In Studio Blue, we document each day using cameras and small clipboards. The cameras are used to capture photographs and videos of the children. The clipboards hold paper and a pencil. We use the clipboards to make notes of emerging interests, to record language from the children or to jot down questions that we might have for each other throughout the day. This year, we also have a Parent Helper Clipboard. This is to be used for documenting the children at play, in the same way as the teachers clipboards are used, as well as holding some important information specifically helpful to our parent helpers.
In a previous post, Drawing, you may have read that the children have already gathered some information about adults using clipboards. A few children have asked if they could write their name on a teacher’s clipboard. The children now associate these clipboards with being big, holding a degree of power and importance.
We want the children to feel these things while they are in Blue. We want them to feel big. We want to empower them. We want each child to understand the incredible power they hold within themselves. We want them to know how important they are: to us, to each other, and to the larger community.
Thus, we have given each child in Studio Blue their own clipboard. 
Each child now has a clipboard with their name and photo, displayed on both the front and back of the clipboard. There is a “home” for their pencil and one piece of paper. Each child has a pencil, attached with velcro, that they will return to its “home” on the clipboard velcro when they are finished with it, before hanging it up on their spot, right under their Wonder Wall picture. The children have one piece of paper each day that they can choose to use or not, as a way of making their thinking visible. The children may use it to express something that they have seen, heard, know about or are wondering about. They may use it in their play or experiment with how they will use it. Children are always trying new things and they may just want to try different ways to use the pencil, without “making” anything. This is just one mode of expression that we offer to the children. They may use this every day; they may use it once or twice all year.
We have been exploring different ways to use our clipboards
