November 30, 2017

The Language of Clay
​"You know how the teacups are broken? I'm making new ones!" - Caleb 

This morning we brought the children’s clay work to our morning in order to find out more about the specific objects they had made.

Elena, Vivienne, Tommy, Zarina, and Caleb all described what they had created:
Zarina made a Kitty cat cookie that tastes like “kitty cat fur”
Caleb made gumball flavor candyballs
Tommy made a chocolate chip cookie and he described his technique using a dowl to poke the clay to create holes for the chocolate chips.
Vivienne also made chocolate chip cookies and similar to Tommy, she had poked holes in her clay to represent the chips. She also used a different technique as well she said, she folded the sides of the clay up. 

Today's Provocation...

After listening to the friends describe their work, we offered another invitation to work with the clay and make more things for our shop. Today we decided to pay more attention and focus on shaping our clay to make specific objects. We talked about how all the tiny pieces might be hard to gaze and fire in the kiln because each piece needs to be placed on a stand in the kiln. So we worked on making larger pieces that could each stand on their own.  ​

Experimenting with new techniques

​The children experimented with new techniques. Rolling clay balls and then shaping them into squares, making snakes that could be cut and assembled on a base, smoothing the clay’s cracks with a smoothing tool, and finally, using a damp sponge on their completed pieces to smooth out any rough parts. 

​You can tell that the children’s efforts today were even more intentional and focused than on their first experience with this provocation. We will bring their work from today to our morning meeting tomorrow in order to learn what differences these new techniques made. Perhaps they will notice how adding more detail to their objects makes them that much more meaningful! 

The Rainey Room Puppet Show
"The Rainey Room Gadge!" - Tommy

We had a discussion earlier this week regarding what to do with our Rainey Room Puppet Show.
​
We asked the children during snack time, What do we need for our show?
"Tools!" - Vivienne
"You and me get scissors and get string!" - Hugh
"We need paper for the puppet show to be open and closed [signs]" - Elena
"We need a curtain and a pole that holds the curtain" - Tommy
"And the actors can act out the song!" - Hugh
"One day i got popcorn and chips from a show" - Vivienne
"We need tables for food" - Max
"Chairs for sitting!" - Tommy
"And a table to eat" - Cate
"And plates for the food to be on" - Tommy
"And also forks and also knives!" - Maisie 

The children set out to prepare for our puppet show and we will perform it tomorrow morning!

Everyone Just LOVES Snack Time!

So many parents commented during our conferences on how the children always talk about snack time. What they ate, who they sat next to etc. Since the creation of our snack plates, I (Allison) personally have been thinking how sophisticated our snack time has become. We have our two snack helpers that arrange the chairs around the table, they place the plates on the table, the water glasses, and the food.
​We thought we'd share just how beautiful our snack time is!