NARRATIVE, DRAMA, CO-CREATION, MUSIC, COLLABORATION, CULTURE
REGION: Southern Denmark
MUNICIPALITY: Vejle
PROCEDURE: 2022
DAILY OFFER: Kindergarten Troldebakken
Snout story: Vuggestuen Troldebakken (2022)
After our program with the 3-4 year olds in the kindergarten, we were curious about how we could do something similar for some of our younger nursery children, around 1 ½ years old.
Can we actually make something that draws on narrative, but creates space for the children to help decide how the story unfolds? And how little do we need to plan and decide in relation to a group of 1 ½ year olds for it to still be meaningful to them and give them a sense of experiencing a story?
We involve 4 rooms divided into 2 groups in the nursery, all trying the same thing. That is, 2 courses. The snip story is therefore identical in both courses.
- How have you experienced the co-creation between artist/cultural educator/cultural school teacher, educators and children and possibly researcher?
We have taken our Snout evaluation both groups together, as it has been the same process we have gone through. So the snooping story covers both groups 1 and 2.
It's been a good experience and we think we succeeded better than we had imagined. We knew we were giving ourselves a bit of a challenge. But the simple idea of a suitcase gave us a good starting point. We could talk together about what to put in the suitcase and when we had a workshop with the children, the informal format meant that we could all try something out along the way.
- How have children's perspectives been expressed/included?
It turned out to work surprisingly well with the children themselves taking things out of the suitcase and thus controlling what happened to the things in the suitcase. Already on the first visit, one girl immediately started taking things out of the suitcase and distributing them to others. This paved the way for the other children who, the next day, also dared to participate in taking things out of the suitcase.
In practice, this meant that even though we had some games in the back of our minds in case the kids didn't find the suitcase interesting, those ideas never came to fruition.
- Do children play different games and with different people than usual?
Among other things, we have seen that some of the children now play with their own teddy bears together with the toy bike that came in the suitcase. They have adopted the idea of teaching teddy bears to ride a bike.
- How do pedagogical staff act differently than they did before PlayArt?
It's still early days, but we've become curious about how suitcases can be used in other contexts. And it has certainly opened our eyes to the playful and experimental.
- What has it been like to work with action learning?
It has been interesting to try with such young children, where there is usually a lot of focus on creating a fixed framework and routines for the children. And it has given us an insight into how it can work without losing the fixed framework and routines.
- To the artist/cultural mediator/cultural school teacher, if present: What have you gained from participating in PlayArt?
- A very interesting experience to do something with such young children. And one of the great experiences has been discovering how little you need to do. A few well-chosen objects, the use of an "Exciting" suitcase and then just taking the time to play with the children based on what they want to do.
- What are the pedagogical staff still/now curious about?
How else can we use the suitcases. Can it be combined with special themes and can it be done with other types of objects?
- How will you use art, culture and aesthetic processes in the further process?
We will try out the formula from our course on other ideas. However, we're not sure which ones yet.
- What points for attention should we take forward?
How do we keep the simplicity of the idea when we move the method to other themes. And what are the types of objects, toys and musical instruments that children like best.
