case studies
Pitton Pre-school
Pitton Pre-school has been involved in 5x5x5=creativity for three years.
Educator: Carolyn Beckett
Artist: James Aldridge
Cultural Centre: Salisbury Arts Centre
Mentor: Jo Stevens
Sensory Experience and Creative Reflection
Our research began with a visit to ‘Colour Full', a textile exhibition at Salisbury Arts Centre.
The visit was intended to introduce ways of combining materials, and for us to observe which pieces the children found interesting and why. A conversation between two children, discussing the fields and river they saw in a wall hanging, led to a focus on the children's experience of their local environment and its representation.
What was interesting throughout the research was how young children are able to reflect upon and plan for their own learning. For some children, not able to reflect and plan verbally, opportunities to express themselves through other materials and media proved essential in allowing them to communicate their individual needs and interests.
In response to the interest expressed in the representation of landscape features in a wall hanging, a group of six children went for a walk through the woods behind the pre-school and up to the top of the hill, with Carrie and James.
The children stopped to collect objects and materials, and showed a fascination with the animal holes that lined the walk. Whilst James used video to record the children's responses, Carrie offered a camera to document their finds and places of interest, for later reflection.
The ‘Blue Book' held images of the children's investigations throughout the research, and was available for all children at all times. Individual children chose to take their own images or asked for them to be taken, or be included in the book.
Together with video, reflection on these images gave the children a way of remembering previous sessions and planning the next one; maintaining an awareness of the path that they had followed in their learning.
Exploring the different facets of our experiences in the wood, fascinated the children. Holes were terribly exciting and recurred many times and in many guises. Muddy puddles translated themselves into clay puddles, and hence to whole body engagement to revisit the prints and tracks we had explored previously.
Bethany enjoyed representing her experiences using clay and materials found on the walk itself. Her total involvement, facial expression , careful selection of materials and representation told us far more about her rich and subjective experience of the walk than her linguistic skills could have done.
A lump of wood is placed on top of a standing stick.... 'Its a house!' (the tree house on the walk). A ring of badger holes are made around the edge of the clay and a tunnel of lolly sticks across the middle. Then more and more sticks and fir cones are added for the trees from our walk. Carefully snail shells are placed through them, reflecting where they were found, and in a linear pattern that seemed to represent the path of the walk.
Children often chose to take on different roles within an activity. Yusef was keen to reflect on his experiences through the viewfinder of the camera, recording the clay constructions from a variety of angles and positions.
These children used photographs from the walk, and a map, to plan another walk.
Ruby expressed her thoughts about what we might see in a picture.
Ruby: 'Can you take a photo of mine and put it in the book?'
James: 'That's a good idea, do you want to tell me anything else to write down?'
Ruby: 'Yes, do you know what that is? Sharon's horse box...'
James: 'She has bits above and to the sides of her.'
Ruby: 'That's the roof of the horse box, that's the side bit of the horse box and that's the side bit.'
'The sensing body is... an active and open form, continually improvising its relation to things and the world.'
D Abram
