At SEEC, we use an emergent curriculum, so we are always observing our students and taking note of their interests and questions. It came as no surprise to our teachers when their classes began to show interest in Japan. Even with the cold spring temperatures, Washington, D.C. was abuzz with cherry blossom excitement in March and April. Couple that energy with the Hirshhorn’s exhibit of the Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, and the children began to take real notice and make inquiries.

Our PreK class students are making their mark in Kusama’s Obliteration Room.

One of our toddler classes and one of our preschool classes each embarked on a unit featuring Japan. If you haven’t already, take a look at the toddler Teacher Feature on karaoke and the preschool Feature on Japan’s Children’s Day.  Below are some of the highlights from their explorations.

The PreK class got some fresh air and enjoyed an early glimpse of the cherry blossoms. Their teacher, John Fuller, taught them a traditional Japanese folk song entitled, Sakura. The song describes the blossoms in the spring.

Mr. Fuller took them to the Natural History Museum’s solar system galleries and shared the folktale, The Rabbit in the Moon.

Since the Freer Gallery of Art was closed for renovations, Krystiana Kaminski took the PreK class over to the National Gallery of Art where they explored kimonos, Japanese art, by looking at Alfred Maurer’s Young Woman in a Kimono.

While our PreK was busy with their unit, out toddlers were also exploring Japan. One of their teachers had recently traveled to Japan, so it was a particularly rich experience as she was able to share her personal experiences.

The toddlers got busy making their own veggie sushi. This activity blended new content with sensory exploration and fine motor skill development.

After looking at Japanese ink wash landscapes, the children headed outdoors to create their own  masterpieces.

The toddler’s lesson on tea included a classroom component in which they were able to observe one method of tea preparation. They concluded the experience on our art studio with our art educator who had them explore the physical and visual properties of tea through painting.

The toddlers had the opportunity to learn about the unique Japanese tradition of  Kintsugi or repairing broken pottery with lacquer, often mixed with gold. This art activity encouraged careful looking and provided them with a creative and open-ended art project.

It feels like all of DC is in a frenzy over the new Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors exhibit at the Hirshhorn and SEEC is no exception! This bright, playful, and imaginative exhibit speaks to our students in so many ways. Many of our classes have been lucky enough to visit the exhibit over the course of the past month and a big thank you goes out to the Hirshhorn staff for welcoming us into this magical space.

We will be featuring specific Kusama lessons in upcoming blogs, but it felt appropriate to pause and enjoy some of the moments of wonder that we have observed in this unique space. SEEC believes in the power of imagination and play, and we feel fortunate to be able to interact with a space where these two ideals are so well represented.

Favorite Quotes:

“I think it might smell like bubble gum inside!”  (said a student to a volunteer in the Dots Obsession – Love Transformed into Dots)

“There were baby pumpkins in there! Bigger ones, medium ones, but the teeny tiny baby ones were so cuuuute!”  (said exiting the Infinity Mirrored Room – All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins)

“There’s Kusama. Except she has pink hair there. She loves polka dots, see? On her shirt?”  (after learning about Kusama with their art teacher and encountering a photo of her in the exhibit)

Infinity Mirrored Room – All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins

Infinity Mirrored Room – Phalli’s Field (Floor Show)

The Obliteration Room

Infinity Mirrored Room – Love Forever

The Obliteration Room

Infinity Mirrored Room – All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins

Life (Repetitive Vision)

The Obliteration Room

Dots Obsession – Love Transformed into Dots

For the past few years, SEEC has been offering our Positive Sense of Self workshop, but now, more than ever, we see this work as not just important, but necessary. Politics aside, there is no denying that we have a population of young learners who are diverse and, in order to support them and their academic success we need to help educators learn how to create a supportive and inclusive learning environment.

Why the early years?

The importance of a child’s early years has become widely accepted. Educators and, more and more, policy makers recognize that providing families with affordable, high quality early education can have profound and lasting impacts on a child’s academic success and overall well-being. Quality early education can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but one essential component is social emotional learning. The work of early learning professionals today includes helping children communicate their feelings, work successfully as a group, and try to understand and respect others. Embedded in these concepts, is the idea that children should see a variety of perspectives represented – those reflecting their own identity and the identities of others. The Smithsonian is in a unique position to use our objects and resources to support teachers in their own understanding and educational practices about race and culture.

Race and Culture

Research has proven that even very young children recognize physical and cultural differences and often display their own biases towards these differences. SEEC, and its partners, would posit that it is better to address these factors rather than ignore them. The truth is, young children do notice differences in skin color, clothing, and speech. Celebrating our differences can help children have a broader world view and instill pride in what makes them and their communities unique. At the same time, displaying our commonalities can demonstrate to young children how much we share.

Positive Sense of Self

This workshop that SEEC, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian, hosts will aim to help educators support a positive sense of self in ALL of their students. We know that children benefit by seeing themselves represented throughout their educational experience; through books, objects, art, play, and content educators can create an environment that honors all children.

We will begin our first day by recognizing our own bias in a safe environment and use this understanding of ourselves to help us become better educators. We will also examine the role stereotypes play in education and how, as educators, we can look past those stereotypes and use museums, their objects and resources, to create a more diverse classroom.

The second day of the workshop will feature several techniques for supporting children in their understanding of the themselves and the world. We will examine how to use objects (both every day and museum objects) to teach and, identify developmentally appropriate ways to talk about race and culture in the classroom. Participants will create collections that encourage children to embrace differences and acknowledge our shared humanity. We will also work in NMAAHC’s art galleries to model how looking and thinking routines can encourage young children to stop, look, think, and inquire. In this section, we will help educators respond to potentially awkward questions and remarks and support the notion that we don’t have to have all the answers – even if we are teachers.  We will conclude the day by examining some common pitfalls used in preschool settings and provide participants with a chance to curate a learning environment using the techniques and resources that we explored during the workshop.

We hope you can join us in this important work.

My “babies” and I. 

I remember those days so clearly – having a new baby at home was an extremely special time. It was also a very scary time. For myself and many others, caring for an infant can be overwhelming. I can recall second guessing myself – debating whether my daughter had nursed enough, why she was crying, or if I was getting her on a schedule soon enough. In addition to my parenting doubts, I often felt lonely and can remember seeking out other caretakers who also had infants. It is with these memories in mind, that our outreach team began thinking about a caretaker-centered program. Bring Your Own Baby, or BYOB, is our newest program that launched today, designed for caretakers and their infants, BYOB will begin with some coffee and chance to chat with each other. To help get things started we’ll have some questions to break the ice and build common ground.

Following our coffee and conversation, the group will head out to a nearby museum where we will explore a topic through an adult lens. These museum visits won’t be tours in the traditional sense. They will be opportunities to look, learn, and exchange ideas. So what does SEEC know about adult programming?  We actually work a lot with adults through our professional development programs.  Not only are we comfortable working with adults, but we find that many of the methods we use with young children work equally as well with this audience. SEEC believes strongly that learning is a lifelong endeavor and we love the idea a of educating caregivers, while at the same time exposing their infants to a new and rich environment.

We’ve chosen five different themes.

What’s Your Impression?
Monet, Degas, Renoir…some of the most well-known artists, and yet when they first exhibited their work it was met with harsh criticism. Explore the distinct characteristics of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork and why it was controversial in its time.

Inspired by Nature
This session will explore the ways in which inventors mimic the natural world to come up with products that improve our everyday lives.

Like Father, Like Son
Papas and patrons in the Italian Renaissance.

Silence is Golden
The art of ancient writing.

Hinduism and Buddhism
Explore the art and iconography of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Throughout the experience, we will aim to make our families feel as comfortable as possible by moving at their pace and being adaptable. During our museum visit, we will engage our adults while peppering in ideas that will inspire them to to return to the museums with their infants. Eventually we hope to build a community that will connect and grow with us.

Hope to see you soon!

BYOB occurs most second and fourth Tuesdays from 10 – 11:30am – Register here

We take a look back at a blog that we published last year around Thanksgiving, hoping it will help educators think about ways they might consider talking about other cultures all year around.

As we discussed in our previous blog, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center have teamed up to provide teachers with a framework for exploring culturally diverse topics in their classrooms. We believe that early childhood educators are in a unique position to craft experiences for young children that will help them appreciate the diverse world around them. We also feel that it is important for children to see themselves reflected in their classroom in order to develop a positive sense of self.

Though we published the first blog just before the Thanksgiving holiday, we specifically wanted to post the follow-up afterwards as a reminder that teachers can explore American Indian culture throughout the school year.

Before we look at the lesson, it is important to note that I had only a week to implement it and I struggled with how to use the limited time frame best with the students. Ultimately, I decided that it was important to begin the lesson with what was familiar to the students and build on that.  Had I had the opportunity to continue the lesson, I would have most certainly spent more time exploring Wampanoag culture and ensuring that the children were introduced to the Wampanoags in a contemporary context.

Lesson Objectives

• observe natural materials and weather in our own environment and how these elements vary in other environments
• demonstrate that not all homes look the same, but all homes do have the job of protecting us.
• introducing three different types of American Indian homes and explore the natural materials out of which they are made.
• investigate the materials used to construct wetus and how those materials serve as protection against their environment

Day 1

We began our morning with a visit to the National Mall where we used our senses to explore what was part of our environment. I wrote down the children’s responses and then we headed to the National Gallery of Art where we sat in front of Albert Bierstadt’s Mount Corcoran. Together, we recreated the landscape with representative objects and worked as a group to create a “soundscape.” To create the soundscape, we identified a sound for each element of the landscape. Once complete, we assigned a sound to small groups and then produced our soundscape all-together.

Day 2

When we were on the Mall, I observed the children were noticing elements of their environment that were man-made, so I thought it was important to use day two’s lesson to distinguish between the natural environment and human-made environment. This discussion transitioned nicely into a conversation about weather, which was another natural component of our environment. We identified different types of weather by making a list and then creating our own weather movements. We watched a weather report and read Sky Tree by Thomas Locker. While we read the book, we paused to use our weather movements when they were mentioned.

Day 3

Before heading out for the morning, we reviewed the different types of weather and discussed the weather that day. We walked to the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden to visit Roy Lichtenstein’s House I. We spent a few minutes walking around the house and then I asked the students to share what they noticed. Following their observations, I asked them if they thought that the house was a good one. There was a consensus that it would not be a good house to live in because it wasn’t real – it was open on the backside. I agreed that I didn’t think the house was doing what a house or home needed to do. I asked them what homes were for, to which I heard responses like: “to play in, eat in, sleep in.” I agreed and pulled out a blanket – I said the blanket was a lot like a home – it could keep me warm when it was cold, it would keep me dry if it rained. I concluded that both the blanket and the home could protect me from things in my environment.

I asked the group whether they thought that everyone lived in the same type of home. We had a short discussion about what our homes were like, the other educators with us shared that they lived in an apartment. We then began to make a home collage. Students shared photos of their homes and we placed them on large sized paper. I also brought photos of homes from around the world and as we placed them on our collage. When we finished, we discussed the similarities and differences.

Day 4

I began this class by asking the students about the Thanksgiving holiday that was coming up. Each child excitedly shared what they were planning to do for the holiday. I shared was formed around the idea that two groups of people came together to have a meal.   One group had come to America from a place called Europe and another had lived on the land we call America for a very long time. I explained that these people who had been living here for a long time were often referred to as American Indians and that in fact, there are many groups of American Indians. I shared a map and said that each group has their own language, clothing, traditions, and of, course, homes. I also pulled out our sensory bins that were representative of a Eastern coastal environment, a desert environment, and an Arctic environment.  We looked at the bins and discussed their physical features and imagined what the weather would feel like.  We wondered together whether the homes in these environments would be the same or different.

We then walked to the ImagiNATIONS Activity Center at NMAI and invited them to play in the Native homes area.  When we sat down, I asked them what they noticed about the different homes. After sharing their own observations, we talked about how each of these homes came from a different type of environment – a lot like our sensory bins. I brought objects that demonstrated the connection between these homes and their environment. For the iglu, I had a simple bottle of water; for the tipi, I had a photo of a buffalo, and for the adobe house, I had some mud and straw. I shared my objects with each student in the circle and left them with the reminder that Native peoples live in many places throughout the country and their homes tell us a lot about their environment.

Day 5

On our last day together,  I reminded them about that Thanksgiving meal. I said that many people assume that the American Indians who ate with the Europeans during that meal lived in tipis. We paused to recall the tipi we had seen the day before and then I shared with them that the Native peoples who were at the meal so long ago actually lived in wetus and they are called Wampanoags.  Using 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving by Catherine O’Neill Grace, we explored some of the photos of what life for the Wampanoags looked a long time ago. I was careful to note that the photographs were of people pretending to be from a long time. They were helping teach people today about what life was like in the past.

We proceeded to watch parts of this video. We looked at the materials of the winter and summer wetu. We decided that all of the materials were from nature and we took a closer look at cattail reed mat provided by NMAI that would have covered the roof of the summer wetu. We talked about how the rain water would slide off the reeds and keep the house dry. We also blew through the mat so we could feel the way the breeze could come through and help keep the space cool.

We ended our morning by taking a nature walk and collecting materials. We broke out into smaller groups and built houses out of our materials.

In addition to the lessons, the teachers planned the following learning centers for the children to interact with during free-time.

• Dramatic Play – Kitchen, office, or playing house
• Fine motor – blocks or other loose parts for building (include photos of different types of houses from all over the world)
• Environment – This sensory station recreates three different types of environment
  • North Eastern – Wampanoag – inland/coastal environment with forest, ponds, grass, sand, and water
  • Choose two others.
• Dramatic Play – weatherman
• Puzzles and Maps – United States

By no means is the lesson an all-encompassing study of Native Peoples or the Wampanoags, but it is a realistic snapshot of how with a little planning we, as educators, can begin to develop lessons that share more accurate information that help our students see that the world from multiple perspectives. Let us know what you are doing in your classroom to help combat stereotypes and create an inclusive environment.