Suzanne Axelsson

Interaction Imagination

Sagan om Hållbarhet

Suzanne Axelsson

23 jan 2020
11 min.

Sagan om Hållbarhet

This post can be read in English here Ovanstående bild av Tim Pugh som skapa konst i naturen, med naturen - men också all skräp som han hitta Hållbarhet är en del av den svenska förskoleplanen ... den är också en viktig del av vår delade framtid på vår planet ... bilder av Wall:e får jag ibland när jag tänker på hållbarhet och hur vi konsumerar ... Jag inkluderar trailern för dem som aldrig har sett filmen (eller vill titta igen) om hur mänskligheten lämnade jorden för att de

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Hur undervisar din tredje pedagog?

Suzanne Axelsson

20 aug 2019
8 min.

Hur undervisar din tredje pedagog?

(This post How is your Third Teacher Teaching? can be read in English here) Under åren har jag haft den stora privilegium att besöka många förskolemiljöer i många olika länder ... och detta får mig alltid att tänka på den tredje pedagogen och hur den interagerar med barnen och pedagoger. Reggio Emilias lärare ser miljön som en integrerad del av inlärningsprocessen, en plats för interaktioner med barnen, pedagoger och föräldrarna. Den tredje pedagogen ger barnen kunskap kring

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Construction... AnjiPlay

Suzanne Axelsson

16 aug 2019
6 min.

Construction... AnjiPlay

This is another post inspired by my time in China and my visits to the AnjiPlay settings. This post will focus on the construction materials... and really part of me has kind of been putting this post off because there is JUST SO MUCH to write and share about this... So I know that this post is not going to really be able to do justice to the materials and how they are presented and used... I think the first thing that really hits you is the sheer amount of materials that are

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Why "Together Art"... Varför "Tillsammans konst"

Suzanne Axelsson

8 aug 2019
22 min.

Why "Together Art"... Varför "Tillsammans konst"

(blå text är på svenska) I have always liked collaborative art... of working together... I find that often the focus is on the individual, which is an essential part of working as an educator... to see each individual child and to enable them to reach their potential... but individuals live, work and play in groups, so they need to work out how to be themselves in not just one group, but in a variety of groups and social situations. Together art gives children the opportuni

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Playing with Paint

Suzanne Axelsson

30 maj 2019
4 min.

Playing with Paint

I think what really fascinated me about AnjiPlay was that in social media there is a large focus on the risky play element of the approach... which means that from the outside the full spectrum of the play and the approach cannot be fully seen or appreciated... and this is why I have chosen to focus on writing about these other elements first... I believe that if these posts spike an interest you will easily look up AnjiPlay and discover more about it yourself, I hope that yo

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Clay Play

Suzanne Axelsson

29 maj 2019
5 min.

Clay Play

During my visit to Anji County in China and the nine preschools one of the (many) ting that stuck out was the use of clay, and the scale it was being used. The children had access to huge amounts of clay... from beautiful, large, lidded pots to huge pits of clay that the children could climb into in order to collect clay... Each day in the AnjiPlay preschools the children had access to one hour of "True Play" - where the teachers backed off with their "eyes open, ears open, h

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Whole Body Painting

Suzanne Axelsson

13 maj 2019
2 min.

Whole Body Painting

As the warmer weather approaches it gives you the opportunity to take paints outside and go crazy... This session was during the summer when there are often very few children attending preschool... just two this day... so I really took advantage of that... I filled two big plastic boxes with warm soapy water so the children could use them to rinse themselves off at any time - these became very popular to climb in and out of and add an extra layer of wetness to the whole art

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Greg and Suzanne - a dialogue of Play, Time and Magic

Suzanne Axelsson, Greg Botrril

3 maj 2019
9 min.

Greg and Suzanne - a dialogue of Play, Time and Magic

Suzanne: Getting the opportunity to listen to you talk at the Play on Early Childhood Conference in Athens in mid April was a magical moment for me... it was like listening to someone who spoke the same language as myself. The magic door. This border between adulthood and childhood, between reality and imagination, between chronos and aeon. It reminded me so clearly of why I started the International Fairy Tea Party in 2013 - not just a celebration of play and imagination but

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The Story of... Time

Suzanne Axelsson

1 maj 2019
9 min.

The Story of... Time

This is one of those posts that actually I was kind of saving for my book, but due to the response I have received after my keynote in Athens where I briefly mentioned how I see time connected to play and as a part of Original Learning, I feel there is reason to share my thinking earlier... Four or five years ago I was chatting with my children and up popped that phrase that we adults like to use... "you need to think outside of the box" - my daughter replied by saying that h

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Play in a Technological World

Suzanne Axelsson

14 mar 2019
7 min.

Play in a Technological World

I have been reflecting more and more about the fashion of learning... and that at the moment in my instagram feed and other social media I see that images of digital and technological play are being more and more widely shared... and more an more liked and given social approval... Although I also see there are cultural differences... here in Sweden I see a much bigger push for digital learning than I do in most of the other English (and non English speaking) countries that I

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How is your Third Teacher teaching?

Suzanne Axelsson

4 mar 2019
9 min.

How is your Third Teacher teaching?

Over the years I have had the great fortune to visit many setting in many different countries... and this always makes me think of the the Third Teacher and how it interacts with the children and the educators. The educators of Reggio Emilia view the setting as an integral part of the learning process, a place of interactions with the children, the teachers, and the parents. The third teacher lets the children know about how they can use the room - and sometimes it's not alwa

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The Importance of Rest-time for Creativity

Suzanne Axelsson

19 feb 2019
3 min.

The Importance of Rest-time for Creativity

I have read about 18 things highly creative people do differently... and realised that all 18 of them I could check off... actually did not expect that... so much so I kept reading to see if there was more... surely I could not have checked off them all... I even had to count to make sure!! Although I have to admit I do mindfulness in my own way... Read the Huffington Post here.... What DID get me thinking is the amount of time you need to daydream, to observe, to people w

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Does Boredom give birth to Creativity

Suzanne Axelsson

19 feb 2019
6 min.

Does Boredom give birth to Creativity

Five years ago I saw that this image and quote going round facebook and at the moment, my social media feed is sharing this article by New York Times "Let Children get Bored Again" ... but is it boredom that creates creativity or is it that we as adults should not be afraid of the phrase "I'm bored" ? Because, when I have given myself the time to think, and rethink... really they are two very different things... Being bored is not the most creative state to be in - but hav

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Outdoor v Indoor/Play v learning

Suzanne Axelsson

29 jan 2019
7 min.

Outdoor v Indoor/Play v learning

Preschoolers need more outdoor time at child care centers is a post that says "Only 3 in 10 children had at least 60 minutes of a full child-care day outdoors for recess, as is recommended by guidelines. " This concerns me, not only because so many children are playing so little outside... BUT mostly because outdoor play is seen as recess... For me outdoor and indoor play AND learning have equal value... one is not better than the other... both are equally vital as part of

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The Art of Learning (part 1)

Suzanne Axelsson

22 jan 2019
6 min.

The Art of Learning (part 1)

During a visit to London I spent a morning in the Natural History Museum, and it has inspired this post... I read the following... Which made me think of the Reggio Emilia Approach and the focus of the art studio/atelier as a language of learning. Using drawing and art as a method to look closer and to explore. This is something I have done over the years - myself as a child, and also as an educator. Art and creative expression has always been a strong path of exploration. Th

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The Story of Play

Suzanne Axelsson

2 jan 2019
11 min.

The Story of Play

(på svenska efter bilderna) Six years ago I started the International Fairy Tea Party as a tool for adults to step into the world of play. I often feel that adults tend to have an intellectual or emotional relationship with play from an adult perspective reminiscing on their childhood - or discussing with others about what is play really. The idea is that the tea party is a reason to experience play and imagination again. I see some educators struggle with the idea of fa

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Do templates kill creativity?

Suzanne Axelsson

21 dec 2018
8 min.

Do templates kill creativity?

I am no fan of templates, colouring books and the like - I would much rather encourage the children to create from scratch - in much the same way I would much prefer to provide home-made food cooked from scratch than prefabricated food... BUT this post is to try and explore creativity from the perspective of children rather than from our own adult point of view. To do this I decided to go back to my own childhood, to root around in my own memories and how templates influenced

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Interaction Imagination

Suzanne Axelsson

13 dec 2018
6 min.

Interaction Imagination

Choosing what to call my blog was both difficult and obvious at the same time. Coming up with a meaningful name is not so easy when there are so many great blogs with names that you would have liked to have used yourself - but when I thought about what it is that is important to me the choice became obvious... IMAGINATION - is considered "a power of the mind," "a creative faculty of the mind," "the mind" itself when in use, and a "process" of the mind used for thinking, sche

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The Story of Sustainability

Suzanne Axelsson

10 dec 2018
11 min.

The Story of Sustainability

Sustainability is a part of the Swedish preschool curriculum... it is also an important part of our shared future on this planet of ours... images of Wall:e sometimes come into being as I think about sustainability and we consume... I include the trailer for those who have never watched the film abut how mankind left earth because it was overrun by rubbish and left it to the robots to clean it up... So in our quest to create a sustainable preschool and teach sustainability to

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Reflecting on the Board of children

Suzanne Axelsson

8 dec 2018
5 min.

Reflecting on the Board of children

For the last 15 months I have had the great honour to have been a part of the board of children that Gästrike Vatten started as a way to not only find out more about how learning about sustainability and water can be made more accessible for children, but also to get children actively involved. I was brought on board (pun intended) because of my work using the philosophy with children approach. I have written about philosophy with children many times over the years, and I hav

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