At Ormberget preschool, eighteen future schoolchildren and four educators have gathered every Thursday to create a fantasy animal and a story around it. Educators Anna Lindgren and Josefine Forssberg aimed for a start that awakened the children's imagination without steering the process too much, drawing inspiration from the UR program 'Lässugen'. The only framework set was that the animal should live up in the sky.
An image of the sky was projected onto the ceiling, and the children lay down to look up and fantasize about which animals could hide there. The children then drew their animals from the fantasy sky, and all drawings were laid out on a table, with children placing a 'curiosity stone' on the drawing they were most curious about. The animal that aroused the most curiosity is now being worked on further together.
We projected an image of the sky onto the ceiling and let the children lie down and look up. From there, they got to fantasize about which animals could hide there and then 'suck' down their own animal.
In groups of three, children have created possible homes for the animal: a fish cloud, a flying pool, and a high mountain house with curtains and a carpet. The children have come up with a name for the animal, with four initial suggestions and a clear majority favoring 'Guldis'. Through conversation, play, and movement, they have explored how the fantasy animal functions.
Educators work exploratively and ask questions that drive the process forward, with children's ideas steering the direction. Together, they have created a three-dimensional version of Guldis in chicken wire and layers of papier-mâché, which will be painted and get horns, feathers, and other features. Part of the project is that the future schoolchildren should make an impression on society.
By doing so, it became not a vote but an exploration. The children show what they are curious about, and at the same time, it becomes a democratic process.
We have, for example, investigated how Guldis moves through dance. The children came up with everything from it having a motor inside its feathers and a horn it can steer with.
We have, for example, asked how it feels when the winds blow in the sky, what Guldis is afraid of, and what strengths it has. We never know where the process lands, it is the children who drive us forward.