PDF Download available at ReChild , a publication by Reggio Children.
Archive for April, 2008
Kidsmodern “is an online portal which is devoted to the fascinating world of design for kids. At Kidsmodern you can make new discoveries and buy products online. The products are accompanied by the portraits of young artists and designers, combined with stories surrounding the design classics of the twentieth century.”
Stop by for stories, trends & news!
via minordetail
PlayPumps play-powered water system. 1994–ongoing. PlayPumps International
(South Africa, est. 2004)
The PlayPump “water system is a merry-go-round that uses kid power to pump water. As they play, children spin the PlayPump, powering it to pump underground water into an aboveground tank. This 660-gallon storage tank provides easy access to water with the simple turn of a tap. The storage tank also serves as a billboard, which can be used to promote messages about social issues relevant to a particular community.”
Design and the Elastic Mind ———- MoMA Musueum of Modern Art
“Over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration. Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.”
An unbelievably inspiring and educational resource! Please take some time to explore this site and share it with others.
I believe in capturing fragments of life as we move through it or as it revolves around us and I believe in the beauty of moments like this. Childhood moves quickly. Take time to see it from a different angle, grab a piece of it when you least expect it, and allow yourself as well as your subject, to be surprised at the beauty and the essence of your capture.
The photograph below holds the essence of childhood and to me, expresses the importance of being able to share moments like these with your children or students and allowing them the pleasure of seeing themselves in a different way. In the moment.
Photograph and quote by Hannah Huffman. More photographs here.
“there are good moments to remember. good moments like first steps, that pretty birthday dress, or that first haircut. these are moments when we say “sweetie look at me! smile!” and click away. then there are very special moments to remember. special moments like an impromptu nap in the sun, the pink dust of sidewalk chalk on the bottoms of bare feet, or a spotty barrette in the sun. moments when we sneak up on life, click and remember for ever. happy or sad, they are good and real. and we love them and will treasure them forever.”
Inside Pre-K is a blog that I check in with on a regular basis – their latest article titled “Digital Storytelling” is one that I couldn’t go another day without sharing with you. At home or in the classroom, a digital story is an enriching experience for everyone involved – fun too!
“Digital storytelling incorporates a variety of multimedia such as audio narration, music, video, and still images to tell a story.”
Sight Words from vanessa on Vimeo
Digital storytelling “has taken the educational world by storm, due in part to the power it has to engage and motivate the learner. Digital storytelling can also be used by any age group from pre-k to college level. Young children can be involved in the making of a digital story in a variety of ways, such as taking photographs with a digital camera, acting out scenes, drawing pictures and scanning the images, and narrating the story with their own words. When the students are involved in the creation of the digital story it becomes very meaningful to them and, thus, a very effective teaching tool.
Digital storytelling is only one example in a vast array of Web 2.0 tools available to teachers in the classroom today, and it is one that my students enjoy a great deal. Whenever I tell them we are going to make a “movie” they are on their best behavior because they are highly motivated to participate. Photographing our sight word story above took about 30 minutes, start to finish, but they were engaged the entire time, putting on and taking off the vests, helping put the letters in order, and singing the songs. Now, each morning we start our day by viewing our sight word video; it’s an engaging and meaningful way to teach sight words.”
Don’t know where to start?