collaboration

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

A friend of mine posted a link to a video she wanted me to watch, on my facebook. (the link above) I've watched it several times and also started researching Sir Ken Robinson. I have a huge list of books to look for at McKay's this weekend. Anyway...In the video he talks about several things, including the importance of "collaboration". That point was stuck in my head all day.

The picture below was created by my daughters. I keep a selection of art supplies always accessible to the girls. They are free to create, whenever they want to. Usually they work independently, mainly because Ava is still a "scribbler" and Zelda is van Gogh in training. I have used art projects as a way to teach sharing. Share the glue stick, share the crayons, etc. I've never used that as an opportunity to teach them something much more valuable. Collaboration.

Zelda cut out the orange "snowflake" in the middle. She brought it to me and I loved it. I held it up and we discussed that the lines looked like - waves, branches. I suggested that she put another piece of paper behind it so the detail would show up. (my contribution to the project) She smiled and said ok. So she taped it to the white poster board. Then she found the bird cutout from a stencil. She put that on...by this time Ava was very interested in what her sister was doing. Ava picked up the flower cutout and asked Zelda if she could put it on...but first she wanted to color it. You could literally see a light flick on in Zelda's eyes...Zelda took off her bird and decided to also color it. This continued. While they were coloring and placing their objects and talking about what colors things should be...I was telling them that they were "collaborating" on the project and we talked about how fun it was getting ideas from other people.

They had fun. I had fun. And we have a beautiful new collaborative art piece to hang on the wall :)