A new outdoor classroom
It was two years ago when, during the summer break, the school yard had a make-over. A large, shaded sandpit along with a storage shed for outdoor toys and equipment had been installed. A brand new outdoor classroom had been created too with carefully positioned boulders for children to sit in a semi-circle facing a large two-sided blackboard. Newly planted bushes and trees encircled by protective chicken wire awaited children’s notice. No less significant was the sod! The shapes and grid patterns of these freshly laid sheets of grass called to the children, their edges and corners begging to be lifted by small fingers to look for wriggling worms beneath.
But we soon discovered that the sod sheltered more than worms. The rolls of grass had arrived at the school with thousands of newcomers. Grasshoppers and crickets, unwittingly displaced from their homeland, became landed immigrants to our school yard! When children ran, jumped, or simply shuffled onto the sod, startled grasshoppers leaped unexpectedly from blades of grass everywhere! It was frightening to some children. To others it was complete and utter joy.
Grasshoppers everywhere
For 5-year-old Olivia it was the best thing that could have ever happened. She spent every recess and every precious step to her bus at the end of the day searching for and getting acquainted with grasshoppers. She spotted and followed them, captured them, held, stroked, and looked them straight in the eye.
For us as teachers it was a gift too. Even before the kindergarten children arrived for their first day of school, we were squarely focused on helping children experience a sense of belonging in their new class. But the unanticipated influx of insects opened our minds to a broader perspective. Growing a sense of belonging and community at school was not just about building relationships with one another inside our classroom. It was also about building relationships with the other-than-humans with whom we were sharing place and time.
And so we invited the children to share their knowledge and wonderings about the grasshoppers, crickets and worms that had come to our school. We explored how these creatures looked through clay and drawing. Olivia, especially, thought a lot about the insects she had met at school. She eagerly cut scraps of paper from a roll of paper to tell stories of her experiences with the school yard insects.
Olivia’s rendering of grasshoppers leaping from the playground grass.
The language of grasshoppers
The children soon came to recognize the sounds of grasshoppers though they hadn’t seen them talk. They theorized that insects must talk with mouths because that’s what our pets, farm and wild animals do, and what people do too. Grasshopper and cricket videos helped us see grasshoppers and crickets in conversation more closely. We were blown away by the way they ‘spoke’ with their legs or wings. One of these videos also showed insects chatting with other insect friends. We could see them waiting and listening, and then answering one another.
We also discovered that, like people, not all crickets speak the same language. They could sound quite different from one another.
The language of children’s art
Could children’s connection to these insects be explored and deepened by combining their senses of sound and of kinesthetic movement with the language of art?
How could insect sounds be made visible?
Each child was given plain white paper and black marker. Then we listened to recordings of grasshopper sounds. We paused between each unique sound to allow children time to draw lines and shapes they felt captured what they heard. “This isn’t about drawing what crickets look like. It’s about listening and drawing what you hear,” I told them. They drew thin and thick lines, zigzags, swirls, and lines that reached different parts of their paper. Each child’s drawing was unique and fascinating.
How could movement of insects be expressed through drawing?
We recalled what we knew about insect movements and experimented with how we too could move like different insects. Then, with magnifying glasses, we asked the children to search for creatures in the grass and to observe them closely to see how they moved. After observing these creatures with care, the children were invited to come back to the outdoor chalkboard to draw how the creatures they found moved and played.
These photos capture their observations:
Fast forward two years:
The population of grasshoppers and crickets in the school yard has diminished, though grasshoppers and crickets are still alive and well in the school yard. Olivia has become even more attuned to the insects’ favourite hangout spots on the school yard, and skilled at finding them.
I watched as Olivia captured a grasshopper then opened her hands to give it the freedom to move. It crawled out of her palm and onto her forearm. It seemed to have nowhere else it would rather be. Other children gathered around Olivia and the grasshopper, wanting to be able to stroke it too. The grasshopper accepted the stares, children’s chatter, and finger pokes for several minutes.
And then that grasshopper did something I have never seen an insect do before.
It leapt from Olivia’s arm to her chest, its eyes focused intently on Olivia’s face. And there that grasshopper stayed, like a bug in a hug that had found a trusted friend.
Had Olivia’s love for insects changed more than her relationship with nature?
Had the grasshopper’s relationship with the other-than-insect world changed too?
Author and artist Sophie Edwards tells us:
Children are born with an innate curiosity about the natural world. How will we, as educators and adults, help deepen their connection to Earth and build a loving, life-long relationship to the natural world?
Join us for an online conversation with Sophie Edwards on November 30, 1pm EST.