Little Creatures Films

Barnacle Blue

2013-10-31T08:18:00.000-04:00

I never thought something blue and plastic could provide so much profound joy and healing. This tarp, provided by the folks who put the transcendent Red Hook Barnacle Parade together (Good Fork, Ft. Defiance, Steve's, Hometown, Bait & Tackle and other area businesses and friends), played the role of the flood waters which ravaged our neighborhood exactly one year before. How wonderful, to stand there and hold the edges of the tarp with friends and neighbors, and send it ballooning up and down, into the air and down low to the ground, as if to take control of that evil Superstorm Sandy, once and for all. The pent up pain and sorrow of a neighborhood still grappling with the tragic aftermath of a storm, a year into its rebuilding, simply turned into catharsis before our very eyes. None of this was lost on our children, who reveled under the dappled plastic floodwaters like it was the dance party of their dreams. And wasn't it?

Spirit Ship Sails into the Cyber Ocean

2013-06-01T23:26:00.000-04:00

Over the years since we finished it in the Spring of 2011, Spirit Ship has gradually moved aside, allowing new projects like these to blossom: Queen Esther by the Sea, a short film; Find&Seek, a program for children; and Willa, our newest Little Creature. The time has come to put the film up online! So here it is....click below to see the complete 17 minute film on Vimeo. If this is your first viewing, I am so interested to hear your comments.

In celebration of this momentous occasion, and in anticipation of your reactions to the film, I am doing a DVD giveaway. All those who leave a comment on the Spirit Ship Vimeo page between now and June 7 (11:59pm EST) will be entered to win the Spirit Ship DVD, which includes 5 special features. This is a $15 value ($50 for schools), and is also available for purchase here.

Queen Esther by the Sea

2013-05-14T00:01:00.002-04:00

The latest film by Little Creatures is here: Queen Esther by the Sea.

Magnolia and her preschool-aged friends at Trinity Grace Church in Brooklyn have been studying the book of Esther. She was very inspired by the stories they learned about, and of course wanted to play Queen Esther. She had the idea to make some soup for Esther's people, for a feast they could share after she saved their lives (see Esther Chapter 9). She was meanwhile creating many concoctions at home, out of a multitude of seeds and beans, anything on hand--pouring, mixing, stirring, serving "tea" and "soup" to her stuffed babies and animals. It became clear that Esther's "soup" should be made in keeping with this latest form of play. This video project could then echo our adventures in outdoor seed gathering, natural object collecting, and Play Lab experimentation.

As always when traipsing though the outdoors with children, my mind is . . . let's just say, calmer than usual. For those of you urban dwellers out there, that makes sense: a couple of hours of not being cooped up in an apartment--heaven! At least on a beautiful Spring day like we've been having in Brooklyn lately (read: pink and yellow magnolias in full bloom in April, cherry blossoms raining snowpetals in May). Usually when I see my daughter playing in the dirt, picking up sticks and pinecones and flower petals and maple seeds, my mind starts to flit from Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods, to the forest kindergartens of the world, to our local Brooklyn Forest School, and to kindred spirits like Tinkergarten (who call their soup "magic petal potion"). And then I try to just be there. Just Be. With her, in the just-barely-wild spaces that we call our parks here in the busy city, to appreciate the beauty of creation, and to relearn how to "just be" within this expansive time of early childhood. It's so hard for me not to be always "working on the next thing" in my mind, even when the dappled light is falling through the cottonwood trees. It's a constant struggle to Just Be. Hopefully these videos I'm making can do their part to help remind us to be, to observe children, to listen to what they are actually saying, to learn from them, to learn how to Be. Our children certainly need no instruction in that fine art.

Pique-Nique (Episode 9).
Gabrielle and Ben Blair + Tiger in a Jar: Olive Us

I'm Hungry: Snoball Cookies (Episode 17).
Gabrielle and Ben Blair + Tiger in a Jar: Olive Us

This time . . . upon preparing to go out into the "wilds" that are a park next to a big box store in our neighborhood-by-the-sea, camera and massive collection of props in hand, I was also thinking about Olive Us: Gabrielle Blair and her husband, their six children, their home in the South of France, and the photographic duo Tiger in a Jar, who have been making a series of filmic adventures for a year or so (though I only recently discovered this project!). What I have noticed since stumbling upon their lovely work has been the consistent beauty of their videos, the educational value, and the focus on wholesome family life. The many vignettes they've produced spotlight their many family members (ie: six children between the ages of 2 and midteen) sharing in joyful pursuits, with obvious love and care for one another.

So I was thinking of them because they had put out a call to fellow filmmakers to "make or share a video that takes inspiration from any Olive Us episode, or the Olive Us show in general." After looking through their work, I considered some combination of their episodes about cooking, like I'm Hungry: Snoball Cookies, and their more freeform stuff like Pique-Nique. I figured it made sense to enter our Esther piece into the mix. I'm still, after 12 years of making videos with children, committed to following children along as they play (without a shot-list, without written dialogue), and incorporating their original words and songs as voiceover narration. So my work diverges, and I can't say that it takes inspiration from the Olive Us project as much as it is validated by it. I'm just thrilled to find kindred spirits in the movie-making-about-childhood world, thoughtful folks making big efforts to put out into the world a healthy, beautiful alternative to the stuff that we call "children's media."

Back to Esther: the wonderful Sean Eno shot this piece with a Canon 5D at Erie Basin Park in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in April of 2013. I directed, edited, mixed audio and designed the titles. The words in the film are all Magnolia's original stories and songs, inspired by a very brave woman whose story still shines forth from the Good Book.

From Studio to Classroom: A Year in Video at PS 27

2013-05-11T13:19:00.000-04:00

Speaking of Vivian Paley . . . back in 2011 I wrote two essays as a guest blogger on Aileen Wilson's From Studio to Classroom. That blog is no longer live, so I'll repost the second entry here:

A Year-Long Video/Story Exploration with Three Classes at PS 27

Coffey Park in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where the children of PS 27 played for this project

From 07 LCB Project to 07-08 SAP Project

In the Spring of 2007, I received a Local Capacity Building Arts in Education Regrant to work with the Pre-K/Early K/K-1 grade team at PS 27 in Red Hook on a video extension of their “What is Essential to Life?” curriculum, which culminated in a documentary about our three-month-long, three class imaginative story/play exploration of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. EK teacher Shariffa Martinez videotaped her class throughout the project, so that when I wasn’t there, other classroom adventures could still be captured. This exciting collaboration sparked mine and Shariffa’s hope to work together again, so I submitted a proposal for a School Arts Partnership (SAP) to Partners for Arts Education/NYSCA, and we were awarded a $17K grant to provide a yearlong video and bookmaking project in 2007-08. Our goal was to bring three classes of young children’s thoughts and ideas to life through a series of “video stories” and “story picture books,” as extensions of the pre-K, EK and K-1 curriculum, and thus to encourage dramatic/imaginative play, to empower children to improvise and develop their own stories, to help children develop their oral language skills, and to facilitate social and emotional growth.

I invited Terry Solowey to transform the children’ drawings and narration/text together as supplementary story-picture books. Isabel Cruz, arts specialist in the PS 27 lower school, strengthened the visual arts component by guiding the children to make cardboard people that later became characters in their video stories, and by facilitating the transformation of the children’s drawings of their video play at Coffey Park into a fabric backdrop for Part II of their video stories. Hawley Hussey, Director of Education at BRIC Rotunda Gallery, provided two professional development sessions for our team over the year, and also hosted an exhibition of our culminating work at “Kids Art,” at Rotunda Gallery in May. Also in May of ’08, Vivian Gussin Paley, legendary early childhood teacher and writer, joined our team for a storytelling-story acting workshop and a keynote speech.

Here’s how the year unfolded:

October - December

• All Pre-K, Early K and K-1 (self-contained class) children made cardboard puppets with Isabel in Art Class.

• 11 small groups met with Terry and me, to draw and tell initial stories about their puppets.

• I filmed all groups played in Coffey Park with their puppets.

• All groups narrated/dictated stories about the videos while watching their respective footage. Terry facilitated and transcribed and I recorded the children’s narration.

While holding his cardboard character/prop, a Pre-K student views his group playing in the park. We recorded the children's narration while and after these individual and small-group screenings.

As the children draw pictures based on their play/video, Terry Solowey takes their story dictation

• All classes viewed their final videos and also saw videos from groups other than their own, then responded by making collages using printed stills from their video stories.

Shariffa and Andrew's Early Kindergarten class enjoys watching videos of their play

Children in the K-1 Class view 4 short videos of their play in the park

K-1st Students reflect on their collage of video stills/drawings

Pre-K teacher Elizabeth reflects with the children on the video stills they explored and collaged

• I filmed the walking trip all three classes took to the Red Hook Community Farm.

• In November, Hawley Hussey provided the first of two professional development sessions for the core teacher team and a parent representative.

January - April

• Isabel (Art Teacher) asked children to think back to Coffey Park and make drawings about their time there. I helped children transfer these drawings to fabric with the help of an overhead projector. The children sewed the shapes onto the backdrop for their second video, Puppets and Planes. 6^th and 7^th graders helped with the sewing process.

Inspired by the video of her play in the park, a child draws a tree and leaves.

Yadlynd's drawing of a branch is projected so we can make it out of fabric

Anastasia's (who later that year participated in Spirit Ship) drawing is placed on the overhead projector and the outline is projected onto fabric; we will trace and cut it out.

PS 27 Art Teacher Isabel Cruz facilitated the making of the fabric backdrop from the children's drawings of the park

• I filmed all groups playing with their puppets and planes, in front of the new backdrop.

Seth plays with his plane on the backdrop the kids made based on their drawings of the park/play videos

• In three whole-class screenings, all children viewed the second videos and responded with drawings and reflections.

Whole-class PreK screening

• Sara Barnes (Principal) and myself, along with Shariffa Martinez (EK) and Aneesha Jacko (Early Childhood) begin to plan Vivian Paley’s visit to the school in May.

• In March at BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Hawley Hussey provided her second professional development workshop for our team. The teachers shared their reflections about what the project had meant to them and their class.

Hawley Hussey of BRIC Contemporary Art provides professional development for our team

Hawley Hussey invited all members of the team to write and share our beliefs about children and education. Some highlights from our answers: "I believe children see what I often miss. I believe in the power of play. I believe in small group learning. I believe that art really does help kids (and adults) learn. We believe in the value of play before instruction. We believe videos are a resource for family, service providers, etc. We believe in advocating for our students in the name of Play. We believe it takes a community to do this really tough work."

• Shariffa, Terry and I attended the Common Ground arts in education conference in Albany.

• Shariffa and Aneesha kicked off a book club for interested teachers that began meeting weekly, leading up to Vivian’s visit. The group read Play: A Child’s Work, and other articles on play (for example, one by Richard Lewis of the Touchstone Center), and discussed them in relation to what they were doing in their classrooms.

Vivian Paley, Aneesha Jacko (Early Childhood) and Shariffa Martinez (EK Teacher) at PS 27

May - June

• Vivian Paley gave a keynote address at the school and interacted with children and teachers on May 13. She led Shariffa’s EK class in a storytelling-story acting session and I videotaped this.

• I showed Added Value footage to children and they narrated their Fall field trip.

• All classes went to Rotunda to see their work on display.

All children who participated in the project saw their work on display in BRIC Contemporary Art (formerly Rotunda) Gallery in Brooklyn Heights, in the "Kids Art" show, Spring '08

• All classes viewed their videos from the whole year, including Coffey Park Play, Puppets and Planes, and Adventure at the Red Hook Farm.

Reflections

This project succeeded in offering a developmentally appropriate and relevant technological exploration to 42 children at PS 27, and it taught our team the importance of children seeing themselves as storytellers, creative thinkers, producers and author-illustrators. We learned more about the vitality of video as a tool for recording, learning and providing a bridge between the classroom/school and family/community, and that children are hungry for authentic experiences of play and nature. Finally, we were able to see firsthand that children are inherent media makers, not just viewers. Over the course of the project, the children bonded with their small groups, which each became like little families. The children displayed powerful memories of their time in Coffey Park (the first video-play of the year), up until the very last month of school. In a vivid illustration, after a whole class viewing of the Coffey Park videos, one Pre-K group went to hide out under a classroom table to recreate a scene in their video (see videostill below from Oct and photo from Dec).

Brandon's group relished the Secret Spaces of Childhood, outside in the park

December 2007: Brandon, Itsy and Yadlynd revisited their secret space in the classroom, thus bringing the outside in.

Vivian Paley’s presentation around the conclusion of the project further highlighted the role of play in early childhood, and her storytelling/story acting workshop with the EK class echoed and validated what we had done with our story dictations/plays/videos, bringing our yearlong voyage full-circle. Vivian’s words from that day say it best, and remind me of the reason why I started recording children’s play in the first place:

You listen always, notebook in hand, you listen for a piece of play, a piece of dialog, or a piece of action. Now you’ve got something concrete. Now, a subject comes up, and here’s where the artful nature of teaching comes in. You say something like, “I heard Jeremy say this, before, on the playground, and it made me think of this. Can we act out what Jeremy was doing?” . . . now this is just the first step, to show how vitally interested you are in every child’s exact language, exact interests . . . It’s a kind of game we play, that the teacher can play. Because the question is, how can I bring it in?

Vivian Paley takes dictation during her Storytelling/Story-acting workshop in the Early K class at PS 27.

To speak to the component of children’s media making and viewing, Terry Solowey noted in her written evaluation for our final report:

With the second [video on Puppets and Planes], the children were becoming junior film critics. They reviewed their video stories, collaborated on group-dictated stories in addition to their own individual ones, and were able to use their critical thinking and problem solving skills to give feedback to each other. Beginning to understand their own process as author/illustrators of their own storybooks, working in groups, learning how to cooperate and collaborate to create stories together, and producing their own stories through video play were taking hold and having an effect. Pride in themselves and their own work was coming forth; along with the enjoyment of sharing their work with classmates, teachers, and later, at a closing event, with their parents and the community.

Our team of teaching artists and PS 27 Early Childhood teachers

Collaborating teacher Shariffa Martinez also wrote:

I found that growth is gradual and the understanding of more can occur through play. We are social creatures that long to learn and interact with one another. So for a second year I had the chance to watch students view themselves in their play as they were learning and creating images in their minds. The recordings of their work were a tool and art making all at once. I watched Vertyce take a leap with her whole being this year. I recall standing in the pre-K yard with Terry and she asked Vertyce about the story she had worked on. This was a reserved student, but she spoke with such detail, when I was listening to her share her adventure. This moment is now in a capsule and has a video and is written in a book from the students’ point of view. Everybody gained a little something wonderful from this whole experience that can be shared for life.

Culminated exhibition of videos, backdrop and props at BRIC Contemporary Art Gallery in Brooklyn Heights

One Grant Project / Broader-Reaching Implications

I incorporated more analysis and several quotations from the children’s video narrations into an article I wrote for Youth Media Reporter, “Not Too Young to Watch, Not Too Young to Make.” The Child Care Collection at Ball State University produced a DVD series in 2009 called “Story in the Early Years,” which featured our PS 27 video project as one of several ways teachers are using play in the early childhood classroom. NAEYC is selling the series here.

An Interview with Vivian Gussin Paley

2013-04-13T15:02:00.000-04:00

I am so honored to know Vivian Gussin Paley. I have admired her since I read her books as an elementary education student of Randy Testa and Andrew Garrod at Dartmouth College, back in the 90's. I'll never forget the tears rolling down my face in a dorm laundry room while I read The Girl with the Brown Crayon.

An amazing book that had a formative result on my thinking as an education student

Vivian opened my mind to the great potential of working with young children, and shone light on the beautiful, magical stories hidden within any early childhood classroom. I had the privilege of meeting her when our wonderful mutual friend Resa Matlock of the Childcare Collection introduced us in 2007. I continued to correspond with Vivian through the mail (actual letters! So refreshing), then in 2008 I facilitated a speaking engagement she did at PS 27 in my neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Vivian Paley with, Back L-R: Sara Barnes (PS 27 Principal), Shariffa Martinez (Early Kindergarten Teacher), Kristin Eno (Little Creatures Films); Front: Aneesha Jacko (Early Childhood Curriculum Specialist)

Lunch dicussion at PS 27: Vivian talks to teachers from both within and outside the school

Vivian's public keynote address, lunch discussion with teachers, and storytelling/story acting workshop in the Early Kindergarten classroom served as the culmination of my year-longvideo storytelling grant project (funded by a NYSCA School Arts Partnership grant).

Vivian's keynote address at 2011 NAEYC Conference in Orlando

I have since seen Vivian speak at venues such as NAEYC and Wonderplay, and we have continued to keep in touch. She granted me the honor of responding to a few interview questions back in 2011. There are no excuses for my delay in posting them, other than having and raising two children (born '09 and '12).

Can you talk about the turning point in your teaching career when you realized that your students were exhibiting heartfelt empathy toward one another? How about a time when you saw that they were revealing elements of intimacy? When you saw evidence of such deep human emotions, did this startle or surprise you, or did it come to you gradually or without much fanfare?

It did not take long for me to realize that young children in their play are practicing all the emotions we talk about: empathy, intimacy and feelings of belonging and loss. The crying baby who is comforted in the doll corner crib, the runaway kitty who is found and gets a long neck-rub, the daddy-hunter who keeps the wolf from the door, suggest some of the spontaneous scripts that help children examine issues of safety and friendship after they leave home. The important turning point for me was when I began to write down what I heard and saw, so I could study children’s play and story-making in more serious ways.

How do you respond to children’s deep statements, so that they will continue to feel safe, and not assume that you are going to go and tell all your friends what they just said?

I’ve never had the feeling that children expected me to belittle their responses. At some point, in a confidential conversation, I always ask a child if I may repeat the essence of our thoughts in order to explore a broader topic with other children, or to correct some unfair impression or event. There is never any doubt about privacy. When I carry on a discussion with children they are told that absolutely no names will be revealed and no one will listen to them tapes but me.

Do the children who become the subjects of your books know that you are writing about them?

No child has ever known he or she is being written about. Every character in my books is well disguised and no one ever listens to my tapes except me. Sometimes, years later, when a former student has read one of my books in college, he will recognize himself in a story and write to me to see if the memory is correct. At that point I feel free to say Yes. It is always a happy experience when it happens, for the student has the comfort of life’s continuity and meaningfulness.

How does your process of writing about your teaching affect the process of actually teaching, or leading storytelling/storyacting workshops with children?

There is a direct connection between writing about teaching and the act of teaching itself. When you narrate your experiences on paper, you become a character in the story you are telling. If you happen to be “playing” the role of teacher, you want to improve that image in any way you can. Thus, you literally become a better teacher. In a sense, you act the role and you see yourself acting the role—and you want to do better.

When we come into classrooms where we have been given the opportunity of working with the children for short spans of time, but do not have long enough to get to know the children all personally, or even by name, how can we best honor them and help them feel known, and not rushed or taken advantage of?

I do not work with film ordinarily, and so I cannot speak directly to your experiences. But, as a general rule, we honor children when we repeat their exact words back to them and to the group, and ask them if we have made a mistake. We apologize if we are wrong and are careful to take the time to allow children to explain themselves.

When you travel to other classrooms around the world, what makes you most happy? What troubles you? Where have you seen the most inventive play happening?

It always makes me happy to see that children the world over play in similar imaginative ways. They are eager to tell me their stories and have them acted out. Once they know that this is the reason I have come, to help them dramatize their stories, they are entirely forthcoming. This enthusiasm of theirs, matching my own, makes me happy.

Can you talk about a time you worked with children playing in the outdoors/natural world?

My outdoor time with children has been spent mostly in watching them and keeping them safe and content. On the whole, I let them investigate the matter of outdoor vs. indoor play on their own. Sometimes a child joins me on the playground bench for a confidential conversation and this is always an intimate time. Often it is after outdoor time that interest me: “How did things go on the playground? Did anything unfair or fair happen?” These are always good, honest discussions.

Vivian takes dictation from an Early K student at PS 27 in Red Hook.

Can you talk about your memories of Red Hook, Brooklyn, when you visited the neighborhood and worked with children at PS 27, in the Spring of ’08?

My visit to PS 27 was entirely a delight. The principal, the teachers and the children were warm, friendly, outgoing, and enthusiastic. I have often thought about that day, my first spent in Brooklyn, as one of the most pleasant and rewarding visits I’ve had anywhere. In particular, I recall the kindnesses of teachers to children. They were not impatient: they listened carefully to what the children said and responded with respect.

What do you think is the greatest untapped treasure of the public school system? What can teachers do to reveal this treasure and to help it grow?

I’m not so sure it was untapped, but the community spirit and pride I saw at PS 27 was to me a great treasure. We teachers must constantly look for this sense of community in our classrooms, parents and schools, and encourage it in every way. We and the children must learn to support one another—not compete with one another.

Keep Calm and Play On

2013-02-23T18:00:00.002-05:00

Keep Calm and Play On 2013 - Red Hook

Marc Armitage, Playworker (UK)

"Play for Its Own Sake: A Playworking Approach"

Sunday, March 17 at 2pm

Cora Dance Studio, Red Hook

2 blocks from IKEA Water Taxi

Little Creatures has been working with the great organization Pop-Up Adventure Play to bring veteran UK playworker Marc Armitage to our neighborhood in South Brooklyn!On March 17, Marc, who has been practicing for 30+ years in the UK, will lead a 90 minute hands-on workshop, a sort of playwork "how-to." This is an unusual opportunity to hear a widely recognized and experienced playworker and playwork trainer speak on such topics as: what playwork offers, some of the key names and theories, and how playwork approaches can be combined with other ways of working. This event will help our community of parents and educators to move closer to revitalizing the landscape of play/facilitation in playgrounds and schools. This is something our play-deprived culture, and our over-scheduled children, so desperately need.

At Little Creatures we believe that young children need to spend as much time as possible in the "flow" of unstructured imaginative play. This type of play can only flourish when children are given time to develop their own imagined worlds. In order for children to "find" this time, their parents must buy into the concept that unstructured free play is essential. Once we agree on that, we need to start learning how best to facilitate children in their play. Most times this simply means: how can we parents (and teachers, if they have the luxury of asking themselves the question) get out of our children's way, so that their play is their own? Many times, particularly for urban dwellers, this means: how can we find safe places for children to play? Sometimes, for parents like myself, this means: how can we foster imaginative play even when our access to conducive venues (ie: playgrounds with the most open-ended structures; natural landscapes, etc.) is limited (ie: say you live in Red Hook)? Another question I often ask myself (in reference to my 4-year-old): How can I provide my child with sufficient opportunities to manipulate "loose parts" (a key playwork buzzword and a key to healthy play), such that she can literally build new and original worlds for her play, each and every time she has a play experience? Taking her to a playground that has a static climbing/sliding structure just doesn't cut it, if that is the goal! Along with many other parents who realize how vital imaginative play is to their children's healthy development, I keep asking myself: how do we give our children the best opportunities to let their play unfold, unfettered by too much structure from scheduled activities, our own commentary, or toys/playground structures that don't allow for open-ended play? To answer these questions we need to be in conversation with professionals like Marc, who is making himself available as a playwork emissary to countries like ours who don't know enough about the field.

So, what is Playwork, exactly, and why is it so important? It's a term we don't hear enough of these days, at least in the States. I was first tipped off to playwork by another UK playwork emissary, Penny Wilson, when she presented at the NYC Coalition for Play on the same day that I did a video screening/talk in 2008 (we shared the bill with the always amazing Richard Lewis of the Touchstone Center for Children). [See further down in this post for some of Penny's words, from her very informative book The Playwork Primer (download PDF here)]. Here's a definition from Pop-Up Adventure Play:

Playwork is a profession wholly dedicated to supporting children's freely chosen, self-directed play in a variety of settings. Playwork approaches are used with children aged 0-19, and reframe such issues as challenging behavior and children's rights in unique and powerful ways. With its professional bodies, training structures and educational and theoretical frameworks firmly established in the UK, Germany, Japan and elsewhere, playwork is still "emerging" in the United States.

And as Marc Armitage says, Playwork is about enabling children and young people to play by providing sympathetic and adaptable environments in which they can do so without the need for direct adult involvement ... it is not 'adult-led' or ‘child-led’ but ‘play-led’. We need to hear from real playworkers, like Penny and Marc, if we intend to incorporate playwork into our playground, school and/or parenting practice. Marc has been at this thing for over thirty years, and has quite an interesting story to tell. I can't wait to hear it in person.

A recent event run by Suzanna Law of Pop-Up Adventure Play, at the Cooperative Academy of Manchester

Here are some links that help to elucidate this field:

The Playwork Primer, a wonderful 40-page PDF by UK playworker Penny Wilson, further explains what playwork is. Here are a few helpful bits:

Part of the oxymoronic nature of playwork is that we need to be present and not present at the same time. For those of you with a cloak of invisibility this is easy. For the rest of us, we have to learn skillful modes of intervention that allow us to support the play process without adulterating it with our own agendas. (p 10)

“Cardboard City” is an experiment that you can try. Give a group of children some time, some cardboard boxes, tape, and a supportive but not directive adult, and they will create all the wonders of the world. We tried this in an elementary school in Flint, Michigan. For one hour the classroom was given to the children, to create whatever they wanted from boxes, tape, rope, and fabric. You can see some of the results in the PBS documentary Where Do the Children Play?'

In Nicholson’s theory loose parts refers to anything that can be moved around, carried, rolled, lifted, piled on top of one another, or combined to create interesting and novel structures and experiences. Loose parts include wood, containers, shapes, toys, animals, plants, and so on. Loose parts allow children to take an object that has a loosely deﬁned purpose and use it to be anything that they want for their playing. Thus a cardboard box can be a den or a car or an airplane, a bed or a tortoise shell . . . Loose parts liberate the imagination and creativity of the playing children and allow them to master the world around them in ever-changing ways and communicate more effectively through their playing. (p 17)

The Alliance for Childhood has a helpful Playwork Page.

Playwork: An Introduction, very informative Penny Wilson video.

A playworker intervention is the smallest possible with the maximum outcome from the child. . . A major part of the work of the playworker is to learn how to observe, and to watch what the children are doing, and to see from that observation, how the environment can be adapted or changed or enhanced to give them more experiences that they could discover for themselves.

The Theory of Loose Parts: An important principle for design methodology. Paper by Simon Nicholson. Studies in Design Education Craft & Technology. Vol. 4, No. 2 (1972).

In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it. . . . most environments that do not work (i.e. do not work in terms of human interaction and involvement in the sense described) such as schools, playgrounds, hospitals, day-care centres, international airports, art galleries and museums, do not do so because they do not meet the 'loose parts' requirement; instead, they are clean, static and impossible to play around with.

Why should educators, parents and policy makers invest time and money to learn from Marc Armitage? I trust my colleagues over at Pop-Up Adventure Play, a lovely US/UK partnership that uses playwork. They have committed their resources to sponsor Marc's tour, and they do great playwork themselves (see Morgan's blog, or Suzanna's).

Erin Davis has a magical film in the works about a very special playground (which employs playworkers) in Wales.

David Rockwell and the design team of Imagination Playground in NYC consulted with playworkers such as Penny Wilson. They also created playwork-type positions for park rangers (ie: there must be a staff member on site at all times to care for their own brand of Loose Parts, and these rangers facilitate children's play to some extent).

I made a couple of videos in London in the Spring of 2011, which have to do with Playwork/Adventure Play. I will be posting more soon, as two years is simply too long to have spent editing these things!

For more information about Marc, visit www.marc-armitage.eu, read about the Keep Calm and Play On Tour, or follow Pop-Up Adventure Play on Facebook.

Marc Armitage

This March 17th event is the exclusive NYC workshop on Marc's tour, and only 35 tickets exist! It's filling up, so if you're interested please click here to purchase your ticket(s). Why Red Hook? Red Hook might seem pretty far away from the rest of NYC, but the IKEA water taxi (free on weekends) will take participants from Pier 11 near Wall Street, to just two blocks away from the venue. This will be a fine opportunity for you to visit a very charming and eccentric neighborhood, one that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, and that still has a lot of needs. You might want to plan to head over to one of these fine establishments after the event, to celebrate St. Patrick's Day: Baked, The Good Fork, Home/Made, Fort Defiance, Red Hook Lobster Pound, or Brooklyn Crab. And of course Irish Pub Rocky Sullivans, just a block from our workshop venue, will be a great place to celebrate! You can also help the rebuilding of Red Hook by donating to Restore Red Hook, Red Hook Volunteers, or the Red Hook Initiative.

And we have a winner . . .

2013-02-11T03:28:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to our winner, Erin Davis! Magnolia pulled her name out of the giveaway bag this evening, so our little DVD/Book will be heading up to Vermont. What a fun connection--I recently supported Erin's film on Kickstarter! I cannot wait to see it--a documentary about The Land, an adventure playground in Wales. Erin and I have been comparing notes since 2011 when I was introduced to her through colleagues at Pop-Up Adventure Play. I look forward to following her upcoming production trip through her project updates.

On that note, Erin is providing just what the US needs right now: more info/documentation about adventure playgrounds and the professional field of playwork. I will post more about that soon but until then, see this previous post, and this video I made of another wonderful adventure playground, Glamis in East London. And if you're in NYC, come out and hear from a real UK playworker in Red Hook, Brooklyn on March 17 (purchase tickets here).

Thanks so much to all the other folks who left very helpful comments. Thank you to Allie Pasquier of the lovely blog Bakers and Astronauts, and to Joy Holder of the wonderful Brooklyn Forest School, for featuring this project on your respective sites. I am continuing to seek out new ways to get Spirit Ship into the hands of interested parents and teachers, so that you can share it with children. While the book itself is expensive to produce (it retails on my site for $40-individual/$75-institutional), I'm open to providing the DVDs at a discounted rate (special deals coming soon!), providing a low-cost download of the film, and transforming the book into a downloadable PDF. Thank you again everyone who took the time to give some feedback--every comment really does count as I consider where the Little Creatures project is going!

Spirit Ship DVD-Book, A Giveaway

2013-01-25T22:56:00.002-05:00

Dear friends of Spirit Ship, one and all, old and young. It is time to bestow a limited edition Spirit Ship DVD/Book to a friend (as yet unknown to us! but not for long) somewhere in the world. We are going to do a random DVD/Book giveaway. This is happening because we at Little Creatures want to get the word out about our little film. We at Little Creatures realize that the little creatures (even we ourselves), could not even afford our own product, and we empathize. We made our little 17-minute film and an elaborate book to go with it, four years ago (well, actually we shot the film in '08 and it and the book were completed in '11). We want to make an effort to put a little more Spirit Ship out there into the world. We are sad that children all over the US (and by extension, the world, given the way US media seeps and creeps into the global market) are watching a lot of television and film that does not include authentic children's narration or dialogue. We want to hear what real children are saying and thinking, and we want to see how they play, and what adventures they're having. We are sad when we turn on the television (or when the 10-month-old in the house turns it on, whether we wanted to or not!) and look for children's fare and see only cartoons, and little to no live action. We are sad when we can only find Mister Rogers online, on PBS Kids. We are sad that kids in the States can't access the wonderful live action programming that channels like KROYouth in the Netherlands are producing (well, then again they're on YouTube and Vimeo), with wonderful shows like Groeien (a preschool gardening series), for example.

So, we want to put our Spirit Ship into the hands of a family who might really love to see a live action mystery shot in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We are looking for a customer who appreciates a good story but prefers doc-style kid adventure videos, with no script. We are looking for someone who loves our work, but might not feel like paying $40 for our latest product (our DVD/Book). If this description applies to you, please leave a comment in today's post, answering one or all of these questions:

- What TV (if any) do you allow your child to watch?
- Have you seen any media lately that included children's authentic words (not scripted by adults)?
- How would you share the Spirit Ship DVD/Book with children in your family/school/church?

~~We will close comments by 8pm EST on Sunday February 3~~. We are extending the deadline until 8pm EST on Sunday February 10! We will compile all the names who wrote in, do a random drawing of one of those names, and announce the winner shortly thereafter. Here is a glimpse of the goods! This is what you are entering to win, if you answer the questions above:

The book is built around a selection of film stills and accented by a range of detailed drawings and handwritten titles Sophia (the Bird Girl in the film) drew, based on the film. A set including the book along with a DVD of the film itself (including 5 Special Features) is available for purchase on our website, for $40 (Individual/Family Rate) or $75 (Institutional Rate: Schools, Colleges, Museums). And at Blurb, the site where the book was printed, the book itself can be purchased (without the DVD) for $25.

Here Blurb has provided a virtual preview, where you can peruse 15 pages of the 38-page book:

Spirit Ship by Kristin B. Eno | Make Your Own Book

Thanks for looking, commenting, throwing your name into the mix, and ultimately for providing feedback about our work. We really look forward to hearing from you, and to providing this very special gift to one of you!

MLK Day, through a child's eyes

2013-01-21T15:45:00.002-05:00

I'm always on the lookout for child-narrated videos, and in this case was searching for one to share with my 4-year-old on this MLK day. It turns out that little Anna Weed of Seattle, WA narrated a video about Martin Luther King, and it provides a child-friendly overview (though it does mention his being shot) of King's life. I'm going to share it with my daughter, which will make for two segments of moving images/media--much more than a normal day. The first of the day being, of course, Obama's second inauguration! How fitting that our first African-American president could be sworn in for the second time on the day we are commemorating Reverend King's legacy.

Spirit Ship at Wave Hill

2012-10-21T00:19:00.000-04:00

Spirit Ship is screening in a (secret) location at the wonderful Wave Hill, a garden by the Hudson River, this weekend during the event "Enchanted Wave Hill." Children will have the opportunity to listen to Rama Mandel's magical stories, fashion fairy wands and houses out of natural materials, and paint on silk fabric with Janice Patrignani. The event runs from 10-2 on Saturday and Sunday and is free thanks to funding by Target.

Play Lab's First Event in Brooklyn

2012-08-21T14:33:00.003-04:00

Calling all young children who love to explore, investigate and create, and their parents or caregivers: Today is the first Play Lab! Our kind colleague Howard Weiss and his staff at ArtsCetera are so gracious to host us in their space for children (212 Smith St). From 3:30-5pm you and your little one(s) ages 0-7 can move around, build with and invent new creations, unlike those fabricated by children in most other kids' art programs in the city. The goal of our time together will be making several ephemeral constructions around the room, so none of the materials will leave the space at the end of the day. It's all about PROCESS!!

KBE of Little Creatures, with longtime friend
and collaborator Elisha Georgiou

For over a year I've been plotting with my TC Art Ed M.Ed. colleague and Spirit Ship collaborator (mommy of the Bird Girl and co-author of our companion DVD booklet) Elisha Georgiou to start a "play lab" of sorts, a space for children to explore, Reggio-style. Often Sean would refer to the Play Lab idea as my excuse to collect objects. Don't know what to do with this strange molded packing cardboard? Just put it in a box full of an assortment of tiny boxes, empty jars of any size, stretchy crinkly paper packing material, fine quality pads of paper thrown out by neighbors, etc., close up the box, and label it "Play Lab"! [Ah, that fine line between saving art materials and hording . . .] After creating 4+ of these boxes, ie: just when we were really getting going on our plans, Baby #2 came along! Still, all life-changes aside, Elisha and I have continued to collect kindred spirits and potential collaborators along our planning journey, one of whom is Linda White.

Linda White, Pied Piper
of Materials Exploration

It took the NAREA conference in Monterey CA last summer to bring Elisha and Linda together, though we all live in the same city. What a nice surprise to go to the ends of the earth to conferences or residencies and meet New Yorkers! Linda is quite the Pied Piper of Materials-based Exploratory Kids' Workshops, ie: she comes to every location far and wide with a mystery bag full of unusual materials, mostly recycled, others just rare and wonderful, all waiting to be transformed by little hands. Today at ArtsCetera for our first Play Lab event, Linda and her great collection of magnets, as well as other mystery materials (TBA) will be in effect! Here are some images of Linda's magical Play Studio housed within a carriage house in the West Village, where she hosts sessions of materials exploration for all ages:

So if you long for your child to have more opportunities for open-ended (as opposed to product-oriented) arts experiences, come out for this first FREE DROP-IN Play Lab!!! And until the Play Lab website and blog are up and running, check back here for more details on future Play Lab events . . . Here are some images of the type of explorations and investigations we are trying to foster:

An arrangement of plastic bottle caps--
our collection is looking so beautiful today!

Work on the light table (or box in this case).

Inspiration from a natural materials and clay workshop by
Caren Shayne of Brick Church School, NYC, held
in conjunction with the 92 St Y's Wonderplay Conference, 2011.

Rainbow wood magnets at the Eric Carle Museum's atelier.

Alternatives to blocks . . . marketed as "Tree Blocks" but also
used as art materials in Brick Church School's atelier.

There's Something Inside

2012-06-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

Motherhood is exerting a tight grip on my consciousness these days. Many times lately I've faced the reality that I am no longer able to just get down on children's level and play with them. Why is this? Perhaps it's the three-year-old and the three-month-old, borne of my flesh and blood, who are always by my side or in my arms. Prior to my first daughter's birth, I thought that taking on the role of Mother would heighten my proclivity to facilitate and document play. With my very own guinea pigs at the ready, Sally Mann-style (but clothed), wouldn't I have many more prime opportunities? Perhaps. But three years later, I seem to mostly have a backlog of unedited footage of my first child (here's one exception), and in the three months since the birth of the second I have been grappling with the issue of not having time to even think, much less make good work. The shocking thing, as it goes against all my beliefs about the necessity of imaginative play, and the power of adult facilitation (a la Vygotsky), is that so often I do not want to play at all with my daughter; quite the contrary, I just want some time to myself. What bitter irony is this, that I have so much "work" to do surrounding the subject of Children's Play, that I cannot relax enough to simply play with my own daughter?

So as I bounce my three-month-old, declining invitations to climb onto the play equipment with my three-year-old, I'm secretly daydreaming of getting into the action, Little Creatures-style. My dreams are fueled by flashbacks to my pre-Mom days, when I was always at the ready, costumes and props in tow, camera and notebook in hand, prepared to facilitate an army of young people as they took on the world of squirrels, caterpillars, treasures buried in the grass and mysteries hidden in the trees. But would other parents find it awkward if we were standing around at the playground and I changed roles--Mommy to Play Facilitator? Perhaps not, as most of them know what I do . . . and anyway, aren't all mommies inherently play facilitators in some sense?

One dear friend and colleague (we met at Dartmouth and moved to the city together in 1999) who completely understands this strange balancing act is Rachel Federman, who blogs about motherhood and writing at Last American Childhood. I was having one of those days, where I just wanted to escape my motherhood and "talk about ideas," even before my second little creature came along . . . in March of 2011. Rachel and I, and our kids Magnolia and Wally, 2 and 3 at the time, had met up as we tried to do every week that year. This day we had met at Rachel's place in Chelsea, and we ventured into the yard next to her building complex. As always, getting Wally and "Memes" (Wally's sweet nickname for Magnolia) together was really only an excuse for Rachel and I to tend to our own friendship, which was suffering the distance of a river between us. So as much as both of us wanted to tune in to our respective children's development, and as much as we were interested in the way they played together, we mostly wanted have our own conversation "about ideas." Well, this was not to be: once outside, the children proceeded to scream in their high-pitched screams, and scurry about underfoot, pleading "Mommy, Mommy!" just enough for us to be reminded that our lives were not our own . . . not for a good long while. How to navigate this balance? Work and Play, Work about Play, and that strange phenomenon called Motherhood . . .

Somehow, some way, within that post-winter, almost-barren yard in Chelsea, the worlds of our two moms and two kids truly converged, and a magical investigation of seedpods, and a video, resulted. I shouldn't even use that word "result," as all that happened that day was a great big lesson in that elusive thing called Process. The process of our children seeing, touching, getting to know forms that come from the earth. The process of us seeing our children more fully. The process, for every one of us, of becoming human. Here is the video of that day.

Several things stand out: Whether or not Memes and Wally are cognizant of it, it is clear that they are on an adventure together. This investigation does not take them away from their their beloved mommies, but enables their separate toddler worlds to orbit around and cross over one another. Memes picks up seedpods and parts of seedpods, sweetly singing "dee dee dee dee dee . . ." She crumbles the pods between her fingers, and then says, "This is 'dee dee dee' . . . " Then as she walks out of the bushes, she sings her song: "going out of the bush to play in the room, something is coming, talking in the trees and the forest."

The most powerful thread running through the recorded memory of that day is Wally's repetition, "There's something inside." He states it again and again, as if surprised each time by this fact. There's something inside of that seedpod. A whole bunch of tiny fluffy seeds! As he speaks, his hands go up to the heavens, imparting these sacred words to all creatures standing or fluttering within earshot. The simplicity of this statement, its repetition, and the wonder with which Wally says it, makes for a beautiful representation of the young child who has taken a glimpse into life and beheld the gravity of the situation. The video has captured the moment wherein Wally discovered something magnificent that reaches beyond his comprehension, and that draws him in to want to know more.

"There's something inside," Wally repeats, and that really says it all.

This video teaches me that the continuum is in order. Things are proceeding forward. Little Creatures are growing, and I have been planting them and watering them and giving them sunlight. We are in this together--my own dear children, the precious little ones who belong to my friends, and all the amazing children I have ever worked with or taught. This video shows me that my work is indeed connected to the work of my children (their play), whether I know it or not. Unless I can find a way to stop time and rewind it (with the help of video), I sometimes begin to uphold a misplaced understanding the whole project of Family. Those closest to me can seem to stand in the way of "what I'm trying to do" with my "work." But if I step back and hear Magnolia singing about the trees, hear her friend Wally talking about what's inside, I know. I know that life is so beautiful, and I am so thankful for our little ones for helping us to see the truth, hidden within the mysteries growing and moving all around us.

Postcard From 1952

2012-05-10T11:57:00.000-04:00

Explosions in the Sky has a new music video out, and it brings with it a steady ache in the throat and the tears. Just like the videos for Sigur Rós's Glósóli (dir. Arni & Kinski), and Iron and Wine's Naked as We Came (dir. Sam Beam), this video by Peter Simonite and Annie Gunn opens up an old photograph and reveals a world inhabited by a collective lost childhood. The film evolves in a slow burn, just like the brilliant music surging underneath it, as we pass through yards and rooms inhabited by a collection of children young and older. Each lost soul casts a sidelong glance beyond the frame, to a world outside our reach, and we're left wishing we could just feel that shimmery bubble, that prickly sprinkler, taste that smoke and that kiss. The climactic 5th minute could slay a hardened heart with its slow motion collapse of candles, bulbs, hearts, as the music builds and builds, relentless and beautiful. Then everything stops, for the expression on the girl's face when she sees what becomes of her beautiful delicate bubble breaks our hearts. We are reminded that the darkness is creeping in. But then we see that there is a force that cares for us, blowing the next bubble, so that we can reach again and again, to the sky.

See the directors talk about making this film.

"I love doing mysteries . . . "

2011-12-15T01:02:00.000-05:00

That's what Heaven said when I asked her what it was like to make Spirit Ship the year before. She was seven, and we had filmed when she was six. Now she's nine. How time flies when you don't have funding . . . and decide to start having children! Despite many timing and resource malfunctions, I'm happy to announce that three years after our shoot, Spirit Ship is available for sale in a lovely package complete with original art, a tiny key and purple ribbon, reminiscent of those Heaven strung around her neck before setting off on her journey. Now children and families far and wide can have a chance to "do the mystery" of Spirit Ship. The following is the text of the DVD press release, and here it is as well on the new Spirit Ship website:

Spirit Ship Offers a Rare Glimpse into the Poetry and Beauty of Childhood

The Red Hook, Brooklyn-made Spirit Ship (17 min, HD & Super 8, 2011) the first HD short directed by Kristin B. Eno of Little Creatures Films, is now available on DVD, and will soon also be sold with a companion full-color booklet designed to extend children’s viewing experience and to equip adults with practical ways to encourage imaginative play. Spirit Ship, a live-action fantasy film narrated by children, highlights children’s play in the natural world, and reveals a thoughtful perspective into the mystery and poetry that lives within children’s imaginations.

What Children are saying about Spirit Ship:
• Heaven, 7 years old (participated in the film one year before): "It was like playing house or something, but you really doing it on a real camera. Cause playing house, you make stuff. But it's like, Real. It was interesting because we explored stuff a lot and go on adventures. And we see special stuff and mysteries, and I love doing mysteries."
• Sophia, 5 years old (participated in the film one year before): "It's like you're in the movie, like Alice in Wonderland, like you fell asleep watching it, and then you got into the movie."
• Mollie, 10 years old: "You hear this boy, and you hear this girl, and you see all these pictures, and you don't really know what's going to happen. It sort of leaves you intrigued. It doesn't say, 'Oh, this is a film about blah, blah, blah.' It leaves you wondering. It intrigues you."
• Ewan, 10 years old: "Black and white, it's very cool, very mysterious. Looks like they're going to explore the beach, and what's in the ocean. It reminds me of my garden, and looking through old things, going into little forts that I made, in between yards. The voices were so mysterious."

To make Spirit Ship, Kristin and crew followed six children as they discovered a range of haunting artifacts and went on a journey to find the original owners. Kristin and Sean Eno and Damaris Cozza wrote a story, which then evolved as the children played, and was further developed through the children’s ad-lib voiceover narration and singing. Assistant to Director Damaris Cozza, Director of Photography Roman Jaquez, 1st Assistant Director and 2nd Camera Henri Falconi, Super 8 DP, Score Composer and Title Designer Sean Eno, Sound Recordist and Designer John Moros, Editor Michelle Chang, Co-Editor Erin Martell, Costume Designer Sarah Hoit and Post-Production Assistant Jenna Haley contributed to the film team. Spirit Ship is a fiscally sponsored project of the Brooklyn Arts Council, and also raised post-production funds in a Kickstarter campaign. The latest screening of Spirit Ship took place in November 2011atColumbia Teachers College, and included a discussion with Renee Cherow-O’Leary, Marj Kleinman and Russell Miller. Spirit Ship took home the prize for "Best Fiction Film" at 2011’s Red Hook Film Festival. It was also a preliminary selection for the Primary/Audiovisual category of the Japan Prize for Educational Media. Director Kristin Eno is currently seeking partners—schools, universities, museums, churches and non-profit organizations—for Spirit Ship screenings and conversations, and for opportunities to distribute the DVD and booklet to parents, educators and others interested in providing children with opportunities for imaginative play.
DVD
The DVD includes the 17-minute film and the following Special Features:

1. Spirit Ship with English Subtitles

2. Spirit Ship with Milo’s Commentary

3. Behind the Scenes (narrated by Heaven)

4. Spirit Lens (narrated and edited by Milo)

5. Bird Girl's World (narrated by Sophia).

This package is on sale in the Spirit Ship Shop for $15 (family)/$50 (institutional).

DVD/Book
The 38-page book includes:
1. "Spirit Ship: Exploring the Hidden," by Kristin B. Eno
2. "Building Upon Spirit Ship: A Guide for Parents and Teachers," by Elisha Georgiou
3. Ten suggested lesson plans that can extend the Spirit Ship viewing experience.
4. Book design by Elizabeth Eno, including several full color stills from the film, as well as art by Sophia (the Bird Girl/Spirit Child).
In January of 2012, the DVD/Book set will go on sale for $40 (family)/$75 (institutional).

Little Creatures Films
Little Creatures Films collaborates with children (non-actors) to create imaginative live-action films told in the children’s voice. The slow pace and poetry of the films represent a unique alternative to the standard fare in children’s media. The films support inquiry-based learning, creative problem solving, reflective thinking and social and emotional self-regulation. The work takes into account the crisis of decreased free play, as documented by the Alliance for Childhood and NYTimes. The films redirect children’s gaze away from the screen and back outside to the world around us, where myriad highly original adventures are waiting to be created. Kristin B. Eno (M.Ed. Columbia Teachers College) has produced more than 20 videos with children, including commissions for the Yale Center for British Art and the Childcare Collection at Ball State University.

Contact:
Director Kristin B. Eno
kristin@littlecreaturesfilms.com
(t) 347-564-0213

The Spirit Ship Book: Exploring the Hidden

2011-11-28T22:17:00.001-05:00

The companion book to Spirit Ship is now complete, and this momentous event bestows a bit of hard-earned closure on a three-year-long project. It's been such a pleasure to work with my sister-in-law Liz Eno, who designed the book. I wrote one of the essays (which Rachel Federman of Last American Childhood edited) and commissioned another by Elisha Georgiou (my fellow M.Ed. student at Columbia Teachers College, many moons ago, and mother of Sophia, the "Bird Girl" in the film).

The book is built around a selection of film stills and accented by a range of detailed drawings and handwritten titles Sophia did based on the film. A set including the book along with a DVD of the film itself (including 5 Special Features) is available for purchase on our website, for $40 (Individual/Family Rate) or $75 (Institutional Rate: Schools, Colleges, Museums). And at Blurb, the site where the book was printed, the book itself can be purchased (without the DVD) for $25. Here Blurb has provided a preview, where you can peruse 15 pages of the 38-page book:

Spirit Ship by Kristin B. Eno

Here is an excerpt from the essay I wrote for the book:

Something magical happens when children play. They invent stories; they collaborate to solve mysteries; they enter dream worlds of their own creation. In this age of electronic media, battery-operated toys and intensely structured activities, children are finding fewer opportunities to engage in completely unstructured play. As children’s parents and teachers we have become so used to seeing our little ones in front of the computer or television, being coached in formal sports and instructed both during school and in after school classes; however, when it comes to children’s imaginative play, we may fi nd ourselves wondering: What is an authentic play experience? When playing freely, what are children really saying, thinking and learning? As a first grade and K-2 art teacher, and later as an Art Education M.Ed. student, I found myself always asking the question: just what is going on within these complex imaginary worlds? How deep into a metaphysical landscape might children venture when given a chance to play in a wide-open space? As my research revealed more instances of children learning intellectually, socially, emotionally, and physically through their play, I began to see the need to provide children more time to simply play. Because many of them are—incredible as it may seem—new to the idea of imaginative play, it also became clear that they needed inspiration to run free and to make up their own stories as they went along.

Ten years of experience making imaginative live action videos with young children in NYC schools helped me to hone the question: Could artfully-shot films capture children’s process of authentic play? How might the tool of digital video be thoughtfully used to gain deeper insight into the language of young children’s authentic fantasy worlds? Could the finished “films” then inspire other children to engage in their own imaginative play? Could these films fill a gaping void in the children’s media market: that of live action films with no adult-written scripts? Could the films provide a needed glimpse into the inner workings of young children’s minds? Could they by extension bring us closer to understanding not only how children’s minds work, but how human beings are connected to each other, to the worlds around them, both natural and spiritual? Spirit Ship was made as a response to these questions. After years of witnessing children’s narration that so often veered into the spiritual, it occurred to me that I could fashion a project that gave children the freedom to explore spiritual subjects even more deeply. So with Spirit Ship I aimed not only to present children’s imaginative wanderings as true and lovely, as I had been doing for years, but also to unveil the depths of children’s capacity for spiritual understanding.

In essence, the book functions like a teacher's guide for parents who are looking for alternative media options for their children. This essay and the one Elisha wrote (both viewable in the preview book above) present the wider picture within which the film itself is situated, providing for parents the back story, vision and goals of Spirit Ship. The theory behind the filmmaking soon gives way to loose facilitation of a range of magical journeys designed to extend children's viewing experience. Ultimately we wanted to send the message that Spirit Ship as a media entity is not at all about viewing a finite, 17-minute film, just for entertainment's sake. Rather, the film presents a concept, a state of mind, which might well provide hours of exploration for any thoughtful child and his/her family.

The book is a simple invitation to parents to walk alongside Little Creatures Films as we seek to provide healthy ways of redirecting children's gaze away from the screen, and back outside. As children's media producers and marketers know all too well, parents are the gatekeepers to their children's time, and by extension, to their hearts and minds. The book acknowledges how important parental involvement is when it comes to media co-viewing, discussing and extending, and builds upon that essential component of child development. Combined with the full color stills from the film, these essays and extension projects aim to attract a range of parents to a broader discussion about the wonders of childhood play in nature, the power of mystery as a fundamental element of children's imagination, the beauty of young children's storytelling as manifest through their early language, and the spiritual wisdom that children reveal in their deepest ponderings.

Fanciful and Engaging

2011-11-23T00:57:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, November 30 at 4pm, Spirit Ship will be screened for an audience of professionals in the fields of education and children's media. I'm honored to have the film make an appearance at the institution where I did my graduate studies (M.Ed., Art and Art Education, 2001-04). The Columbia Teachers College website describes Spirit Ship as a "fanciful, highly imaginative, and engaging short narrative film." Next Wednesday after we screen Spirit Ship (17 min), I will have a conversation with the following panel colleagues concerning the implications of the film for early childhood education and the children's media market:

   • Renee Cherow-O'Leary, President, Education for the 21st Century: Renee has served on the Little Creatures Films advisory board for the past three years. We met at TC when I was a student and she a professor, and reconnected at an NYC children's media event years later.

   • Marj Kleinman, Senior Interactive Producer of Children’s and Educational Media,THIRTEEN WNET: Marj and I met through a mutual friend, but while we live in the same city, what first ensued was a five-year-long email conversation. We finally met this year in person, and were thrilled to find out that our respective visions and goals align in many ways.

   • Russell Miller, Managing Director, Center for Intentional Media: Russell and I met at the Fred Forward conference at the Fred Rogers Center in 2009, and he went on to support Spirit Ship and to invite Little Creatures to be a part of an exciting new children's online TV network he is developing.

Wednesday, November 30
4 pm

Room 306 Russell

Teachers College, Columbia U.
525 W. 120 St.
New York, NY

Find out more information about the event and the panelists here. All teachers, professors, children's media professionals, museum educators and parents are welcome to attend!

Back to the Roots of Spirit Ship

2011-11-10T00:36:00.001-05:00

Spirit Ship took home the prize for "Best Fiction Film" at this year's Red Hook Film Festival over the weekend of October 15-16. The films were screened in the converted warehouse that hosts the BWAC art show, just around the corner from the building (also evoking Civil War-era nostalgia) where we shot the last scene of Spirit Ship in October of 2008. This award was such a surprise and an honor, and simply screening the film in that familiar location brought the project full circle, three years later! We were part of a lovely family-friendly block of shorts that included Unstrung, a lyrical piece by Meerkat Media and Puppet Collective and Flonia Telegrafi's short documentary, Lehigh Valley 79, which tells the amazing story of David Sharps (who hosted our 2010 fundraiser) and his Waterfront Barge/Museum.

A few weeks after the Red Hook festival, Spirit Ship and two other Little Creatures Films (Through the Window and Adventure at the Red Hook Community Farm) screened for educators attending the annual convention for the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Orlando, FL. I was excited for my work to follow a presentation by Resa Matlock of the Childcare Collection, with whom I had collaborated to produce three segments of the "Story in the Early Years" DVD series in 2009. That series, also available for sale in the NAEYC online store, includes several segments of Vivian Gussin Paley's storytelling/story acting, including her interaction with the Early Kindergarten class at P.S. 27 in Red Hook, where she visited in 2008 while I was working with three classes on a NYSCA-funded video-story-book project.

Resa Matlock of the Childcare Collection, Catherine Donohue of OMEP, Kristin Eno of Little Creatures

Both Resa and I have been significantly influenced by Vivian's work with children and storytelling/acting, so it's always affirming to meet back up with the guru herself, which we did this year because she was giving the convention keynote speech.

Vivian on the video feed at NAEYC. She mentioned that the only other time she had been seated in a chair as such had been across from Mr. Rogers. Oh to have heard that conversation!

Vivian posed the question to thousands of teachers from across the country (and I hear Iceland was represented, so make that the world): "Who will save the kindergarten?" This timely question certainly keeps ringing in the ears of any thoughtful early childhood educator, and Vivian would be the one to eloquently answer it! I will write more about her talk in an upcoming post which will also include a recent interview I did with her. Until then, here is the answer, friends: "the children and the teachers, they will save it."

Meanwhile, in Iceland . . .

2011-10-14T15:46:00.002-04:00

Mysterious fort/rock cabin at the Keflavik shoreline

My trip to the UK in May brought with it some interesting video projects, from Glamis Adventure Playground in Shadwell, East London, to Oxfordshire, to the University of Greenwich (which has a new Center for the Study of Play). What made the trip even more magical was a three-day stopover in Iceland. So while I still editing my London footage, I thought I would post a few images and thoughts from Iceland.

Several years ago I fell in love with that beautiful island through the music of Sigur Rós, Múm and Amiina, and by extension the wonderful Sigur Rós videos (and concert projections) featuring images of children. For a good introduction to the exciting things going on in both Icelandic music and film, watch the Glósóli video, one of my favorites in the world:

Suffice it to say, the directing team of Arni and Kinski, and Sigur Rós themselves, have a beautiful perspective of children that I am drawn to--it's clear that we are speaking the same language. As the cinematographer of this video Chris Soos said in an interview, "no weird Hollywood puppet children in Iceland." Thankfully. He goes on to speak of an "undercurrent of this film [that] diverts the audience towards a spiritual release, a re-birth in a way, obviously open to interpretation, as it should be, sorry, no easy answers." As always it's refreshing to see artists not only dealing with similar subject matter, but to find those who are grappling with deeply connected concepts.

I could not even attempt to explore all of Iceland in three days, but this form of stopover was better than nothing to get to know a place that has started to function like a muse for me. I started at Guesthouse 1x6 in Keflavik, a handcrafted oasis of wood, stone and repurposed materials, created by the talented Daniel Sigmundson. My midnight dip in the warm outdoor thermal bath, under a cold rain, set the tone for my magical sojourn in an enchanted land.

Ragga and her lovely daughter in the Knitting Iceland studio

To get to know crafty Icelandic goings-on, I contacted my friend Ragga Eiriksdottir of Knitting Iceland. She showed me around Reykjavik on the very week that she was featured in a NYTimes Magazine story about Iceland's post-crash renaissance and its crop of new entrepreneurs. Ragga gives tours of Iceland, through the lens of the craft of knitting, and also travels the world teaching workshops. Visiting her studio was a visual feast and an inspiration! And I was so happy to get a few of Ragga's impromptu mini-tours along the way, with sightings of Björk's house and a secret, perfectly round thermal pool by the shore (the unmarked work of an artist, and one of my favorite things on the trip).

This round thermal pool would sneak up on you . . .

Asta had many playgrounds and a beautiful public pool up her sleeve . . .

Just one of the playgrounds Asta showed me.

Kristin and Guðrún Alda Harðardóttir, the director of Leikskólinn Aðalþing

The kind and brilliant Lulu Guðjónsson, who introduced me to Ragga, also put me in touch with Asta Jonsdottir, who studied at NYU and now teaches Art Education at Iceland Academy of the Arts. She took me around to several playgrounds within walking distance from her house, which was very helpful for my ongoing research.

To find out what was going on in early childhood education, I contacted journalist and teacher Mica Allen and she put me in touch with some educators at the University of Iceland, who connected me with two Reggio-inspired preschools, Aðalþing and Sæborg. I visited the schools with Kristín Dýrfjörð, lecturer at University of Akureyri and pedagogical consultant for Leikskólinn Aðalþings. I was struck by the beauty and power of recycled materials at Aðalþing, captivated by the elaborate exploration of ramps that the fives were working on, and happy to share a homecooked lunch with colleagues around the teacher table. The school is only two years old but seems to have mastered the art of facilitating meaningful project-based learning for young children. The school is committed to documenting the many ongoing projects, which is evident on school walls as well as in the school's very comprehensive website, which includes many photos (see some other classes here and here) and videos of the children's explorations. I was so encouraged to see echoes of Reggio Emilia in a land that seems so far away. From the vantage point of this school, I could see that it was much closer than we think. It is so affirming to travel the world and find colleagues who "get it," like the teachers at Aðalþing. One of the many images that stuck with me was the location of the director Guðrún Alda Harðardóttir's desk. She had recently moved it from the main office to the Light Exploration room that the children filtered in in small groups to work with light throughout the week. What better or more beautiful location for a thoughtful workspace could anyone wish for? To me this gesture of solidarity with the children's world perfectly illustrates the "culture of thinking together" that is evident in Reggio-inspired schools, and in schools that truly take into account the minds of their students as brilliant and worthy of listening to.

The 5's wonderful ongoing ramp project at Aðalþing

Why use blocks in a classroom when you can use sticks?

Classic Icelandic preschool scene: Painted Lava!

Beautiful and intriguing installations at every turn, at Aðalþing

One of the many Kristins I would meet . . . Kristín Karlsdóttir, U of Icelan

At Sæborg we met with another Kristin, the atelierista. These were not the only two Kristins I met on this trip: the day prior I had a lovely lunch with yet another fine colleague named Kristín Karlsdóttir, lecturer/assistant professor at The University of Iceland, School of Education, who has done some very interesting work (with Bryndis Gardarsddótter) about
children's learning stories, in a study which explored the usage of documentation in ways that complement the work that I do
(with video viewing/reflecting).

Kristin and Kristin (Sæborg atelierista + U of Akureyri professor)

As for the Sæborg school, I was intrigued by the "Dinosaurs in New York" play that children had put on and the teachers had filmed just that day. The children had made their own costumes out of various materials in the atelier (see costumes hanging on wall in image below). I told the teachers I could imagine a segment by New York kids entitled "Dinosaurs in Iceland," as a response or continuation of the Sæborg piece, and why not do just that? This idea, of cultural exchange through collaborative video stories, goes back to my earliest video experimentations, specifically "Duende," a piece I filmed with three children in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2003, which I showed to children in Brownsville, Brooklyn, two years later. What resulted was a cross-cultural, bilingual and highly original two-part story about Duendes and Superheroes. I've always been wanting to continue along with that thread. My current work-in-progress started with a group of kids finding a mysterious box in New Orleans and will continue somewhere in New York City, but how I would love to have that story, or Mysteries in the Woods, continue along the dramatic Icelandic shoreline . . .

Costumes for "Dinosaurs in New York"

"Dinosaurs in New York," a student production

I love this child-made window art

Saeborg's playground by the sea

Spirit Ship Screens Around the World

2011-10-06T12:22:00.001-04:00

I am happy to announce that Spirit Ship will screen in the 2011 Red Hook Film Festival, appropriately located just around the corner from the location where we shot the last scene! Another fun aspect of this occasion is that our film will follow a short documentary about David Sharps and the Waterfront Museum, host of our 2010 fundraiser! Our film will screen in the "Red Hook Block: Family and Tradition," which starts at 2:30pm. Spirit Ship will be the last of five films in that block, most of which are about 6 min. long, resulting in a screening time of around 3pm. For more information on all the films in the line up, see Screening Schedule here.

Spirit Ship will also be available for viewing by children's media professionals at the Cinekid Screening Club in Amsterdam, from Oct 18 - 21. As the Cinekid website explains, "The ScreeningClub is Cinekid’s digital screening facility that provides a sheltered environment where informative exchanges and business transactions can take place. An international selection of the latest and best film and media productions for children (with English subtitles) is provided. Over 200 productions, including virtually the entire festival programme and new Dutch productions, can be screened by professionals from all over the world. Participants include buyers, sales agents, programmers and distributors."

Some further good news for the project: Spirit Ship has been chosen as a preliminary selection for the Japan Prize for Educational Media, a prestigious award run by NHK in Tokyo. The prize was established in 1965 with "the aims of improving the quality of educational programs around the world and contributing to the development and fostering of international understanding and cooperation." We have qualified for the second round of the Primary age category of the Audiovisual competition, and we are now competing for $2K and $5K prizes with productions from all over the world, such as "Authors Live" from the BBC, "Sailing in the Dark" from Taiwan, "Word Storm" from Sweden, "Happy Summer" from Iran, and many more. See complete list of our competitors here. We will hear back about results within the next few weeks.

Finally, I want to announce an invitation-only Spirit Ship screening for academics and professionals, happening at 4pm on November 30 at Columbia U. Teachers College. This event will feature a panel discussion with Renee Cherow-O'Leary, President of Education for the 21st Century, Marj Kleinman, Senior Interactive Producer, Children’s & Educational Media, THIRTEEN/WNET; and Russell Miller, Managing Director of the Center for Intentional Media and founder of Wonderreel. Following a screening of the 17 minute film, I will have a conversation with these three colleagues and the audience about the educational implications of Spirit Ship. While this screening is invitation-only, I am accepting proposals from interested colleagues who would like to attend this discussion but may not be on my mailing list. If you would like to be considered to attend this event, please email me at kristin (at) littlecreaturesfilms (dot) com.

Glamis/Playwork Series

2011-10-05T17:09:00.000-04:00

Bernard Spiegal of PLAYLINK on Glamis Adventure Playground from Little Creatures Films on Vimeo.

I have posted the first video in my new series on Glamis Adventure Playground and UK Playwork. It features Bernard Spiegal, Principal of PLAYLINK, speaking about Glamis, and some footage of the playground itself. He is speaking in conversation with Penny Wilson, playworker and author of The Playwork Primer. This 6 minute video was shot on my Flip camera in May 2011 at the University of Greenwich and at Glamis in Shadwell, East London. It was such a pleasure to work with both Bernard and Penny, and to get to see the wonders of Glamis in action. Thanks to Penny, Mark Halden at Glamis, and Mary Clare Martin of the Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation (at the U of Greenwich) for making this project possible. I will soon post more in this series . . .

Return to Eden

2011-08-24T14:01:00.000-04:00

A while back, Magnolia (2.5) and I and a local mom friend Amy and her children walked over to Mother Cabrini Playground on President St. in Carroll Gardens/Red Hook. Once we arrived I was struck by how this playground seems to cry out for a set of "loose parts," some bin of carefully-sourced objects that children could manipulate. As it is, the only things that are "loose" on site are two lumbering musty plastic houses that have somehow been adopted as part of the play equipment (see "Wastelands of Forgotten Play"). I was expressing to my friend my sadness about the playgrounds nearby (except for the wonderful Pier 6), and really starting to despair about the absurd metal and plastic wastelands that motherhood was causing me to suffer through . . . I scanned the area and noticed an unusual site: a group of young children crouched reverently around a small patch of green.

Quiet moments and rapt interest at the snail station

I walked over and peered in, past a little collection of heads: the children had set up a home-away-from-home (made up of leaves, branches and bark) for two snails, and they were observing and carefully interacting with the creatures, with the help of an adult.

"They really like each other."

It turned out that these children were students at the Red Hook Playgroup, and the adult facilitating this exploration was one of this neighborhood preschool's teachers. What a lovely revelation this was! I will be working with this school as an atelierista this coming Fall (to establish mini-ateliers in each classroom, and to document the vibrant materials exploration and project-based learning). So once I realized that this was in fact a group of students and teachers from RHP, I was not surprised to see the teachers' thoughtful facilitation of emergent learning within the context of the natural (albeit mediated in so many ways, in this playground) world.

"The snails are kinda slimy."

In an instant these kindred children and teachers helped redeem the playground for me. My future colleagues helped me realize that regardless of context, a "natural world" could always mend over the sad sameness of any black top (take the Red Hook Community Farm, Added Value, as a great example), almost like a band-aid, or a healing cast to salve the wounds and reset the bones maimed by industrialization. As I listened to the children, I thought about how throughout history, human societies have paved over the earth. But this little moment on the playground gave a simple gift of revealing the nature of the human spirit: with our children leading the way, we have a way of drifting back toward the Green, toward our natural home. The Snail Station reminded me of a couple of plants I've seen growing out of the asphalt here in Red Hook:

This plant will not be stopped.

A mushroom grows in Brooklyn.

Here are some comments I overheard the kids say while tending to the tiny beings at the Snail Station:

• Snails like woodchips and leaves and grass. Maybe they like to eat them and crunch them.
• I found the snail's eyes. The snails are kinda slimy. They're gonna poop in there.
• They movin away, see down and down and down, see it goes away.
• Here's the Daddy snail.
• Take care of the snails!


"I found the snail's eyes!"

By the end of that morning, as we left the playground, I was strategizing with Amy about how we could bring a bin of Loose Parts to Mother Cabrini Playground. Pots and pans, varied shapes and sizes of wood, recycled plastic caps . . . All of that still seemed so needed. And yet now I felt a deep sense that I was part of a whole picture, one much more inclusive of the voices of the children around me.

Peering into the natural snail habitat

I had just been witness to the Earth's attempt to gain back what it has lost. What better "loose parts" than creatures of the earth and bits and pieces of nature? And what better shepherds of creation than the youngest ones among us? While we adults are so ready to pave over this world, not only with blacktops but with smart phones and everything in between, the children lead us back to the green, so that we can remember to move as slowly as snails, to breathe in the summer air, and feel the texture of the leaves between our fingers.

Perfect Night

2011-08-11T17:53:00.001-04:00

Following the most perfect Red Hook sunset ever, on August 10 of 2011, Spirit Ship was screened for its world premiere, as part of the NYC Parks Department Summer Movies Series. A a crowd of around 100 people came out to Valentino Park by the Red Hook waterfront, and watched the film on the very site where we had shot two of the scenes three years before. Here is an impressionistic video compilation of the beginning of the evening, before the lights went down:

Here are some images of Valentino park, taken during our Spirit Ship shoot in the Fall of 2008 (Thanks Liz Eno for these shots):

Roman Jaquez, DP, and Henri Falconi, 2nd Camera, with Lindsy

. . . and some others from the night of the premiere (Thanks to Mike Allen for these shots):

Same view, three years later

Kristin and Sophia introduced the film

Co-Producers Kristin and Sean Eno

Happy Birthday, Carol!

Thanks Cindy and Andrew for your ongoing support!

Neighbors Hanna and Cat attended, with Violet.

Sophia, the Bird Girl, has grown up so much since we shot the film. And Janet Kim, longtime supporter.

The girls on their journey, under a Red Hook moon.

Spirit Ship Sails Tonight

2011-08-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

Join us tonight, Wednesday August 10, as our latest short film has its world premiere at a NYC Parks Dept Summer Movies Event! At 8:15 pm, Spirit Ship will screen in Valentino Park by the Red Hook waterfront in Brooklyn, in the same location where where our crew shot two scenes of our first professional short film. Members of the cast and crew will be present, and we will be giving out take-away treasure jars and selling DVDs.

Little Creatures take-away: treasure jar with tiny key and shell hidden in the sand.

Improvised and narrated by six NYC children, Spirit Ship was designed to disrupt the common conception of "children's media." It's poetic, haunting, spiritual; provides no pat answers; offers up many questions that help children engage with their world. It's a cross between a treasure hunt and a cozy campfire poetry reading. Come and see for yourselves.....

Synopsis: While exploring the crumbling shoreline of a Broken Land, three Children of Earth stumble upon a pile of detritus from a shipwreck. The children sift through these strange treasures, fall asleep and dream about the stories living inside them, and upon waking up, decide that they should go looking for the mysterious people who left them behind. Meanwhile, three Spirit Children are on their own journey within an alternate universe that flickers with dream-like film footage of bygone yards and playgrounds. The children continue exploring, past ramshackle warehouses and lonesome homes, trying rusted keys in forgotten locks, and finally come to be able to see beyond one world, into

another.

Spirit Ship (17 min) will be followed by Steven Sommer’s 1994 live action adaptation of The Jungle Book (111 min).

Directions:
Boat: IKEA Water Taxi from Pier 11 near Wall St.
(leaves NYC for Red Hook at 6:40, 7:20, and 8pm)
Train: F to Carroll St.
Bus: B61 to Van Brunt/Coffey St. (near Fairway)

More info at the NYC Parks Dept and on our Spirit Ship Facebook Page.

A tiny key is tied to the DVD sleeve with a purple ribbon, reminiscent of that which Heaven wove through her keys and wore around her neck in the film.

So what's included in the Spirit Ship DVD? The 17 min HD/Super 8 film itself, along with:

• Spirit Ship with English subtitles
• Behind the scenes (narrated by Heaven)
• Spirit Lens (narrated and edited by Milo)
• Bird Girl's World (narrated by Sophia)
• Spirit Ship with Milo's Commentary

The DVD sleeve graphic includes a stamp of a drawing and the words SPIRIT SHIP, by Sophia (the Bird Girl, who appears in the film still on the DVD itself, with Milo and Anastasia, the "Spirit Children"). This package is selling for $15, and all proceeds go toward making more unique and beautiful films for and about young children's imaginative adventures in the natural world.

The Secret Garden Project

2011-07-01T00:04:00.000-04:00

For years I have been meaning to offer afternoon video shoot/workshops to families, and it is finally happening. I have just launched The Secret Garden Project, and I am excited to be offering the process/product of a 2-3 minute original film about the imaginative play of young children in sibling and friend groups, shot in green spaces around NYC (or wherever I might find myself at the moment . . . the Catskills and Martha's Vineyard are coming up). So here is the first Secret Garden piece, called "Fairy Houses," and it's an elegy to the wondrous (and soon-to-be-dismantled) Patrick Dougherty sculpture, "Natural History," on view at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

What keeps me coming back to this work is the children's utter wonder at the natural world and each other. What they say of their own volition could simply not be written by adults. We cannot hold a candle to their amazing imaginations. Some examples, from Magnolia's (she's 2.5 now) narration of "Fairy Houses,"

- They're (the fairies) going to dream about snow, be quiet.

- Are you a angel? Are you a mommy angel, and I'm a daughter angel. I have wings.

- Could I hold you for a minute? So you don't get scared of the storm?

- I wanna go on a walk with you, I wanna go on a walk with you.

"Fairy Houses," 2:45 min. Ellie and Magnolia explore Patrick Dougherty's sculptures at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

A close up from an unfinished Secret Garden piece filmed at George's birthday party in June.

Another shot from an unfinished Secret Garden piece filmed at George's birthday party in June.

Magnolia and Ellie, safe within the Fairy Houses, yet blinded by the glorious light.

I've kept the cost of this offering as low as possible, primarily because the quality of the product that I can produce is constrained by the limitations of the Flip UltraHD camera. In the larger scheme of things, the camera is but a tool in the hands of a filmmaker. And because I own more than one, I can hand one to a child who is participating, and we can ultimately incorporate some child-made footage into the final product. As the flyer above states:

These unique artifacts speak for themselves as a record of children's play in nature, through the lens of Little Creatures Films. We provide a singular perspective on what your children are doing and saying in their play, and we ultimately present you with a beautiful heirloom to view with your family and friends for years to come.

Anatomy of Wonder, Part I

2011-06-16T11:07:00.001-04:00

What a pleasant surprise it is to experience the "small world" effect when researching children, play and media. This happened a while back when two worlds of wonder, Jerome and Dorothy Singer and Edith Cobb, converged.

Edith Cobb, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, Forward by Margaret Mead

Cobb follows Whitman's words on Childhood with this: "within the child's experience the value of fantasy and imagination is of the deepest importance..." (p 32)

Upon meeting Jerome Singer at the Creativity, Play and the Imagination conference at Columbia Teachers College last summer, I related to him how instrumental his and his wife Dorothy's work (Yale Psychology/Child Study Center/Family Television Research and Consultation Center) on children, play and media viewing had been to me when I was writing my M.Ed. thesis at TC in 2004. I had brought with me my faded copy of their book The House of Make Believe, and upon glancing at it, his first response was to say, "You know Edith Cobb . . . we spent quite a while in the library here, going through her collection . . ." I was at first surprised at the connection, but then I looked down at page 1 of his book, under the chapter heading "Memories of Childhood," and saw the name Edith Cobb. Of course, these were kindred spirits who loved children and appreciated the brilliance of childhood play!

Some other chapter headings: Imagination: The Realm of the Possible; Cognitive and Emotional Growth through Play; Creating an Environment for Imaginative Play; Television-Viewing and the Imagination; Play as Healing; (with another nod to Cobb) Toward the Creative Adult

Apparently he and Dorothy had known Edith, and perhaps their mention of Cobb's book in their own book had nudged me toward her in the first place, eight years ago (or else it was my colleague and kindred spirit, Richard Lewis of the Touchstone Center for Children). Margaret Mead's 1976 introduction to Cobb's seminal work, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, mentions Cobb's thirty year quest that "originated with the idea that in the imaginative experiences of childhood could be found the essential kernel of the highest forms of human thought" (p.1). This is no small statement! Cobb took on the project with abandon: her fieldwork consisted of hours spent watching children play and documenting the miniature worlds they constructed, and her research encompassed collecting some two hundred autobiographies, all of which had the common thread of referencing imaginative childhood memories. I look forward to visiting her book collection which is now housed in the Columbia Teachers College library.

What I am most drawn to in Cobb's writing is her discussion of the "sense of wonder" inherent in childhood, and its implications for the child's further development:

The sense of wonder is spontaneous, a prerogative of childhood. When it is maintained as an attitude, or a point of view, in later life, wonder permits a response of the nervous system to the universe that incites the mind to organize novelty of pattern and form out of incoming information. The ability of the adult to look upon the world with wonder is thus a technique and an essential instrument in the work of the poet, the artist, or the creative thinker (p. 27).

While Cobb may not be the first to pose such a link (she cites Plato as the one who defined wonder as the basis for cognition), she certainly devoted her life to following the mysterious trail between wonder-filled childhood and profound artistic life. Another interest I share with her is in the adult's role in facilitating imaginative development. Cobb writes:

For the young child, the eternal questioning of the nature of the real is largely a wordless dialectic between self and world. When language renders this confrontation articulate, it becomes an undertone to all persistent questioning by the child. The adult who senses this need and responds with integrity to the child's inquiries will find the child's heart and mind linked with his own (pp. 31-32).

Cobb's work laid the groundwork for what the Singers explore in The House of Make Believe: the opening paragraphs reference Cobb's attribution of the childhood "sense of wonder" to an awareness of nature and its forces.

We would like to go one step further and propose that this 'sense of wonder' is found not only in the autobiographies of and biographies of famous writers, artists and scientists but also in the recollections of those ordinary people who are creative and imaginative--or who could be if they would get in touch with their earliest memories of play (p 1).

The Singers do indeed "go one step further," by conversing not only on the subject of children's imaginations but pulling into the mix the increasingly complex variable of the children's media landscape. The extensive research they have done over the past few decades for entities as diverse as Mister Rogers and Barney to Fisher-Price and LEGO has served to bridge the gap between the worlds of imaginative play and children's media. When all is said and done, the Singers' thirty-year career of research and writing reminds parents and teachers that the ultimate purpose of children's media is, after all, the edification of children themselves.

Just as the Singers and Cobb are inextricably linked, when I look at their research through the lens of my work with Little Creatures Films, I feel even more that it's all connected: children's imaginations, media made for children, media made by and about children.

Take this statement from page 18 of The House of Make Believe:

From these childhood memories and many others like them we are able to add to our understanding of the factors that lead to the imaginative adult. We believe that children who are left alone with no encouragement to play, no place to play, and nothing to play with might indeed play, just because children are inquisitive creatures by nature. But when we add a caring person, a sacred space, and a few props or toys, imagination bursts forth.

This encourages me, as one who sometimes views the Play Facilitation I do with kids with some trepidation: Will I bombard the play with ideas the children don't need? Aren't the kids better off without us adults knowing what they're imagining? Is play "real" when we're watching? Dare I interject any words at all into the children's sacred play space? Of course it is real, and you can interact, say the Singers, reminding me that as a parent and a teacher, I can give children so much by leaning over into their play and nudging them just a bit, here and there. They even go so far as to discuss "imaginative play training," citing Sarah Smilansky, Dina Feitelson and Joan T. Freyberg's research on adult leadership in pretend and sociodramatic games (p. 135). They weave together the work of the great past play facilitators Froebel and Montessori, illustrating how each mediated their students' play. But they come back to caution us:

We can be the big, friendly giant, the captain of the ship, or a large cuddly animal, we can change voices and make sound effects, but we must remember when to withdraw from the game and allow children their own space to play. . . The parent or teacher and the child must work together to achieve the conditions that encourage the child to learn how to transform the physical objects in the environment into a flexible, symbolic world. (p. 175)

The Singers even wrote a very different, much more hands-on book, Make-Believe Games & Activities for Imaginative Play: A Book for Parents, Teachers, and the Young Children in Their Lives, which lays out a great range of activities that both "help children learn how to expand their imaginations" (p. 13) and facilitate the "parent's or teacher's role in implementing a fully realized childhood" for children in their care, i.e.: help adults "play more effectively with children" (p. 11). I am excited to use the Singers' well-researched suggestions to reinstate a bit of fun into playtime with my first daughter, who is now three.