Watching change: attuning to the tempo of decay with pumpkin, weather and young children

This paper follows a group of young children in an early childhood education setting and their growing acquaintance with a pumpkin over a five-month period. During this time, relations were forged between the pumpkin, weather and the children, and as we observed these emerging relations, we found ourselves attuning to the change of pace this brought to thinking and learning in the centre. In turn, we came to recognize this as the work of a collaboratory. In this paper, we consider the resilience, practices and demands that arise from being in the presence of a pumpkin-weather-child collaboratory. Weathering interrupts and destabilizes routine thinking. Pumpkins weather with wind, snow, sun, critters and rain. Pumpkins also weather whims of human consumption and land management practices as they are reconfigured to meet the demands of human traditions. Children draw educators and researchers into noticing the shifts and tensions unfolding with the tempo of pumpkin decay. Working with a pumpkin-weather-child collaboratory brings opportunities to reconsider the politics and practices of tempo and change in working with children, in early childhood education settings and beyond.