Getting to Know You: A Meet and Greet with Clay

This year, all of the classrooms will spend their first three months of studio time focusing on clay. For some children, this will mean getting acquainted with the material for the first time. For others, this will allow them an opportunity to share their expertise. However, for our first meeting with this material (and our first studio visits of the new school year!) all of the children in the center – preschools or infants – will first see the clay in the same form..

...a big block lying atop a canvas-covered floor.

All of the children will be invited to remove their shoes and socks (or will be helped to undress down to diapers), so that they can “get to know” the clay with their whole bodies.

The question then becomes, what will this invitation inspire and how will it look for the different age groups?

It is easy to imagine how this first meeting with clay might differ for a preschooler – who can run, jump, and stomp, let alone stand – and an infant who is not even able to crawl. This only makes the question of whether or not these meetings might also be similar all the more interesting.

At the same time, one might assume that the experience for all of the preschool groups will be much the same. This, in turn, inspires us to look deeper at the moments of contact with the clay – to search out the moments of difference as moments of power and possibility.

Why Clay? Why Together?

This year, Peabody Terrace Children's Center is undertaking to explore a shared material - clay - across all of the classrooms. Children's interactions with this medium will primarily take place in the Studio with me, although teachers will also be encouraged to make space for this work to extend to their classrooms. As we begin this exploration together, I hoped to take a moment to elaborate a bit about the "whys and wherefores" behind this shared investigation and why it has the potential to be really powerful. 

I am so excited for us to all explore the same medium together for several reasons. First of all, I love the idea that this may create a shared language across the center – that it will give both children and teachers in the different classrooms something in common. The possibility for growth, for shared experience, and for teaching that this offers seems very rich to me.

Secondly, I believe that this commitment to a single medium will help us, as teachers and observers, to focus in on what the children are doing with the clay presented to them. Sometimes there are so many different directions to go in the Studio, it can feel overwhelming as to which to choose. And sometimes this plethora can be as distracting for teachers as it is for children. Using clay as a centering point will, I hope, offer us a chance to deepen our use of the cycle of inquiry in relation to the Studio, and help us to build a practice that will outlast the three months we explore clay.

Now, you may be wondering how this “enforced” medium could possibly align with our practice as a Reggio-inspired center. How can this work still be student-led? In answer, I would say a few different things. I would say that our initial choice of a material does not preclude the idea of our engagement in the Studio being led by the children. In fact, by sticking with this material for three months, I believe we are giving ourselves an opportunity to really dig in and allow the children to “lead” us through their interactions and interests around this material. It is our job to look closely at how they are interested in using it and to think about how we can best support this interest. 

I would also say that, to me, one of the many roles of the Studio is to introduce children to new media – to new ways of seeing, interacting with, and representing the world – and to offer up these media as parts of the world we live in. In this light, our clay investigation is an opportunity to introduce our children to clay and to allow them to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with it. Through clay, they are getting to know the world, and they are developing a new language through which they can interpret it. This, to me, is very much in tune with the idea of the hundred languages of children, which are so central to our work here. 

In addition, I would say that clay is not a regimented material. It offers up so many different possibilities. I do not feel we are limiting either the children or their Studio experiences by choosing to work with it for three months. Finally, by creating alternate “Open Times,” the schedule this year will allow for other explorations in the studio in addition to clay. In other words, the experiences of children in the Studio need not be “limited” to clay at all. There are still other opportunities to be seized!