I wanted to summarize for everyone what was talked about in the ART STUDIO RAP SESSION yesterday. We are trying to come together to make a bigger effort to use that space. The people at the meeting were: Cindy, Bailey, Elayne, Gwen, Megan, Viki, Dooley, Debbie, Maura, and Katy.
Here are some highlights:
Less children in the art studio at a time works better. Then we have to pay attention to manageable ratios with the teacher who is not in the art studio. Toddler Two North should come over with their whole class and have some children in the entryway space.
The south side is working on having some toys and books set up for their ages in the entryway. It might be a good idea to have a "bucket" of toys that are appropriate for older children, to grab when older children are using the entryway.
The toddler groups on the south side are anticipating that they will be using the entryway space more and more because their rooms are so small and it will get colder and colder outside. Now that there is a gate in the hallway on the south side, we could still have multipe groups using the common spaces, without things getting totally chaotic. The south toddler rooms could open up their doors and pull the gate across, so that their children are using the hallway as a play space, while older groups from the north side are in the entryway space and studio.
The toddler rooms could also plan to swap rooms for an afternoon or morning.
If classrooms needed more staffing in order to use the art studio they could plan it around 10:30 time OR the SP person could break at 12:30 ( on non-meeting/coverage for another team's meeting days) and a group could use the art studio from 11:30-12:30.
The Leaf Project has been in effect for a week or so. The consensus was that it continue for another week or so. Maybe it could morph into a clay project or something about bubbles or leaves and paint, or the art studio could turn into a giant sandbox for the winter!
There was some discussion around making the art studio activities more visible and accessible to parents. We wondered whether we should figure out how to host an art studio workshop for parents.
Somehow the north side needs to display what is happening in the art studio on their side. The entryway? Outside their classrooms? Even on the south side, you have to physically walk into the studio to really understand what kinds of possibilities are in there.
We want for teachers to have the ability to have an ongoing/collaborative dialogue about their efforts in the studio. Debbie will look into a way to "blog" about it, or it was proposed that there be a notebook in the art studio that be written in after teachers and children visit. Otherwise, it's difficult to keep up with what everyone's been doing in there. Someone suggested that when teachers take pictures and then work on a notebook entry, to make two copies of that page and then post it on an art studio bulletin board, possibly out in the entryway.
Then there's the question of who moves us in the forward direction? Who cleans up? How do we make decisions together? How do we come up with new ideas when Viki is less available because she's floating in classrooms?
This was a good start. Anyone who has a comment about any of this, please write me back and I will get it out there to folks. In the meantime, I am investigating blogs to see if that could be our electronic way of having a conversation about all of this.
Thank you for your input and enthusiasm. It will take a while for us to figure out how to use the studio to its potential. We know it won't happen overnight. But every bit of help counts.
Debbie
