How to Use the Material Presented in this Website

Introduction

Download the Introduction  here!

Download the Flashcards  here!

Philosophical Foundation:

In Architecture Playshop, we recognize children as knowledgeable and creative producers of culture, and powerful agents of change. Our approach, in these playshops, is to:

• encourage young learners’ language and concept development concerning the role of architecture and climate action
• have children recognize themselves as builders and designers, and to see themselves as future architects who can contribute to imaginative, sustainable design in the fight against climate change.
• foster children’s social and emotional learning (SEL) by having them connect the issues with their own lives, and inspire their empathy and care for those across the globe who must also manage climate change.

Supporting Artistic Practice in Architecture (Drawing/Building):

When children engage with the arts and design adults sometimes place more emphasis on ‘getting things right’ than supporting individual, creative practice. We ask teachers to introduce principles of building and design, but to respect children’s culture, knowledge and expression and encourage them to reveal their many different ways of thinking and doing.

I. How to Use the Activity and Teaching Guides

The workshops encourage both guided and play-based learning. Both the activity and teaching guides are designed to introduce complex concepts as simply as possible, in order to reach a broad audience of young learners. As educators, you are best equipped to decide which concepts in each session to focus on with your students: for example, for younger readers you might work with 2-4 ideas in a given session (e.g., architecture, climate change, building shapes, dense cities). 

The activity guides can be used independently, or consecutively to build learning related to architecture and climate change. If they are used in succession, we recommend that teachers cycle back at the beginning of each session to remind children of concepts/vocabulary/ connections they made in the previous session.

For example, for Session 2: In Session 1 we discussed how builders and designers (architects) can help to fight climate change. We also explored how using clean energy and building dense cities can also help. It’s not just what you build, however, it’s how—what materials can we use to build with that are better for the planet? 

Suggestions for Language and Concept Development

To try to reach the broadest age range of playshop participants, each activity guide includes plain language explanations of concepts for younger learners, and bracketed terms in bold that teachers can use with older learners (e.g., Session 1: the way humans build [architecture])

Flashcards: Print, cut out and use the provided language/concept flashcards (or design your own with participants!) that accompany each session to help children explore key vocabulary and images. These cards can be used to help early learners better understand language and concepts (e.g., PreK-Grade 2). They can also assist students in later grades who have language and literacy challenges, and are useful for students whose first language is not English. Participants can use them to help build their vocabularies, and/or make a mix and match game with them to connect and organize concepts (e.g., low impact materials= bamboo). (Available for download at the top of this page.)

Planning For Tough Talks: Young Learners, Eco-Anxiety, and Trauma-Informed Practice

Many parents, educators and doctors have identified increased levels of eco-anxiety among young people around the subject of climate change. In each session, there is the potential for students to have difficult questions (e.g., concerning climate change, rising seas, animal endangerment, human displacement, climate migrants). It is important to recognize also, that educators may have students in their classes who have experienced trauma related to climate change (e.g., dangerous weather, natural disasters, displacement, and homelessness). For these sessions, we recommend that teachers follow the principles of trauma-informed practice in this context:

• Plan for Talk: Map out your objectives for the playshop discussions beforehand (what do you want students to know/learn/be able to express), and have resources (multi-literature, age-appropriate) at hand. Think about the kinds of questions children may ask and prepare for those.
• Inform: Advise parents that you are discussing these issues, and share playshop materials so that they can follow up with children at home 
• Create a safe learning environment: Ensure that students can see each other during discussions if possible, and provide them with different ways to explore/discuss ideas (e.g., In pairs, in small groups, whole groups). Establish a safe signal that students can use to tell you if they become uncomfortable during a talk (this can be a silent signal: a finger on the lips; a raised hand;  hands over the ears). Allow children who use the signal to ask a question, take a break (e.g., in a ‘peace’ corner with a book, a fidget or self-soothing object, or a task to help manage emotions such as drawing or writing) and follow up with them when you can to discuss their feelings/concerns.
• Introduce discussion by first soliciting children’s knowledge: What do they know about the playshop subject? What do they want to know? Avoid overwhelming students with too much information that may be distressing or that is beyond what they need to know about a given issue.  
• Circle back: Recognize that tough talks do not resolve issues in a given moment, often they must reoccur over many learning opportunities to validate children’s emotions, reinforce ideas, and allow young learners to digest/explore difficult or distressing concepts. 

II.Conducting the Playshops

To Prepare:

1. Read through the session activity guide, choose which book you will read-aloud (see suggested titles in bibliography), and prepare for a discussion (see guidance for talks in Introduction).
2. Print copies of the session activity guide for each student, or make digital copies available that they can access and work with through an online platform (e.g., if using a digital copy, children can use the online text for instruction and make their drawing on an actual piece of paper).
3. Prepare the materials you will need to provide for the hands-on activity (see the activity guide).

In the Playshop: Listen, Read & Draw, Make!

Each playshop session can be conducted in one block of time for older learners (e.g., Over 1.5 hours with breaks), or broken up into smaller sessions over a period of days/ weeks for younger learners (e.g., one or two 30 min sessions each day). Educators should choose which structure best suits their participants (depending on age range, ability, class size).

A. LISTEN (Timeframe: approx. 30 min)

Teachers can encourage responses and discussion to many different kinds of picture books to help children understand ideas related to each session. See the following individual session guides for suggestions on how to initiate conversation around sample texts. 

B. READ & DRAW (Timeframe: approx. 30 min)

• Read aloud, or have students read, the session activity guide (e.g., independently, in pairs, or in groups)

• Depending on the age group you are working with, and your knowledge of your own students, choose to use the simple explanations of complex concepts (e.g., designing and building), or introduce the bolded, more complex vocabulary highlighted in text for older learners (e.g., architecture).

• Have students stop, think, and draw at the opportunities provided in the session guide.

C. MAKE! (Timeframe: approx. 30 min):

Follow the instructions in the activity guides to engage students in hands-on activities that explore session concepts. 

At the End of the Playshop:

Document

At the end of each session, collect examples (e.g., 10 creations per playshop group) of participants’ drawings and built structures, and make digital copies of them (e.g., cellphone photographs). These can be used to create your own local or online “gallery walk” of student work, and/or be submitted to the Architecture Playshop website’s online exhibition.

Exhibit

If you are using the playshop session independently, be sure to end your activities by recognizing, celebrating, and sharing students’ session work as a group and/or with others. If you choose to use the playshop sessions consecutively, collect and document participants’ drawings and structures throughout the sessions to create a grand, final exhibition of their work. 

Please see the final session (5) at the end of this guide for more information about exhibitions. 

Beyond the Playshop: Supplementary Activity Suggestions To Extend Learning

Each teaching guide suggests further activities that educators can engage with outside of the context of the playshops if they would like to reinforce, or further explore core concepts. These activities promote multi-literate and multi-modal ways of learning (e.g., through reading, speaking, performing, drawing, building, writing), recognize and support diverse learners, and can help teachers with differentiated instruction. However, each teacher knows their students best, so we encourage them to take what is useful from these to inform their individual practices.

Glossary of Terms

play-based learning: a type of learning characterized by open-ended, child-led, free, unstructured play that helps children develop social skills, build their imaginations and develop curiosity

social and emotional learning:  learning that allows young people to recognize, understand and manage their emotions, to feel and show empathy for others, and to develop and maintain positive social relationships 

children's culture: the artistic creations (e.g., drawing, writing, building), artifacts, games, language, and literature that children produce and engage with that reflect their knowledge and meaning-making

eco-anxiety: deep and persistent fears concerning environmental damage, species’ decline, ecological disasters, and human-driven climate change

trauma-informed practice (education): recognizing that young people experience many forms of trauma and adversity in their lives that impact their physiological, social, emotional, and academic well-being and actively taking steps to avoid compounding trauma.

multiliteracies: recognizing that knowledge is created in different social and cultural contexts (influenced by culture, gender, and life experience), and that being literate involves more than decoding printed text (e.g., visual literacy, multimedia literacy) 

multimodality: being able to apply multiple literacies within a medium (e.g., within Architecture Playshop, participants are understanding spoken language, written language, visual language and exploring concepts through listening, speaking, drawing, building)

diverse learners: a recognition that people do not learn one way; learners come from racially, ethnically, culturally, linguistically backgrounds and are neuro-diverse (e.g., neurological differences in learning are normal)

differentiated instruction: a way of teaching that emphasizes inclusivity, and strives to provide diverse learners with a range of ways to engage with and express their knowledge of ideas.

reader response (in Education):  To solicit reader response means to encourage readers to actively create their own meaning as they read at text. Readers are prompted to reflect on the ways specific textual elements prompt connections to their own experiences, knowledge, emotions, and concerns.