. All are Ink and paint on wood, 4 x 6” and made in 2014.

I have asked the past teaching artists that have visited the art studio about collaboration, so I wanted to get your take on it too. How do you prepare for a collaboration?

I think of collaboration, whether between myself and another artist or a larger scale project like Kohl artist-in-residence, as a conversation. There are pauses left for the other to speak and contribute. There should be spaces where we can contradict or disagree with each other. When this happens through the formal process of art making the result is more dynamic and engaging. It becomes a problem to solve. Instead of a linear process I like to embrace a process where the outcome is not predetermined. This insures spontaneity and playfulness in the process.

For my residency at Kohl I knew I wanted to capture the experience the children had making marks painting on the plexiglass. I have been working on these four inch round blotter papers and thought the material lent itself to capture a partial print that kids had created. This way the process was completely open ended and we were not confined to making a thing. Just collecting favorite marks, colors, and brush strokes. My prep for the residency at Kohl was to create a few formal constraints (for example creating interesting colors of paint not just red, blue yellow, but teals, pinks, grays, metallics) and the four-inch round paper stock. The process was very much open within those constraints.

The monoprinting workshops during the residency were so process-driven, in that they invited the visitors to explore:  mark making with the monoprinting tools, color mixing or just to have fun squishing the ink across the plexiglass. These playful investigations are what the printed image became, like a snapshot of the action and experimentation. Do you have any advice to anyone who is new to art making with children or is trying something at home that would help embrace this style of art making?

I think it's important to let children use real tools and not toy tools. For example during the residency we used brayers, and decorative painting tools and real textile relief blocks from India. I think this authenticity is important. Though kids are playing, their play is their work and it is real.

I also like to use common household objects like a toothbrush, comb, Q-tip, cotton balls, paper bags, whisk, or spatula for art making. 

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To see photos from the full residency, follow this link to our Flickr Album!

And spread the word: We are looking for our next artist for our upcoming Summer Residency period (to take place at some point July to August 2016)! If you are interested or know of a Chicago-area artist who loves to collaborate, work with the community or just has great ideas that should be shared, check out the link to our application for more details.

Also, check out the beautiful monoprints that we have been able to produce in conjunction with our Art Across Oceans: South Africa project! This video shows some of the South African participants’ creative work!

If you have any questions about this project or the residency, don’t hesitate to contact me!

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Kohl Children’s Museum Artist-in-Residence: A Conversation with Suzanne Sebold

I was able to talk to Suzanne Sebold, a recent guest Artist in Residence here at Kohl Children’s Museum, about her background as an artist. Her residency brought us a fantastic chance to experiment and investigate different ways to make paper!  We played around with embedding found materials in single sheets and collectively made a large collaborative installation of paper circles made from pulp painting with fibers dyed with beets, yellow onion, purple cabbage, hibiscus flower petals and other natural dyes! Here is a link to an album of the residency project. Please take a look at it, and watch our website for our next Artist in Residence! 

Experimental painting, with pulp dyed with beets and yellow onion skins.

TIM ABEL, MUSEUM EDUCATION SPECIALIST: Papermaking is such an awesome process! I feel like with every papermaker I meet I learn a new thing about paper. It was great that you were able to come to the Museum to share your take on working with the materials, especially how you combined natural dyes and materials with non-traditional materials like plastic mesh. There is something about papermaking that reflects each maker’s personality. I would love if you could share how you developed your experimental approach to papermaking.

SUZANNE SEBOLD: I am the daughter of second generation printers, and quality of paper was a dinner table topic. My childhood weekends were spent at my father’s print shop choosing paper to draw and assembling books. It wasn’t until I was in college at the School of the Art Institute that I had my Aha moment. I realized as I was stitching a book comprised of my own handmade papers that I really learned this when I was a child sitting in my father’s shop. That’s when I realized my family’s influence on my choice to study and learn papermaking.

Suzanne Sebold’s own experimental papers, made of gold chain + abaca and cotton + gum Arabic + pigment + plastic mesh 

I love how much wonder and surprise was built into making paper with our visitors.  Do you carry over this to your own practice? If so, how?

I have always been drawn to nature and natural materials. Natural dye was one of my studies during my undergraduate work at SAIC as well as in Senegal, West Africa. I found it fascinating that natural dyes could have permanence and be used on so many materials such as paper, clay, leather and metal.  I even make my own paints using natural dyes. I always look to my immediate environment for inspiration.

I love asking this as a follow up: Are there any materials that you have worked with in the past that have surprised you?

There are so many predictable and controlled environments that we operate in I really enjoy adding the element of the “unknown.” I am always amazed with plant-based natural dyes. One trick I have learned is how to preserve the color, through trial and error.

Left: Prepped pulps for papermaking

Right: Dried pulp painting with dyes from purple cabbage, hibiscus petals, beets and strawberry leaves

I am very interested how other artists approach collaboration and collaborative projects, so how do you prepare yourself for collaboration?

I believe collaborating and connecting are a way of life - with the intention of sharing knowledge. I think the most important aspect is to remain open and receptive to new techniques and traditions.

Examples of experimental single sheets with embedded buttons, mesh and sequin ribbon created by Museum guests during the residency

Since you have been a brief visitor to our art studio space, I would love if you could leave us with a go-to art project that you could suggest for any parent or teacher to easily undertake as a way of inviting wonder and surprise into their home or classroom? 

Take a nature walk in your community. Find plants and flowers that you can press into paper. Observe the colors and interactions. If you have a garden, harvest some of your material to create a natural dye. The dye can be used to paint on paper or add color to your own handmade paper. You can make handmade paper in a blender from recycled paper in your home.

--Interview with Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

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Number Literacy: Kick Off the New Year with 10 Great Books that Celebrate Math

Kohl Children’s Museum’s Math Counts program introduces children to the wonderful world of math in a fun, informative way. We start off each program reading a book before doing fun activities together that deal with the basic building blocks of math: sets and patterns, counting, numerosity, geometry – even algebraic thinking! 

Literacy can be a great connective tool for exploring and celebrating subjects like math. While reading a book, a child may recognize the repetition of words and begin to recite the story or make predictions on what happens next - this is the child practicing patterning! Through their everyday routines, children are also using early math skills, which can be simple things like counting food, noticing shapes like a stop sign, or patterns on their clothing.

I’ve collected 10 great books and activities to introduce children to early math skills while they enjoy great stories, too! For some of the books, I’ve linked easy activities from the Museum’s At Home Zone that you can do along with the story to practice concepts introduced in each book. Welcome to the world of math thinking!

1.  A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy: Sorting can be done with anything around your home. This book is great way for children to become more familiar with sorting. Using the activity you can start simple, like sorting socks by pairs and then make it a little more complex by sorting socks by color. (At Home Zone idea!)

2.  Just How Long Can a Long String Be? by Keith Baker:  Measuring with a ruler can be complicated. This book invites children to see measurement in a non-standard method by using string.  (At Home Zone idea!)

3.  Pattern Bugs by Trudy Nicholas Harris: This is a great book to introduce children to patterning. Children will catch on to the repetition as the story is told and may guess what comes next in the pattern of words. Get your body moving and make a pattern with your body with this activity. (At Home Zone idea!)

4. Actual Size by Steve Jenkins: How big or small things are can be hard to put in perspective for young children. This book is a great introduction to spatial thinking through direct size comparison. In this story you will see images of the actual size of different animal body parts. They can see just how or small or big they are when they compare their height to other people in their home or the animal body parts in the story.  (At Home Zone idea!)

5. Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd: A great book to start counting in a fun colorful way. 

6. Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins:  Ever thought about how you could sort your family members or friends? In this story, a little girl who begins to sort her family in to different categories. This is a great book to use for sorting and dialogue for different ways to sort your family.  (At Home Zone idea!)

7. Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh: Shapes can be fun! This is a great book for children to learn new shapes while also discovering how some animals that can be made with different shapes.

8. A Pig is Big by Douglas Florian: Telling a child she is 3 feet tall may not mean as much as telling her she is as tall as a dog. This book will allow children to see “bigger” and “smaller” in different ways.

9.  Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews: Counting can be done in many different ways. This book allows children to count while exploring where black dots can be found. The activity will have children counting while exploring nature! (At Home Zone idea!)

10. Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh: Different methods can be used for measuring. This book measures the weight of animals! It is also a great way for children to see that rulers are not the only tools we use to measure things. 

And that’s not all: Here’s another great list of books that support the development of spatial skills in children, an important pre-math skill!

While doing some of these activities and reading the books, children may pick up on a different math skill or even add to the one you are already doing, like patterning and measurement combined. Try these activities and challenge your children. Adapting the activities to make them more personable allows the child to relate and be more invested in any activity. Pick one of your children’s favorite books and try to create a new math activity and put it to the test!

Remember, Math Counts takes place approximately every other Friday from 2:30 – 4 p.m. at the Museum. Check our website for the programming calendar for details. I’ll count on seeing you around!

--Teresa Osorio, Museum Education Specialist

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Project Approach: A Valuable Classroom Experience

You may have seen the words “project,” “project-based learning”, or “the Project Approach” in recent articles and news relating to education. These are current buzzwords in the education field because of the way curriculum and standards such as Common Core can be integrated into a project. Since it is used so frequently, there are many definitions and philosophies on project based learning.  

My go-to reference on the topic is Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years by Judy Harris Helm and Lilian Katz. In the book, a project is defined as an “investigation of a topic worth learning about.” The goal in the Project Approach is to find a topic in which students are highly invested. Then use children’s questions on that topic to develop an in-depth study that involves investigations, authentic activities, and observations so the children have a deeper understanding on the world around them.

The teacher takes on multiple roles in this process: facilitating and guiding the learning process by providing materials and resources (such as artifacts, books, and art supplies), bringing in experts on the topic, and going on a field site visits to answer questions posed by the children. The teacher is also there as a documenter, demonstrating the growth of the children throughout the project and showing how the children are learning, not just what they are learning.  

There are countless reasons why the Project Approach should be done in the classroom. I believe the Project Approach shapes how a child learns and naturally fosters a love of learning in a child for their whole life. Here are a just a few of the big reasons on why the Project Approach is important:

1)      Children are given a reason to practice academic skills. In the Project Approach, children are highly invested in a topic and it becomes something they WANT to learn about. When they want to learn, they will naturally want to read, write, count, and solve problems on that topic. For example, if a child is studying fire trucks and wants to know how many lights are on the fire truck, they will practice counting and then tallying the number of lights. Or if a child is trying to label something on a fire truck, they will look up how to spell and then practice writing the word down.

2)      Children develop positive dispositions towards learning. A disposition is a frequent and voluntary habit of thinking. Being curious, taking initiative, and accepting responsibility are all dispositions that can be nurtured in project work. Children are more likely to continue using these dispositions outside of the classroom if they are frequently used in the classroom. 

3)      The Project Approach enhances brain development. In the Project Approach, children develop mind brain capacity because they are using all areas of the brain. They use their senses through different experiences and authentic activities. When discussing a topic or reading a book, children connect what they are learning to what they already know based on past experiences. They analyze, hypothesize and categorize their learning. Finally, there is opportunity to practice what they learned and demonstrate their new knowledge through writing, drawing, presentations, and representations. 

4)      The Project Approach connects naturally to curriculum and standards in an authentic way that is meaningful to both the teacher, students, and administration. Topic selection from the students allows buy-in, and then with the correct teacher planning, authentic activities can easily be tied with the standards. It is important to mention that standards are being met in project work. The project gives children a connected way of achieving these markers for educational success. For example, in a spider project, the students wanted to create a museum to share all the work they had done; this relates to Common Core English Language Arts Anchor Standard that focuses on conducting research projects as a way of showing proficiency in undertaking different types of investigation. This was a totally student-directed and ingenious way that led to them making advertisement signs, display panels, sorting their work, reflecting on what they had done, and collaborating together to make the perfect museum. 

One of the reasons I love working at Kohl Children’s Museum is because of the strong belief that learning should be engaging, inquisitive, investigative, and self-directed. These key ideas are seen throughout the Museum exhibits and teacher outreach programming, including our own Early Childhood Connections flagship outreach program which brings educators, parents, and children from underserved neighborhoods together through the use of the Project Approach.

As we continue to blog I will be posting more on the Project Approach and samples of projects that have been done in our Early Childhood Connections program. 

-- Sarah Salto, Museum Education Specialist

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Embracing Empathy through Purposeful Play and Art

Let’s face it, it takes a lot of empathy to share.  Even with siblings, and especially with strangers. This is part of the magic of the Museum: all kinds of kids who don’t know each other work side by side daily here and yet through cooperation and teamwork make big things happen without chaos. Do stuffed animals in the Pet Vet get treated by an impromptu team of child vets daily? Yes. Is our Whole Foods Market pretend grocery store pandemonium? No.

Setting up the environment to foster these everyday moments of empathy plays a big role. Providing opportunities of implicit “otherness” allows for curiosity and genuine wonder. What happens when a visitor is introduced to lullabies from all around the world or confronted with the word “read” in a dozen different languages?  Both these instances force dialogue and create wonder through inquiry.

As an art educator, this thought-journey about collaboration takes me back to art creation. Making art is essentially about making a place: temporary, in the moment, imaginary, or celebrated over time as a prized masterpiece. It is a place made possible by becoming engrossed in the making.

What better way to confront community and empathy by opening up this art place to another person? Working collaboratively forces us to navigate encounters with another person.

It can be messy trying to negotiate working that closely, in general. That is why I like collaborative projects so much. Even though the fright of making art with another person looms large, when a single goal is announced, it somehow becomes much easier.

This is not to say that art is the great equalizer, because that would be selling the process short. Contradiction and conflict are mainstays of artmaking: they are just called juxtaposition and sublimation. Freud famously reminds us that learning requires frustration. That is exactly what purposeful artmaking does by confronting the maker with a controllable amount of frustration, and the support of an adult when needed. Collaborative projects can happen in a frenzy of activity (like painting a cardboard deer sculpture) or become quiet and contemplative by trying to weave fabric into a large loom made out of construction fencing. The materials are simple for both: cardboard and paint or recycled construction fencing and upcycled fabric. The thing to shoot for in collaborations is to provide space for all participating, so the scale of both projects are larger-than-child-scale.

So be brave and introduce collaboration to your learning environment. In fact, it might already be happening implicitly. Here are a few tips that could help you dive into the messy world of collaboration or strengthen your collaborative moments:

1.      Set boundaries: think about the good questions and help a discussion happen about sharing/working with each other.  “How can things be changed? How do we respect other people’s art? What are the ground rules for painting in close proximity with each other?” (Trust me, this will help minimize chances—or at least provide a future framework—for the inevitable paint splattering on a neighbor or her contribution to the work.)

2.      Create an area that can grow through individual additions. I call this process an accumulative collaborative project. The scale grows with each addition, and the growing work shows how each part both adds and responds to the overall work. This is great, because each person’s addition remains unique and authentic, but is influenced by the close proximity to other work. The visual dialogue becomes so rich! Also, by creating a project that will allow for all members to initially add something independently is especially good for groups new to the collaborative environment. It acts as a confidence booster, and a way of introductions.

3.      Allow the participants to add to the project, or you can sneakily add their work yourself. In the cardboard structure above, I created the area through gluing and stacking open boxes to create nooks for participants to add and transform. For the wall work below, I slowly added projects that had been left behind in the art studio. This has evolved into a wall of houses, even inspiring a visitor to think about bird houses and adding a chalk drawing with a bird and tree nested into the cardboard sculptures.

4.      Set a project and allow it to change over time. As an educator, you have to set the stage. It isn’t taboo to have an end goal, but keep that to yourself. This goes back to the tip about setting up boundaries for art behavior. You can set initial boundaries with what materials are offered, the original space set aside for the project, or the duration of the project. My limitation for both projects above: the primary inspiration and base material was cardboard. When it comes to collaboration, keep it simple. It is always surprising to see where the project goes.  

5.      Okay, now you are a seasoned collaborator. How about co-planning the project? Listen to your participants: What are they interested in? You can build collaboration into your teaching tools. Child-centered learning is all about collaboration. Do they really love spiders? Okay, do your research: map out possibilities for yourself, then discuss what most excites them. For instance, will they be making a collaborative web sculpture or will they want to focus on making the spider ecosystem? Maybe they love the spiders, and want to figure out what materials to use to make spider sculptures. To follow the pun, be the fly on the wall. Not only that, be the very educated fly on the wall, and be able to help or answer questions when they arise.

Just remember, negotiation, respect, compromise and cooperation become concepts understood through the actual process of planning and making and are concretely represented by the finished project. As an adult facilitating collaboration, be calm, set boundaries, listen to the group needs, then become part of the process.

Here is a link of some of the collaborative projects that have been undertaken in the Museum’s Art Studio over the past year!

Don’t be afraid to get messy! In the end, the outcome is always a surprise and a result of many hands working together.

--Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

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Let’s Talk Tinkering (Pt. 2)

Okay, as promised, I will now tackle answering the issue that I posed in a previous post: Why is tinkering important for young children, and just what does it look like, anyway?

I came across a great book: Tinkerlab, A Hands-on Guide for Little Inventors by Rachelle Doorley. She approaches the idea of tinkering with young children with this philosophy: “At its core, tinkering begins with this kind of problem solving and curiosity about how something works. When children are encouraged to solve problems on their own, they learn a great deal through the questions and hands-on experiments…”

The first thing that we have to realize is that children need to repeat new ideas over and over to be able to create a true understanding of a concept. So the key term that, I will happily take from Rachelle Doorley, and I can’t stress enough when tinkering with young children is “invitation.”

Invite them to explore, take apart, re-create, then repeat.

(Tinkering with textures in Adventures in Art: Rootmaking with Paper)

Keep it simple; then build up. There is a reason why in a Montessori classroom options are limited at the beginning of the school year and build in complexity as the year progresses. In the Teaching Artistic Behavior/Choice-based studio model you open one area of making at a time, giving the child the chance to focus attention and learning correct usage of each material independent of the next. Once initial understanding is grounded, then new ideas and approaches can be explored.

It is about fostering an environment that allows for curiosity and promotes questioning. More importantly, it is about giving the child the chance to work with materials with their hands, and their own ideas. Tinkering is creativity. It isn’t hard to gear the process of tinkering to younger kids; they all are innately problem solvers. Tinkering is social, too. Kids like to see other kids working, ideas are contagious, and ideas resonate side-by-side. Tinkering is the perfect opportunity to work alongside your child. You don’t have to have all the answers, just be comfortable with experimentation, questions, and unexpected outcomes.

Framing any project as a question is key. Instead of just setting out paint, ask, “I wonder what happens when we mix two colors?” Ask the child what two colors to start with, and run with the questions that the child volleys back at you. You can even ask, “What else can we use for paint? Can we paint with dirt?  What happens when we add things to the paint, like salt? What does it look like when we use something else besides a brush?”

Question, question, question.

Questions yield experimentation.

Experiments require repetition.

Repetition breeds variation.

Anything can open up as a tinkering activity.

One last thing, be comfortable with failure. Trust me, failing is good. Tinkerers call it getting stuck. You do it already. How often when doing “grown-up work” have you needed to go for a walk, pick up a crossword puzzle, or sit and doodle? Failure is not an endpoint, you just don’t have the answer yet. That is why repetition is key.

We have a great resource that is ever-changing on our website, called the At Home Zone. The projects run the gamut of simple provocations of materials to more extensive experiments. These are great way of beginning a tinkering exploration. All the At Home Zone activities are designed to keep the fun and learning going with a selection of great STEAM-related (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Design, Mathematics) discoveries that are all designed to jump-start your imagination and creativity.

Have fun. It is an amazing process. Go with it.

--Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

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Discovering the Joys and Value of Gardening with Children: Garden Buddies in Habitat Park

From May through October, the Museum is lucky to have several Master Gardeners from the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener Program. They specialize in teaching about sustainable food supply practices through hands-on planting, maintaining, and harvesting of fruit and vegetable gardens. Through this partnership, we are able to continuously plant and harvest throughout these months. 

Steve Cook, our main Master Gardener, has been with our Garden Buddies program for the past 2 ½ years. He is an incredible resource from both the wealth of knowledge he brings to the actual plants and seeds he brings to our garden.  During our growing season, he is here every Friday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Not only has he helped to make this program a summer staple, he has gone to great lengths to create a healthy foundation for our garden to expand. This year we added two more raised garden beds bringing our working total to six raised garden beds and we are hoping to add even more in 2016.

When I asked Steve what he hoped participants would gain from being part of our Garden Buddies program, he replied, “To show kids where the vegetables come from… [and] to get kids interested in gardening and sometimes a parent may become interested too.”  

It is really fascinating to watch children come back week after week to the garden to see how it has changed and grown. Not surprisingly, recent studies have even shown that participating in garden-based learning positively impacts the child’s overall academic success. Steve highlights our visitors’ enthusiasm, remarking that “The kids have planted everything. Many kids come back to see how it’s growing and harvest what they have planted.”

One of my favorite stories was told to me by one of the exhibit guides in Habitat Park. Apparently, a little girl had pulled a leaf off one of the plants in the garden bed and began to eat it. The mother exclaimed, “What are you doing?” The little girl replied, “Eating swiss chard!” She was correct - and obviously a repeat Garden Buddies patron.

Steve is a great resource for parents as well. He is happy to answer any questions about gardening and help a patron figure out how to make things work in their own garden or start one! He happily reminds us, “Kids like to be outside and play in the dirt and this gives them a chance.”

In our garden you can explore using all of your senses. Steve is encourages our patrons to smell and taste herbs from our garden. Children have fun identifying what we have grown, especially when it comes to our herb garden. Not only do children taste the herbs but they explore ways to identify an herb from its characteristics: what it looks, smells and feels like. By turning it into a game, Steve will ask children if they like pizza or spaghetti sauce, like in these pictures, and as a result the little girl figured out this herb was on her pizza!

All of our fruits and vegetables are grown organically. This year our crop has been abundant! We are proud of our long list that we have been able to cultivate from our small raised garden beds: growing beans, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, head lettuce, cabbage, beets, radishes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, Swiss chard, zucchini, garlic, onions, celery, leeks, strawberries, peas, and herbs (parsley, chives, thyme, oregano, dill, cilantro, lemon basil, basil, sage and stevia). Our biggest grow of the year? Pumpkins! Next year we hope to have even more pumpkins of various sizes.

In season, there is always something growing in our garden, as fruits and vegetables get harvested, space becomes available to plant more seeds! Many children return both to plant more seeds and also to see how the vegetables they planted are growing. Steve said, “They are very excited and know exactly where to look for which vegetables they planted.” Steve also enjoys asking children what their favorite vegetable is and then showing them how it grows. This enables many children to be able to see the life cycle of the plant. And what better way to get a child interested in eating vegetables, then to have them take ownership of planting and growing the vegetable!  This echoes another recent study by the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

I asked Steve what he thought was the best way to engage children in the garden. He told me, “Let them do it, you can’t mess things up.” So go for it, play around with gardening! If you want some help getting started, we are still working with our garden!  

In October, we will explore “Amazing Seeds,” discovering what is inside a seed and how seeds get from one place to another. And don’t forget we will still be planting, maintaining and harvesting the plants for the rest of our growing season. If you find yourself at the Museum on a Friday but the weather keeps you out of Habitat Park, you will find Steve inside with our worm bin. Children have the opportunity to touch the worms, learn about worms and their importance to gardens and the food we eat.  

We still have one month left to garden together. Come see us in Habitat Park. As the weather turns more autumnal, we will be adding an exciting indoor extension: a Garden to Table cooking program every other Tuesday afternoon. In October, we’ll be making colorful carrot salads: beautiful AND healthy! Stay tuned!

--Gail Schuck, Museum Education Specialist

Garden Buddies and Garden to Table have been underwritten by the Whole Kids Foundation.

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Let’s Talk Tinkering! (Pt. 1)

What is tinkering? Why do it? Who can do it? I want to try to answer these questions by thinking through two things specifically: first, focusing on understanding the idea of tinkering and second, why is it an important concept to introduce to the early childhood environment? In this post, I want to talk through exactly what tinkering is all about.

Full disclaimer: These questions about tinkering have been spurred on by two things happening at the Museum. First, we have embraced this fantastic world of tinkering through a partnership with the engineers over at Anixter. (More on that programming later.) Second, my colleagues and I are also participating in an online course about tinkering put on by the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium located in San Francisco. 

I have always been a fan of making things and creatively problem solving through materials (like building a house only using cardboard tubes and tape, seen here). David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work was a standout book from my childhood; as a freshman in college, when I was able to see him talk about his books and illustrations, it was another standout moment. Though I never thought of myself as a tinkerer, as I delve into the world of tinkering, it feels very natural to me as an artist, and art educator.

In Invent to Learn, Sylvia Libow & Gary Stager make this interesting proclamation: messing around or playing with materials is actually an important way of learning. Direct work with materials familiar and unfamiliar force the participant (no matter the age!) to “build a sense of science as inquiry, exploration and investigation rather that as answers.” 

As an art educator, it feels very validating to think that tinkering is equally an art and an engineering practice. I think to push it further, the boundary that singles out art from technology, engineering or science really is fluid in this tinkering practice. Making is making, and essential for the thinking and learning that happens in all these areas! When I was in art school, I had a teacher who would repeatedly say “Tim, you’re thinking too much, just do” or “Don’t think, just work!” There is just such clarity that happens through working through a problem with your hands.

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I want to also focus on how Libow & Stager define tinkering, then in true tinkering fashion, pull it apart to better understand what they mean to help create a fuller picture of this unique making-centered world. Let’s start with their definition: “Tinkering is a uniquely human activity, combining social and creative forces that encompass play and learning.”

Key idea 1: Tinkering is active

Tinkering is action and problem driven: how can I do x? What makes y happen? Can I use z material to make something new? Or can I make z in a better way?

Key idea 2: Tinkering is purposeful play

You have to get messy. You have to play around with materials. You have to make mistakes. Once tools are modeled, then proper use should be understood through guided, but open-ended practice. Most importantly, mistakes happen.

Key idea 3: Tinkering doesn’t happen in a vacuum

Mistakes are frustrating. Support is not only helpful, but necessary in helping the tinkerer push through not knowing. A community of help also makes it easier to ask for help, and build up confidence in the maker to take risks. (The group becomes a safety net.) This doesn’t happen in a vacuum: tinkering is based on real world tools and objects. Thinking through making and creative problem solving aren’t just catchphrases, but are really important life skills.

In short, tinkering supports the growth of a resourceful thinker.

Why is this important for working with young children?

Tinkering is a way to engage the whole child (or maker, any age really) in the learning process.

In taking on a tinkering mindset as an educator, you are promoting a child-centered environment built on encouraging permission and structured exploration, while embracing - or even encouraging - mistakes. Mistakes don’t act as the brakes on thinking, but are important ways of acting out what doesn’t work and then taking a detour to a new and eventually successful outcome. In this process, the child has to slow down. 

Take it from me, as an art educator I see it often and even hope for it to happen when a child enters the Museum’s art studio. That slowing down is a great moment. This moment is a foundational premise to tinkering as a practice. To be clichéd, the idea of gears clicking together in each child’s head as they work is the best analogy.

Come find out how we tinker at the Museum! 

We have partnered with engineers at Anixter to develop some great activities to celebrate the exploration of tinkering. Kohl Children’s Museum’s Tinkering Tuesdays program encourages children to do what they do best - let their curiosity take over! Explore the world of engineering by building machines and creating processes, and then explore what happens when you make changes or do things differently. 

Programming takes place from 2:30 – 4 p.m. on the Museum’s STEAM Cart at announced locations in the Museum exhibits.

Here is what we will be focusing on our upcoming Tinkering Tuesdays:

Our next Tinkering Tuesday programs are October 6 & 20 from 2:30 - 4 p.m. on the Museum’s STEAM cart at announced locations in the Museum exhibits. Temperature Adventure will let children explore how various temperatures can been detected with the use of a thermal camera. 

Watch for a really exciting Tinkering Tuesday mega-program to be announced soon for November!

See you around!

--Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

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Kohl Children’s Museum Artist-in-Residence: A Conversation with Shannon Molter

It was a pleasure to work with artist Shannon Molter to create an underground artscape out of recycled and natural materials. I had a chance to chat about the process, her own work and working collaboratively.  Happy reading!

Beneath the Garden Floor - Completed Installation at Kohl Children’s Museum

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TIM ABEL, MUSEUM EDUCATION SPECIALIST: The natural world is a big inspiration for the collaborative sculpture you helped create at the Museum. It was great to think beyond just flowers that inhabit a garden to the garden as an environment above and below the dirt! I know I have big nature memories about exploring as a child, do you have a memory that sticks out as particularly influential on your thinking about creating art as an artist and art educator now?

SHANNON MOLTER: Nature and the great outdoors were certainly as important to me as a child as my house and classroom were. Growing up in the woods of Northern Wisconsin, I used to go for long, exploratory hikes with my big sister through the acres surrounding our home.> We pretended to be animals, wilderness adventurers, and witches. With a clear understanding of boundaries given by our parents, we were allowed to discover special places like ground-fed springs teaming with frogs, wildflower fields, and trees uprooted by storms creating caverns in the ground.

As an educator I feel it is essential to give children an entry-point for learning and exploring new materials and ideas. Then to step back and give support for independent experimentation. It is important to me to inspire, not direct.

Process Work on Wilderness - USABLE SPACE Gallery, Milwaukee

Completed Wilderness Installation with Performers & Projection, 2014

We used a lot of very simple materials during the workshop to transform them into roots. It was surprising to take cardboard, tape and simple papers, then see them become something very new and different as the participants (both kids and adults) created rocks, roots, tree logs and mushrooms to include in the installation. Is there a material that you like to work with in your artmaking practice as a fiber artist?

Paper and rope are lovely, versatile materials. But honestly, most “natural” materials really excite me! I love to use all sorts of paper, fabric and wood to make sculpture. I am especially fond of recycling leather from manufacturing. Natural fibers can be soaked in water and made soft. They can be dyed, woven and sewn, but are very sturdy.

Are there any materials that you have worked with in the past that have surprised you?

Hmm. Okay, pollen. Pollen can be an amazing dye! Last summer I had the great opportunity to collaborate with two other artists, making screen prints about honey bees. I was charged with making the natural ink. I immediately thought of making dye with flowers. Then I happened upon a huge field of goldenrod that was buzzing with bees and thought, “PERFECT!” The pollen from these yellow blooms was so strong, it dyed fabric beautifully!

How do you prepare yourself for collaboration?

I try to ask a lot of questions and let go of rigid expectations. I get in to the creative problem solving mode and consider: Who is the audience? What might they know about the subject? What does each collaborator get excited about and feel strongly about contributing? Then I apply my own expertise and skills, always impressing the need for cohesion.

Is there a go-to art project that you could suggest for any parent or teacher to easily undertake as a way of inviting nature into their home or classroom?

Great question! I suggest bringing something living into your home. Try something simple like a house plant or herbs in your kitchen.  When you are feeling more adventurous or have some time, try making wildflower (native of course!) seed bombs with backyard topsoil or veggie seed infused paper sheets with recycled junk mail. These are both pretty messy, but can easily be cleaned up or done outside.

I have started keeping a list of fun, approachable things to do outside, to empower parents, kids, and adults to spend more time outdoors. This list will be available on the Kohl Museum blog later this summer.

Do you have any exciting projects that you are working on now?

I am currently building several leather sculptures that are very exciting! They are life size illustrations of the forest floor made of recycled leather. Much like the mural we made together in the Kohl Children’s Museum, my artwork is made up of sculpted tree stumps, roots, thousands of hand-dyed leaves and even some real mica, which makes the whole ground sparkle! These pieces will be on display at the Riverside Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this fall through spring of 2016.

Forest Floor - In Progress, 2014 - Present

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To see photos from the full residency, follow this link to our Flickr Album!

And spread the word: We are looking for our next artist for our upcoming Fall Residency period (to take place at some point from October 1 to December 15)! If you are interested or know of a Chicago-area artist who loves to collaborate, work with the community or just has great ideas that should be shared, check out the link to our application for more details.

If you have any questions about this project or the residency, don’t hesitate to contact me.

--Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

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Finding Inspiration in Chagall for Children: Painting a House

(Images, top: The Blue House, 1917; bottom: I and the Village, 1911)

It was great to celebrate the return of Chagall for Children to the Museum. And of course that meant thinking of an open ended project that would invite children and families into the fantastical art world created by Marc Chagall.

So much of his art is about celebrating color and mixing the real, remembered and imaginary. The Blue House feels very real, like it really could have existed. And I wonder if in a village long ago there was a man with green skin that could talk to animals while women could walk on their heads (like in I and the Village). It is fun to follow these stories. This is why I had so much fun coming up with a big art project to celebrate Chagall’s work.

(Image: America Windows, 1977)

I was immediately drawn to the opportunity of making a structure that echoed the many houses that can be found in paintings in the exhibit; like his Blue House or the row of houses in I and the Village. In addition, I was inspired by the brilliant bold colors of Chagall’s stained-glass America Windows (you can see the original downtown at the Art Institute of Chicago). But how best to combine the structure of houses with the transparent beauty of stained glass?

And perhaps more importantly, how could our guests do something like this at home?

I love working with traditional materials, but with a twist. We used clear vinyl, cardboard and paint sticks. Lots of cardboard, and lots of tape, really. We constructed the walls and roof separately using hollow plastic and cardboard tubes – and even more tape – and when we were done, put them together to make the finished house you see in the pictures below.

(Images: house making in process, photos by author)

If you’re trying this at home, you could easily use a clear shower curtain as your drawing surface. I would highly recommend buying paint sticks too; after years of experience of trying to perfect the always fickle and never reliable tempera and soap combination to prevent flaking, I am a full paint stick convert. Lots of places carry them, but I have landed on Playcolor as a very good brand. Their product does well on vinyl, cardboard, and paper. It dries super-fast, and is washable.

You can be adventurous and try this on a large scale, or work small and hang the finished work in the window. Connect it back to Chagall, be whimsical while painting a fond memory, make something up entirely, or just get lost in the color! The key is, no matter the scale, to have the most fun!

Come visit the Museum to see the world-class Chagall for Children exhibit! It showcases 14 multi-sensory exploration stations, each incorporating a high-quality reproduction of one of Marc Chagall’s works.

Chagall for Children has interactive components that offer hands-on activities and an audio description of each work specifically geared for children ages 2-12. The exhibit will be at the Museum until September 6, 2015.

While you’re here, come visit me in the Adventures in Art studio! I love visitors. If you visit, you will be able to see the completed project, since the Chagall house will live in the art studio for the summer. It is our reading house for now! We have lots of great picture and story books inspired by art to explore.

--Tim Abel, Museum Education Specialist

(photo by Nicole Weydert)

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Easy as 1-2-3: Everyday Math Learning

Recent studies show that “early mathematics knowledge and skills are the most important predictors not only for later math achievement but also for achievement in other content areas and grade retention.”  The results of these studies suggest that focusing specifically on number sense and counting could greatly affect later achievement.  

From early in life, many children learn to rote count, saying the number words in the correct order. This is an accomplishment that should be celebrated, but it is not sufficient for later math achievement.

Children need extensive experience counting objects and comparing sets of objects to fully understand the concept of number and how that concept can be used to solve problems. Schools and daycare centers may use manipulatives, typically items purchased at school supply companies. However, math manipulatives are all around! There is no need to purchase expensive items to help your child develop foundational math skills.

At Kohl Children’s Museum, we partner with a great team of early childhood researchers, professional development providers and teachers at Erikson Institute’s Early Math Collaborative.  One of the methods they promote is Mathematizing Daily Experiences. Simply put, mathematizing is using everyday activities and items to talk about math with young children. By doing so, everyday objects and routine activities become rich opportunities for math talk and problem solving. Here are a few examples to get you started:

1)      Children can sort and count their toys when cleaning up. Ask your child to put all the stuffed animals in one container and all the blocks in another; this encourages sorting sets of objects. Ask if there are more teddy bears or blocks – Now you are comparing sets based on the attribute of number.  Sorting and counting (and thus seeing the world through a math lens) can be done when putting dishes away or folding laundry. It also gives you and your child something interesting to talk about while doing mundane daily chores.  

2)      Count each stair as you walk up and down.  This helps your child attach number words to an action.  Ending the counting when you get to the final step and saying, “ten steps in all”, helps your child understand cardinal numbers, or the numbers used to describe the size of a set.  In this example, 10 is the size of the set of stairs.

3)      A process called “counting on” prepares children for higher math functions.  For example, walk up and count the first 4 stairs, stopping on stair 4.  When you continue walking up, start with 5, not back at 1. Starting with 5 and continuing to the top stair, 10, helps your child understand that the set of stairs can be broken down into two smaller sets, one set that includes stairs 1 – 4 and another set that includes stairs 5 – 10.  Helping your child see that the larger set of 10 can be separated in two smaller sets is critical to later success in addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

4)      In this short video clip, Angela Giglio Andrews, recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching, describes a scene where a mother uses french fries to engage in math-talk with her young child. 

Math experiences can and should be relaxed and fun! We can mathematize many of the experience young children have during the day. What interesting ways can you think of to incorporate math into your child’s daily routines? 

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We Built This City!

During this holiday season, adults carefully choose toys to give to children only to notice the children spending as much if not more time playing with the box the toy came in. To those who work with young children, this comes as no surprise. Open ended, real life objects, like boxes, are low-cost sources of endless creativity and enjoyment. The cardboard box is even in the National Toy Hall of Fame (http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/cardboard-box)!

In November, the Kohl Children’s Museum staff brought in a wide range of boxes from home, put them in the Adventures in Art studio, added some simple art supplies and let the children create and recreate a cityscape. The activity was loosely tied to the children’s book Abuela by Arthur Dorros, one of the books featured in our visiting exhibit Storyland, but children were encouraged to create and add whatever they wanted to our rapidly growing city.

The children worked individually and collaboratively to create detailed buildings, planes and cars, gardens, replicas of the museum and so much more. 

Each building was unique and represented the experiences of the child who created it. We had a room filled with boxes, and none of them looked the same. 

Whether you end up with a collection of small boxes or just one large box at the end of the holiday season, we highly recommend saving them and letting your children get creative. Don’t take our word for it, check out these award winning short films featuring cardboard boxes:

The Adventures of a Cardboard Box by Studiocanoe

http://vimeo.com/25239728

 Caine’s Arcade by Nirvan Mullick

http://vimeo.com/40000072