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Life Forms: Creative daring in the Atelier

Life Forms: Creative daring in the Atelier

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Written by: Deb Wilenski, ECF Atelierista / Pedagogista

In the 2023/2024 school year, the Atelier was introduced as a full-time learning space within Early Childhood Foundations. Since its inception, it has swiftly evolved into a cherished, cross-disciplinary haven for over one hundred children aged 3 to 6. 

 

 

 

A recent project called ‘Life Forms’ demonstrates the ways in which the Atelier supports and extends classroom learning. It brings together children’s ideas and innovations, contemporary research in arts and sciences, and specific areas of learning within our PYP units of inquiry.  

The three and four year-olds are currently exploring co-existence in the natural world. The five and six year-olds are investigating daring as a human expression and experience. 

Together, these ideas appear in the Atelier as an invitation: How can we discover and represent our relationships with the living world in creatively daring ways? Some children have embraced the daring of micro-making, working with incredible dexterity and dedication to produce tiny life forms using paper, plasticine, and the needle marks of the sewing machine.

 

 

 

 

Others are working on a huge scale, inspired by the most daring of living environments: the boiling hot waters of the Mariana Trench, its volcanic chimneys, and strange forms of life. Building to heights well over two meters in Kapla, the children extend their knowledge of geometry, engineering, aesthetics and oceanography.

 

 

 

 

The Atelier is home not only to children but to a collection of live animals. The leopard geckos, fish and shrimps have recently been joined by stick insects. Their linear form inspires daring physical meetings, drawings and designs for work in textiles. 

 

 

 

 

Across all of these experiences, there is a big idea at play. Even the most amazing and complex forms of life are made from simple building blocks. This transferable concept, so clear in Kapla building or sewing stitch by stitch, helps inspire complex learning. Taken one step at a time, anything is possible.