voices of Practitioners

Transcription

1 May 2012

2 Volume 7 Number 1 2 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

3 Discovering My Role in an Emergent Curriculum Preschool ALEXANDRA SOLIVEN DUTTON Alexandra Dutton s article on her earliest work as a teacher with a Reggio Emiliainspired emergent curriculum reminds us of why we must value and promote teacher research in early childhood education. No outside researcher only Alex herself could detail and chronicle the internal and external challenges, issues, and joys of doing project-based work with young children. In this piece, Alex chronicles for us where and how to start emergent curriculum, and how and why to follow children s interests while also remaining cognizant of her own hopes and goals for the children s learning and her own development as a teacher. It is Alex s passion and dedication to see herself as an open and adaptable adult learner, and to utilize key elements and tools of teacher research and inquiry that opens new doors of learning and growth for both her students and herself. As Alex notes in the article, her inquirybased work as a teacher has provided her with an invaluable teaching/inquiry foundation for her current position as a site director. Daniel Meier Alexandra Soliven Dutton, MEd, is the program director at Old Firehouse School in Lafayette, CA. and a presenter on emergent curriculum. At the time of this research she was a teacher of 4 year olds and has extensive experience teaching infants through kindergartners. Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

4 When I first walked through Old Firehouse School, I was both inspired and intimidated. The first thing I noticed was the documentation in the main hallway. Framed beneath Plexiglas, several documentation panels described recently completed projects, making visible the children s learning and the teachers research collected and developed over the course of many months. The panels were rich with photographs of the children at play, their work, and quotes from theorists such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and John Dewey. It was exactly the kind of work that I envisioned doing teacher research based on children s work in the classroom and presented in a way that invited people to see how much thought goes into planning an emergent preschool curriculum. But how do you do it? Starting with questions A s I looked at the documentation panels that first morning, many questions crossed my mind: How did the teachers develop these projects with the children? How much planning goes into the projects? What kind of time is involved in working together with the children to create such a rich, detailed curriculum? It was my first time working in a Reggio Emilia-inspired program, as well as my first year teaching at Old Firehouse School. Although I had been a preschool teacher for over 4 years in two other play-based preschools, I was confronted with a new way of working with young children and unsure of how to implement their many ideas and support their learning. I was also trying to understand the role of the teacher in a Reggio Emilia classroom. Years of teaching and learning did not fully prepare me for the significant shift in mindset necessary for emergent curriculum to succeed. Not knowing what the curriculum would become made me apprehensive. I was confronted with a new way of working with young children and unsure of how to implement their many ideas and support their learning. This article is about my challenges as a new teacher in a Reggio-inspired school, and my journey of how I grew as a teacher of an emergent curriculum. My teacher research study started with two questions. First, how do I do a curriculum project that emerges and develops from children s ideas? Second, what is the role of the teacher in such a curriculum? Reviewing the literature I learned some of the basic principles from studying the Reggio Emilia approach in graduate courses and reading books such as The Hundred Languages of Children, Emergent Curriculum, and Working in the Reggio Way. I learned what experts had to say about this kind of work. In the Reggio Emilia pedagogy, emergent ideas become projects when teachers allow the children s 4 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

5 questions and wonderings to guide the curriculum. Children s questions serve as starting points. First and foremost, teachers spend time observing and listening to the children in order to develop the curriculum. However, it is not enough to simply record and listen. Reflecting on children s dialogue is also necessary. As George Forman writes, We give ourselves time to listen to children. We say that our classroom is child centered. We can transcribe the children s conversations and affirm the importance of their words. We may listen, but what do we hear? To foster negotiated learning it is essential for teachers to listen with the third ear, to hear the implied meanings of children s words. (Edwards et al. 1998, 249) Using the children s ideas as the basis for curriculum recalibrates the balance between emphasis on how much teachers should take the initiative and how much space to give children to develop and expand their ideas. The children do not take complete control of a project. Rather, projects are considered teacher-child negotiated, meaning that the questions and ideas of both the teacher and the children are constantly in dialogue, shaping and changing the direction of a project. I wondered... how do you do that? Once adults have carefully reflected on the children s ideas, one way to start a project is to brainstorm a knowledge web with the children. According to Emergent Curriculum (Jones & Nimmo 1994), it is helpful to begin a project with a web to identify themes within the children s interests and to develop the curriculum. Creating a web will by no means direct the entire project, but gives teachers a tentative plan.... First, you plan and then you start trying your ideas, paying attention to what happens, evaluating, and moving on with further activities (Jones & Nimmo 1994, 11). Another important piece in project work is documentation (Edwards et al. 1998). I have seen some beautiful photos that perfectly illustrate the process of children s learning. In emergent curriculum, teachers often record children s conversations and use photography as part of the documentation process these techniques give teachers time to reflect and build on ideas. Children s dialogues can foster many insights into their thinking, and the role of the teacher is to use documentation to further develop the curriculum. As I read about the Reggio Emilia approach, I agreed that early childhood programs should focus on the children s ideas and that the teacher s role is to provide an environment that encourages research and learning. I also fell in love with one of the basic questions that many Reggio Emilia books begin with: What is your image of the child? I immediately knew that I believed children to be very capable, curious, and knowledgeable. Using both an emergent curriculum and documentation, as done in Reggio schools, just felt right to me; I thought-- this is what all schools should be doing. However, even after reading about emergent curriculum and observing it in practice, I felt only partially prepared to apply it in the classroom myself. Reading about it gave me a starting point, but being immersed in project work was truly the only way to really learn how to do it. Reading about and observing emergent curriculum only partially prepared me for applying it in the classroom. Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

6 My plan was to implement a curriculum project based on the children s interests and use teacher research methodology to reflect on the process as it was happening. Research design: Setting, data collection, and analysis I was a new teacher of 4-year-olds at Old Firehouse School, which serves about 80 children ages 1 5 years old and uses a primary-caregiving model that enables teachers to work on a long-term basis with children. The teachers and the children stay together for the duration of the children s time at the preschool, which allows for the development of deep relationships. The teachers learn to understand and know each child. The school has implemented a Reggio Emilia-inspired philosophy since its start in 1998, and was one of the first schools in the San Francisco Bay area to understand and develop project work and emergent curriculum. My plan was to implement a curriculum project based on the children s interests and use teacher research methodology to reflect on the process as it was happening. Teacher researcher Cindy Ballenger calls this stopping time opening yourself to listening closely to children s words and thoughts, and searching for the themes and struggles in their discussions (Ballenger 2009). This type of reflection is integral to successful teaching during project work. My plan was to track the children s progress, my own responses, and the teaching initiatives I introduced. I wanted to develop my own strategies as a teacher and learn from both successes and failures. The Castle Project began one spring when my group of nine 4-year-olds took an interest in playing with fairy dolls. The project continued for five months. Over the course of the project, I collected data on the children s interests, discussions, artwork, interactions, and play that were connected to the project. I kept my data in a binder arranged chronologically. Observation and documentation were my main research methods, and I recorded my data through written journal entries in which I recorded the children s ideas and my own questions, photographs of the children and their work, videos of the children engaged in project activities, and audio recordings of the children s conversations with each other and with me. In order to see the emerging path of the project and guide my next teaching interactions, I reviewed my documentation and journals weekly. I found it most effective to reread the transcribed audio recordings and conversations that I wrote down during my observations, (as well as my own initial reactions and actions. I also often went back several days, or even weeks, to search for themes within my notes or discern a particular child s progress from one month to the next. A few times each week, I listened to the audio recordings and replayed the children s dialogue. I looked for and noted children s provocative questions, their theories, and reoccurring themes. I used the same process when rereading the conversations I had transcribed. Findings M y most critical challenges and important findings centered on learning how to find the project topic and expand the project in provocative ways for the children and myself, understanding the 6 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

7 role of documentation, and learning to see children as capable human beings. I learned how important it is for the teacher to let go of complete control of the curriculum and trust that the children were capable of forming their own learning. The challenge of finding a project topic Discovering the focus of our project was actually quite difficult. As a director of a Reggio-inspired school once said to me, This is the hardest way to teach, but the best way. I thought that children have short attention spans; it seemed rare that any event or topic would interest many for long. For several weeks, I struggled to see what the children were interested in. Some loved dress up, some loved art, others loved building, and during free play my nine 4-year-olds would run to opposite ends of the classroom and play in small groups, interacting little with each other. How was I supposed to develop a project when the children did not even play together? So I did what I knew all books said to do: observe and listen to the children. When the fairy play began in early March, I observed for more than three weeks to make sure it was not a fleeting subject. It started with a few girls Amy, Alyssa, and Chloe who brought in fairy dolls each day and invented stories for their dolls to enact. Using blocks and dollhouse furniture, the girls also built elaborate houses for their dolls and imagined worlds of queen and daughter fairies. After a couple of days, Charles and Max came over to investigate. The two boys stayed to play with the girls, using the people from our dollhouse set as substitute fairies. The next day Chloe brought in several more of her fairy dolls, including Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

8 When an adult tries too hard to push a project, children s wonder and curiosity may decrease since they are no longer asking the questions that drive the curriculum. a boy fairy, so that more children could play. This marked the beginning of a group of girls and boys happily engaged in creating a story for a cast of characters. At that point, I decided to extend their play. The fairy play had united a small group of children and was a play theme for several weeks. I introduced additional elements into the art area to use in creating new fairies, such as glitter and craft sticks. The children added their own creative touches, using colored tape to create clothes, leftover string for hair, and adding googly eyes. They also started to dictate fairy stories to me and illustrate them. The art activities were huge successes. Soon, fairies decorated the outside yard, and the children created fairies for their play whenever a moment was available. More children became engrossed in the fairy theme. Since it seemed obvious that fairies would be a continuing theme in the children s play and art, I decided to create a knowledge web about fairies during our group meeting. We discussed the web for several days, and the children were excited to share their ideas with me. The web expanded the children s ideas, and they discussed other magical characters they were familiar with. In addition to fairies, they added wizards, leprechauns, tooth fairies, and elves. They talked about where these magical characters lived, what kind of magic they could do, and if they had ever seen any of them. Each group meeting was very lively! To support this interest, I placed books about magical characters in our classroom library and read the books at circle time. I was sure that magical characters would be our next project. However, I soon learned that becoming attached to one idea is a surefire way to be disappointed in project work. Stepping back lets children s interests emerge It was only a couple of weeks before I ran out of resources and ideas on how to expand the children s ideas regarding magical characters. I had brought in many books about magical characters, and offered lots of activities around this theme, but I could see I was losing their interest. When an adult tries too hard to push a project, children s wonder and curiosity may decrease since they are no longer asking the questions that drive the curriculum. Too much adult intervention can detract from the children s ideas. I discovered that the balance of teacher-directed activities and child-inspired ideas is delicate. 8 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

9 Soon, I realized what was missing: questions. The children were not asking questions about magical characters. In much of the Reggio literature, questions are important indicators of where the children s interests lie. The children also showed me that while questions are key to project work, only a few good ones are needed to move a project forward. Julianne Wurm (2005) describes the teacher s role in the art of posing questions in Working in the Reggio Way: In Reggio, teachers are often groomed not to answer the questions the children pose.... If a child has a question, she more than likely has a hypothesis as well. When you encourage the children to state these opinions, you are able to build upon their hypothesis or help them break it down.... Isn t this one of the roles of education equipping children to ask and answer their own questions, giving them the skills and tools to continue asking and answering the questions that frame our lives? (84) I had to step back to observe what the children were actually doing with fairies. Listening intently to the children, helping them listen to each other, and guiding the conversation to discover their hypotheses, I showed the children that I was invested and interested in their thoughts. After a few days, I noticed that the children were all intently building castles for their fairies from blocks, sand, discarded boxes, and other found objects. Expanding the project Flexibility is a crucial skill for teachers in a Reggio Emilia-inspired program. Teachable moments occur unplanned. I learned that teaching involves keeping an open mind, avoiding accidently leading the children down your own path, and joining the children on their learning journey. After a few weeks of involvement, reexamining our project web made me realize that we had spent a considerable amount of time discussing castles. Since the children s fairy play revolved around creating elaborate homes for their fairies, I decided to share books about castles during group meeting. The children poured over them, shared ideas, asked questions, and pointed out interesting features of the castles they liked. Teaching Journal April 7 Charles: Look at the flags! Max: And the people! Noah: Yeah, like knights. And the knights have swords. Jack: And guns? Noah: No, they didn t have guns in medieval times. They used swords and battleaxes and catapults. Alyssa: We need a moat! Charles: What s a moat? Alyssa: It s this thing that goes around the castle and it s filled with water so you can t go to the castle. Amy: Not unless you have a bathing suit. Max: Or you can use the drawbridge. Chloe: There are kings and queens. Amy: And princesses! Max: And there s a dragon! The children were engrossed in these new books, and I felt like I had tapped into a new well of excitement. Once meeting time was over, a few children started building castles together with blocks, Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

10 incorporating their new knowledge. Making castles was the activity of choice for the entire group for the next few weeks, and the focus of our curriculum. Stepping in or stepping back: The role of the teacher is to listen I learned that my role in finding out where the project would lead depended on how well I listened to the children. Listening is at the heart of the teacher s role... listening means being fully attentive to the children... [and] seeking to follow and enter into the active learning that is taking place (Edwards et al. 1998, 181). Listening in on the children s discussions as they played often gave me insights into their questions, thoughts, and gaps in understanding. When a teacher values children s ideas and add to them, emergent curriculum expands and deepens. As frustrating as it was, it was sometimes necessary to hold back and allow the children to discover the answers to their questions on their own. Stepping in or stepping back is a dance that teachers must learn. Projects have to be both teacher- and child-negotiated. As frustrating as it was, it was sometimes necessary to hold back and allow the children to discover the answers to their questions on their own. Stepping in or stepping back is a dance that teachers must learn. An example of stepping in during our project was the creation of fairy bracelets. I was delighted to discover the girls in my group creating bracelets at the art area one day, and asked them what they were doing. We re making magical fairy bracelets! they responded happily. Taking their cue, I wondered if they could make their bracelets with a pattern indicating the kind of magic it held. (We were working on patterns in our math activities.) The children loved the idea. Several children made beaded patterned bracelets and discussed the bracelets magical powers. 10 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

11 Another example of stepping in was enriching the literacy component of the children s activities by providing relevant books. I noticed how much the children enjoyed looking at and talking about the castle books, as well as telling their own related stories. Literacy development in such a context occurs naturally because one reason children read and write involves an intrinsic desire to interact with others (Gambrell & Mazzoni 1999). Both with and without my prompting, the children often drew and dictated stories to me about fairies and castles. I helped them label their pictures with words they asked for, such as king, princess, and castle. Soon, a few of them even became adept at writing once upon a time by themselves. They learned to understand the dynamics of a story as well as ageappropriate writing and drawing skills. Charles s Story Once upon a time, there was a bad guy fighting a knight and the knight winned. He didn t know there were two bad guys behind him! Then, he fighted two more, and one died and then the bad guy winned. Then there were three more good guys, and they fighted the one bad guy. And the three good guys winned. Then they went back to the castle and told the princess daughters. And then they had a big party. The characters (knights and princesses) as well as the setting demonstrate that our Castle Project theme was present in this story. The children often created narratives that used their love of our topic and utilized their growing literacy skills. Remembering to honor the children s ideas I almost missed a key turning point in the project in June. I was so engrossed in helping the children build castles that I missed a new type of play for a few weeks. After two months of building castles inside and outside, the children began acting out the roles of people within the castle. On their own, several children created an elaborate script that the entire group reenacted over and over again in a particular area of the yard. Fortunately, the children in my group were accustomed to having their words written down and displayed. One afternoon they asked me to write down the Charles s story demonstrates an understanding of literary devices such as Once upon a time, as well as the need for stories to have a beginning, middle, and an end. The conflict in the story is resolved and a celebration completes it. Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

12 words for their play. I realized that I had become caught up in my own ideas and had nearly forgotten to follow the children s path. When I stopped and listened, I discovered that their ideas were not only different than my own, but more exciting and creative. This realization helped me become comfortable in truly believing that children s interests could create a rich curriculum. The children s play featured characters they had learned about in books about castles, as well as knights in armor something one of the boys had told them about. In the play, there were two castles: one evil, one good. The sleeping princesses are taken by the evil villain in the middle of the night, but are rescued immediately the next day. This play allowed for as many princesses and knights in armor as children who wanted to play them. There was one agreedupon rule: the script they had invented had to be followed at all times. If a child deviated from the agreed-upon story line, the other children would insist on doing it the right way. My role relied on effective timing, pacing, and letting children s ideas develop. As excited as I was about the children s dramatic script, I couldn t let myself jump in and dictate what should happen next (though I had plenty of my own ideas). I had to step back. Some of the children had recently been to a play, and made the leap that I had so hoped for a few days later: to act out their story as a play to show their parents and friends. 12 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

13 With this sudden shift in the project, I hurriedly looked for ways to build on the children s ideas. We built a set for the play, which entailed making two castles from a donated TV box. The evil castle was painted in dark gray, with flames coming from the towers. The good castle was covered in vines and flowers. The children also decided that we needed props such as crowns and swords, so we spent a few weeks discovering the best way to create these props and make them durable. Without any prompting, the children rehearsed the script again and again during their free play. It was summer by then, and a local theater offered theater summer camps. I organized a field trip to the watch a dress rehearsal of middle school girls in a play. When we returned from the field trip, the first thing the children wanted was to create a backstage an integral part of any theater! Soon, the children finished the set, props, and finalized the script. They were eager to present the play to their families, and we worked to create invitations for the final show. It was a wonderful and natural way to conclude the project, and the children s hard work and creativity was obvious to all. I had learned to trust the children enough to let go of my own goals and to let the curriculum emerge from their interests and actions. Without much extra planning on my part, we eventually created a curriculum that integrated literacy, math, art, social development, science, and history. The Castle Project helped to equip the children with self-confidence, bolster their imaginations, and develop tangible intellectual and social skills. Building on the children s ideas, we created a set for the play, including two castles: the evil castle and the good castle (see children s drawings on p. 14) It was a wonderful and natural way to conclude the project. The curriculum had emerged from the children s interests and actions. Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

14 curriculum, I had to experiment many times before finding out what worked for me. I found that trying to write down everything the children said was not only impossible, but distracting; it slowed down the momentum of a discussion. I also found that many of the best ideas sometimes emerged during the middle of free play outside, not just during our group meetings. I realized that I must always be prepared to listen and observe the children, and that I had to reflect with them, not just on my own. I began to carry an audio recorder and camera with me at all times, which helped me to distill the steps of the project s process. Often, I played back a recording of their discussion to allow the children to hear their own ideas. Documentation I also discovered the key role that documentation plays. It is the teacher s narrative of the project. It is an ongoing story about how the project is unfolding, what the children are wondering, and how the teacher has built on the children s ideas. It helped both the children and I reflect on and expand our project. I had never done documentation before. It was challenging to know what, how, and when to document, as well as how to use the process with the children. As with many things in an emergent 14 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

15 Photos and videos helped me step out of the immediate teaching moment and provide visual cues to portray the children s thoughts, growth, and ideas. Documentation benefitted everyone, children as well as teacher. Using documentation helped the children build on each other s ideas during the Castle Project. For example, after seeing a photograph of a sandcastle they had made with 10 towers, they challenged themselves to build a new castle with 20 towers! When two shy boys saw a photo of themselves playing together, they began gravitating towards each other during free play. This was a big step in their social development. My photos and videos helped me step out of the immediate teaching moment and provide visual cues to portray the children s thoughts, growth, and ideas. For example, one day I paired the children and gave each pair blocks to build a castle. I took photos of the children as they were building, and then of the castles when they finished. These photos helped me see which aspects of the castles were important to the children. One group insisted on a moat, another group placed toy animals in their castle, and yet another group designated a room for the queen, the king, and the babies. Each castle was unique, and revisiting the photos allowed me to see specific elements in each castle. Using documentation also helped me find ways to expand our project. I reflected on notes of the children s conversations and photographs of them at play for guidance regarding where to go next. During one group meeting, we discussed the roles of knights; another time we went over the various types of castle defenses. Revisiting these conversations helped me plan future activities discussions of knights led to delving into books about knights, the castle protection dialogue inspired adding different blocks and props to our building area so the children could create moats. The children also loved to tell stories about their castles, and I encouraged them to draw their ideas as well as dictate them to me. Using their drawings and stories helped me see what was important and exciting to them. Their drawings become more sophisticated and detailed as their knowledge of castles and castle life grew. Teachers learn from each other s documentation as well, and colleagues bring new ideas to the table. My co-teachers often stopped to look at my documentation, which prompted them to bring in new materials to support the children s activities. For example, after reading my documentation on the children s castle constructions, one teacher brought a toy catapult to share, expanding knowledge of castle defenses. Collaboration is a key part of doing project work well collaboration with the children as well as with colleagues who may see the children s work, conversations, and ideas in a different way. Collaboration is a key part of doing project work well collaboration with the children as well as with colleagues who may see the children s work, conversations, and ideas in a different way. Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May

16 Conclusion S I experienced the power of teacher research and reflection in understanding children s learning and improving teaching. When I felt unsure about the direction of the curriculum during the Castle Project, I found answers by analyzing my photographs, transcripts, journals, and observations. pending several years as a teacher in different preschool settings only partially prepared me for the rigors of teaching in a projectbased, emergent curriculum preschool. I often struggled with whether or not to pursue a topic that I had planned or to let the children s play evolve. When I did let go of my own need for complete control of the curriculum and the children s learning, I found that I was delighted with the children s own direction and that I could find ways to support their development. Truly believing that children are capable beings is necessary for teaching emergent curriculum. This overall belief complemented additional skills I acquired in this environment, such as thinking on my feet, staying flexible, and observing and listening with care and thoughtfulness. It became clear to me that a project that truly taps into the children s interests and hypotheses will develop on its own; my role is to provide resources, expand existing ideas, and help children to extend and make connections in their thinking. The children s final creation of their play was entirely their doing; my main roles were to listen, observe, and document and support. With patience and resourcefulness, I helped the children s ideas become reality. I learned that time is also integral in emergent curriculum teaching. The children needed time to explore and expand their castle ideas, and I needed time to observe and reflect on what was happening. Wisely, I did not rush children through an activity, or limit an activity to a one-time-only experience. Repetition and integration of new knowledge allowed both the children and I to become experts at asking questions and seeing connections between our evolving ideas. Both the Reggio Emilia framework and my master s degree program emphasized the power of teacher research and reflection in understanding children s learning and improving teaching. When I felt unsure about the direction of the curriculum during the Castle Project, I found 16 Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May 2012

17 teacher research to help teachers develop a deeper understanding of project work. We work together to slow down the action and engage in the delicate balancing act of researcher, observer, documenter, and partner in learning with the children in our care. I have found that my roles as teacher and director and teacher researcher helped me learn to observe key details about a developing project. I have learned that time, space, choice, support, and reflection are things that teachers need to provide for children in order to create an environment of emergent learning. Above all, I will always remember that teaching emergent curriculum can be frustrating and intimidating, but the answers to many of our questions lie in the children s play and interests. answers in my photographs, transcripts, journals, and observation notes. Analyzing this collection of documentation and reading between the lines offered much insight into the minds of particular children, the ideas of the group, and each child s progress. The Castle Project helped me fully embrace the role of a teacher of emergent curriculum and expand the children s ideas, as well as guide them academically. Now, as the director of this same preschool, I use my knowledge and experience in emergent curriculum and References > Ballenger, C Puzzling Moments, Teachable Moments: Practicing Teacher Research in Urban Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press. > Cadwell, L.B Bringing Learning to Life. New York: Teachers College Press. > Edwards, C., L. Gandini & G. Forman, eds The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education. 2d ed. New Jersey: Ablex. > Gambrell, L.B., & S.A. Mazzoni Principles of Best Practice: Finding the Common Ground. New York: Guilford. > Jones, E., & J. Nimmo Emergent Curriculum. Washington, DC: NAEYC. > Wurm, J Working in the Reggio Way: A Beginner s Guide for American Teachers. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf. Copyright 2012 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at Dutton, A. Voices of 7, no. 1 May