By Diane Kashin and Cindy Green. Cindy and I go way back to the early nineties. As colleagues who became friends and later critical friends, we share a similar passion for anything related to early childhood education curriculum. We also, over the years, have felt strongly about supporting our community by sitting on committees, volunteering on … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Expertise on emergent curriculum is difficult to attain. It is like a utopian position that can never be realized. Learning about emergent curriculum is ongoing. I remind myself often that I will never get to the point in my professional career where I can say that I have reached the … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. I have been involved in the early childhood education community in York Region, Ontario for almost three decades. Throughout this time it has been my privledge to support professional learning and training at both the pre and in-service level. I have had the opportunity to build professional relationships with many others … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Technology Rich Inquiry Based is a blog focusing on Reggio inspiration and the integration of new technologies and social media to support professional learning. It was co-constructed a number of years ago as a joint venture fuelled by the desire to share ideas and thoughts about practice and theory. For … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE We are – and we must be convinced of this – inside an ecosystem: our earthly journey is a journey we make along with the environment, nature, the universe. Our organism, our morality, our culture, our knowledge, our feelings are connected with the environment, with the universe, with the world. … Continue reading
By Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. I have been doing a lot of thinking about inquiry lately. In my capacity as the chair of the York Region Nature Collaborative I was invited to take part in a pilot environmental inquiry project with the York Region District School Board, which involves two different full day kindergarten classes. The … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. The concept of play-based learning is not new and the idea of playing in and with nature while getting a lot of attention these days is not a current fad or trend. It has been long suggested that play is the vehicle for learning and there is no better classroom than … Continue reading
We are proud to be working with the York Region Nature Collaborative to support two amazing upcoming events. On April 25th at the beautiful Swan Lake Centre in Richmond Hill a workshop featuring early childhood educators and full day kindergarten teachers incorporating forest school practices will take place, Forest Schools: Enhancing your Outdoor Environment with Forest … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. On January 10th, I had the honour of co-moderating an international #ReggioPLC chat with Suzanne Axelsson, a friend from across the globe. Educators from Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Turkey across the United States and Canada joined in a fast paced hour of professional collaboration on the topic of listening. A Twitter … Continue reading
Since returning from five days in the forest, which was my introduction to forest and nature school learning, I have been thinking deeply about loose parts, a topic I have written extensively about. The forest is resplendent with natural loose parts. When I was in the forest, my first inclination, as I sat on the … Continue reading
Technology Rich Inquiry Based Research 