By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Simon Nicholson, used the term loose parts in an article written in 1971. Loose parts are materials that are variable and unstructured. Nicholson maintained that children love to interact with variables in order to play, discover, invent, and experiment. In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. The Rhythm of Learning in Nature is a professional knowledge retreat held every summer at beautiful Swan Lake in York Region, Ontario. It is an intensive six days of connectiveness to nature and is designed for adults and children. As the children play in the meadow and the forest, the … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE (with contributions from Cindy Green, RECE). This blog post has been ruminating with me for some time now. The process of pedagogical documentation is a new concept to many early childhood educators. According to Dahlberg and Moss (2008) “pedagogical documentation has its origins in the innovative and, today, world-famous municipal early childhood services in … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. As someone who has researched and reflected on early childhood education over many years, I have often wondered why practices that stifle creativity and agency continue. I wonder why these dubious practices are left unquestioned? I have visited countless early learning programs and wonder why from location to location the … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Recently, a kind and sharing early childhood educator posted my blog, Pedagogical Documentation: Why? When? Who? What? Where? How? on a Facebook group for Reggio-inspired educators. Since she tagged me, I looked and saw that it immediately garnered a comment. “Basic” was all she wrote. I replied “it was meant to be” … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. and Cindy Green, BSc, RECE. This is the third in a series of blogs written about a leadership research project that we are working on with Upper Canada Child Care Centres. In the first post we introduced the research project. In the second post we reflected on reflection as an important process essential to … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. and Cindy Green, BSc, RECE. This is the second of a series of blogs written about a leadership research project that we are working on with Upper Canada Child Care Centres. In the first post we introduced the research project. In this post we reflect on reflection as an important process essential … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. and Cindy Green, BSc, RECE. This is the first of a series of blogs written about a leadership research project that we are working on with Upper Canada Child Care Centres. It has been many years since we first connected with Upper Canada Child Care in various capacities. Most recently … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Being in the early childhood education sector for so many years, there are some things that I get tired of hearing. Too often, I hear it said, “Children are the future”. I often counter to say that the future is now. Even more annoying is to hear the future being … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. This is the third summer, that the York Region Nature Collaborative has hosted the The Rhythm of Learning in Nature, which has been promoted over the years as a 5-day summer intensive – an unforgettable indoor/outdoor learning journey for about 30 early learning professionals. Previously billed as the Reggio Summer Intensive, this … Continue reading
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