of Small Animals The Children's Virtual Museum Entry Collecting together It all began collecting pictures of insects, spiders, millipedes in the school yard. Then, we can exchange them on the internet, and scientific names are equal in every part of the world. So here is the VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF SMALL ANIMALS, found and shared by children. Our old Trailer! Direct experience in the field Children friendly Classification Macro photography & video Today, cameras and smartphones allow all, even kids, to take easy macro pictures and discover an amazing reality very close in everyday life. Schools & Groups from the World Drawing & Art

Publications Books and other from the group about the topic Here are some books, publications, web pages, blogs, video channels, groups on the social networks linked to this project. Nuova Guida di Animazione Teatrale , 2010, a book by Paolo Beneventi and David Conati. The bases also of the work of making video with kids. Pequeños Directores , 2008. a book by Jacqueline Sánchez Carrero tells video and cinema with kids and, clicking on the title above, we can download it in PDF format! In Technology and the New Generation of Active Citizens , 2018, Paolo Beneventi develops the subject basing in great part on the perspective shown by the use of the media, video and web, by the kids: "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 18:3) ​ Raccontiamo le Favole , DVD video by Paolo Beneventi Progeject of Arpav and Province of Treviso, with 21 primary and kindergarten schools in Veneto, school year 2013-2014. - Bambini Niños Children, blog - Tools Strumenti, blog - Terra Insieme, Vimeo - Terra Insieme, YouTube - The Children's Virtual Museun of Small Animals .- BambiniOggi Audio Video Facebook Group .... .... .... .... .... .... .... To be continued...

Doors to Signs Cinema Examples In people's mind, "Cinema" is still something more than "Video", concerning professional, artistic productions. Speaking of children and technology today, the boundaries between cinema and video become more blurred and undefined, even if a "film" is probably always considered a "serious" production, in which the adults count more, possibly published also on a physical support, such as a DVD or a Blu-Ray. Producing together , Kids and Adults, can be a feature of the cinema of children. This can happen in many ways, opening great opportunities for a new culture and a new world. For example, working with young kids and listening to their way of telling things, artists can develop new "styles" of communication, as in the case of Kristin. Kristin Brenneman Eno is used to let the children tell about pictures by recording "voice over". It is another way through which videos involving children, even if they have not physically shot them, then become "their". Among the little things she did over the years, Sophie in the Trees is simple and fascinating. Kristin, as an artist imagining with the video through the eyes and the voices of children, in 2011 created this precious Spirit Ship, in which the abandoned industrial area of Red Hook in Brooklyn, New York, USA, becomes a garden of wonders! Works in between are more frequent, since in scholastic productions there are not usually the time neither the competences for really making cinema. But also watching "attempts" can be interesting! Don Santino here is an example of "fiction" in its own page .

of Small Animals The Children's Virtual Museum Working together Filming, photographing, we started collecting images of insects, spiders, centipedes, snails. We thought these beings have scientific names that are the same all over the world. We could swap cards with children who also live in distant countries. So it was born the first VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF SMALL ANIMALS , discovered and shared by children. A Trailer! Classis Arachinida, Ordo Araneae, Fam. Salticidae, Sitticus sp. Bagnolo Mella (Brescia), Italy, 18 Aprile 2013, kindergarten . Macro photography & video Classis Insecta: Ordo Coleoptera, Fam. Coccinellidae, Coccinella septempunctata; Ordo Hemiptera (Rhynchota), Subordo Homoptera Sternorrhyncha, Macrosiphum rosae, Brescia, April 3 2007 Classis Amphibia, Ordo Anura, Fam. Hylidae, Hyla intermedia. Adda river bank, Italy, 18 Mar 2008, group of teenagers. Direct experience in the field Classis Insecta: Ordo Hymenoptera, Fam. Formicidae , Crematogaster scutellaris. Ants discovered by the kids in their school gardens, primary and kindergarten Brescia, Italy 2012. Scientific classification Subphylum Myriapoda, Classis Diplopoda, Ordo Polyxenida, Fam. Polyxenidae, Polyxenus lagurus, Brescia, Italy, Mar. 17 2010, primat school. Exchange among the children of the world Classis Insecta, Ordo Lepidoptera, Fam. Sphingidae, Acherontia atropos. Putignano (Bari), Italy 2015, primary school. A project with Scuola Verde del Gran Sasso Classis Insecta, Ordo Hymenoptera, Fam. Vespidae, Vespa crabro. Brescia, Italy, 26 October 2010, primary school. Drawing & Art Art Studio Petit Montmarte, Belgrade, Serbia., 2011. Classis Insecta, Ordo Neuroptera, Fam. Hemerobiidae, Micromus posticus.. Brescia, Italy 2014, primary school. 3rd grade, Arici school, Brescia, Italy 2007 Take part, from your reality, in the costruction of the on line museum! @

Stories & Notes... Examples of productions worth of information and reflection There are stories that, thanks to an overall documentation, allow us to have a wider idea of how children and kids work, learn, play and enjoy together. It's for the operators in the sector but also for non-experts, for the civil society as a whole, where very little is know about how kids actually think and do. Don Santino Lab Brescia 2018 En la Timba

Doors to Signs Video Examples Video is a Sign (a Medium), with multiple Topics! So we have to make a choice and, among many possible, we point here on Making Video (or Cinema), when kids are protagonist as film makers, story writers, actors, editors, or when they simply apply video on various activities according to their own culture and use it to make, know, communicate them better. Video as an incredibly powerful tool of Meta Knowledge. That is, beyond the difficult and rather unusual word, a very simple way to live better! They had been working in the project "Giocoperiamo" and we asked to tell it. In a couple of hours we gave them a camera and help them to make a real, good video! With Paolo Beneventi (who also shot the takes in the final event and did the editing) primary and middle school, Brescia, Italy 2017. Here are the kids who educate and teach how things can be done! While doing, they understand and explain, from a point of view we all should pay attention to. Siena, Italy 2017. Effects like these are from workshops (this is of Albert Alfonso ) where kids generally appear in weird situations after following their master's instructions. They do not need to know what's the trick, but they sure can see that some special effects are not so difficult to be made. With a little attention and almost all editing software, it can be very simple for anyone (in school, possibly also for teachers!) to begin to try things like this! The first video published by Paolo Beneventi on YouTube was a 1 minute work from a workshop with the kids of the barrio Timba in Havana, Cuba 2007. A message from Spain by and unknown colleague, Jacqueline Sanchez Carrero : "Can I put it in my blog?" The 5 minutes version of this video is also available on line, as well as that of the 2009 workshop in the same place. Inventing video stories in a library: how the kids play the game, using the medium in their own, original way. Calenzano (Florence). Italy, 2019. It's only a wee beginning... ​ How can we deal with a huge catalogue of videos made by the kids, in a way that allows us to easily find them, sorted by topic, place, language, age of the authors, year of production and what else? They can be gathered in a site together or people can find them by links and short presentation notes. It's not simple indeed, but it is what PC's and the World Wide Web make today possible, if we approach them on the side of literacy and active citizenship and not only of individual consumption.

Workshop at la Timba Havana, Cuba 2007 and 2009 with Paolo Beneventi Vídeo workshop at la Timba, with Paolo Beneventi. La Habana, Cuba 2007 In the first workshop the group used two cameras. In the second, one of them broke, so we have not backstage scenes for it. Kids managed devices naturally and, after a very little training, also very properly, taking good and steady shots. Paolo Beneventi was in 2007 and 2009 for two 3 days workshops with the kids of Timba, a popular area in Havana, Cuba. They used cameras, a tripod, a video projector, a PC, playing with frames and effects and inventing stories. Most of the shots in this videos were taken by the children thmeselves. Some people think that kids today are good in managing digital devices because from their birth they are "exposed" to the means. Those Cuban kids had actually never had a cell phone in hand before, but they were able to play with PCs and effects without any problem. Vídeo workshop at la Timba, with Paolo Beneventi. La Habana, Cuba 2009

Doors to Signs Nature Examples Nature is a Topic, with multiple Signs! Can be it useful to put here some of them, to address to a set of possibilities, a variety of points of view and different readings? That can maybe help us to begin to put together the material for new jobs to do. Raw stuff at the beginning, but taken from our shared activities rather than always from the work of "others", the videos and images and information from "alien" catalogues which so often fill our imagination and hinders the communication with our own experience. Here around are some pictures from a big project in kindergarten, Brescia, Italy 1988, with many children engaged about River, Horse, Nature in Town and Marshland. Pictures with titles and graphics are from an old VHS video and a "home" computer with digitizing and superimpose capabilities. The drawing shows kids and an adult with a camera inside a very full marsh environment - strong experience - overflown by a cuckoo! The quality of the videos above is poor not so much because of the original VHS, but because when they were uploaded on YouTube, only 240 dpi were supported. We could put them somewhere else, but this is not so important. Even watched today, in many respects they are "new" and unexpected. We could talk and think about it! Il Fiume (The River) is the first part of a larger video on the quoted experience in 1988. I bambini e l'ambiente (Children and Environment) is from a project of 1997, including also primary school in different town of Lombardy, northern Italy. After 2 years of work and many classes of primary and kindergarten school of Brescia having been exploring the parks of the city, they left their signs, words, videos, photos, texts in a CD ROM, produced by the Municipality, with Coop Lombardia. Going into a urban park with a camera can mean an adventure, and kids choose what to show for their own "television". Later, in school, they watch and remember the experience. During the short and intense season of Bambini Oggi Mompiano , 2011 - 2012, Paolo Beneventi , who also deals with children and insects, taking a cue from Kristin Brenneman Eno , edited these pictures of Monarch butterflies brought by a member of the cooperative that hosted us, asking the children to tell them. And the children, with their voices and their presence, made the thing their own. Macro photographs of small animals discovered by children are shown in a true exhibition, open to the public. It is important for children to see that their work does not always and only end in a school exercise: they know that they can actually be producers of information! This DVD was sponsored by ARPAV, the agency for environment of Veneto Region, Italy, 2014. Paolo Beneventi was in 21 kindergarten and primary school to make a video from the work of kids on environmental education more in general. Beyond the clichés about child drawing, this is what happens for example to 6 year old kids when they work on the basis of an intense direct experience, possibly amplified by the active use of video and photography. The Chidren's Virtual Museum of Small Animals It is a project by Paolo Beneventi, many times started and stopped during the years. This two videos are from Brescia, Italy, 2014 and 2006, with children of primary school and kindergarten. A locust on the wall. Watching the video, the kids explain it with spontaneous commentaries. Brescia - San Daniele Po (Cremona), Italy, 2013.

Working together

Continuavano a chiamarlo Don Santino They kept calling him Don Santino, Siena, Italy 2018 with Paolo Beneventi A 30 hours workshop with students of middle school with tutor/teachers but out of class time, led by Paolo Beneventi. ​ «Aside from the final "movie", good enough for the acting and some ideas and scenes, it is interesting to have in this case a complete video documentation of all the steps of the work, from the first interviews of the kids one another, through the invention of the story, the trials, the shots, with many students playing different roles, up to the final meeting with a TV professional, talking almost as colleagues. Continuavano a chiamarlo Don Santino, the movie The students are not "taught" about things, but "naturally" they learn how to work while playing, sharing ideas, taking each their skills in the group and putting them together, having the adult coordinator as a technical and cultural reference point. It can be important to have a good documentation, even more if it is made by the students themselves, from the beginning, thanks to the "perfect" shots anyone can get with a camera put on a tripod. Continuavano a chiamarlo Don Santino, the documentary Video is a medium that kids, even very young, can manage as protagonists, together with adults who assist them as guarantors in the group and technical support (tips and final editing). They can show almost directly who they are and what they do, beyond all the bizarre narratives of a society often describing them but seldom listening to them Thanks to a technology which for the first time in history can give them directly a voice , in a world where an overdose of means corresponds to a desperate lack of real communication among people, groups and nations, the youngest maybe can help to send global important messages of peace and life.