Movement and Clay

Abstract

Our program, like many other early childhood programs, is an environment of emergent and playbased programming for twenty-five 3-and 4-year-old children. In September 2011 we decided to introduce clay into our program. We had been moving toward presenting materials in our space that are open ended, rather than fixed or prescribed in meaning, and that allow for change. Materials that inspire imagination, creativity, and exploration. It was hoped that the introduction of clay would extend on and allow for a creative and divergent thinking process that only open-ended materials can provide for the children, families, and educators of the centre. What follows are my reflections on our work with clay: how this material led us to a state of inquiry, exploration, wonder, and dialogue. The story of how clay became alive in our space, our ideas, and our minds and ultimately led us to a line of flight we couldn’t have imagined, a place of new questions and changing dialogues.

Full Issue

“…The tensions that emerged for me, as well as many of the other educators, in our early inquiries raised many questions about who and what we attend to (care for) in our practices: children's development, children's safety, parents' wishes, the materials, the spaces, educators' desires and concerns, the legacy of colonization, our environmental impact. (For more on some of these questions that have emerged in our collective research inquiries, see Clark & Nelson, 2014;Clark, Pacini-Ketchabaw, & Hodgins, 2014;Elliott & Yazbeck, 2013;Hodgins & Foreland, 2013;Yazbeck, 2013. ) We have not smoothed out these tensions, and our questions have not brought about easy (any?)…”