On Thursday 23rd August, the staff had an amazing art workshop run by Berta an interesting Early Childhood lecturer, here in Tokyo. Her original qualification was in Psychology however she developed a passion for art and how to teach it or rather use it with young children, in Early Childhood settings. She believes that the process is more important than the product and that children should be given the opportunity to experience materials before using them.

She used tissue paper with us and encouraged us to feel the paper, and observe what the paper does when we hold it, balance it, let it float to the ground etc. She asked us to explore the possibilities of the material and we loved "being children" and just experiencing the tissue paper......without having a goal in mind. Since many of our teaching experiences work in this was at Ohana International School, we allowed ourselves to be creative and have fun.

You can see from the photos that it was a wonderful afternoon of learning for us and we had brilliant ideas of what we could do with the children. Berta too enjoyed working with us, as we were able to really allow ourselves to be free and let our imaginations wonder.

There is so much that we can do with the children that we teach that can be reciprocal in learning. In as much as we can teach the children, so too, can they teach us.................