Tuesday, September 12th

Exploring the Easel 

Cups! Paint! - Lily

Brown Room friends gather at morning meeting to inspect a new material.

As our Brown Room  friends gain confidence and autonomy in the classroom, we will add complexity to the environment by introducing new materials. At morning meeting on Monday, one such material made its first appearance. 

What do we need to help us paint?​ 
Paint. And paintbrushes. - Lily​

Over the past two days, one or two friends at a time donned a smock and began to the explore paint at the easel. As we (the teachers) observed the children at work, we took note of the motions they used to paint, the marks they made, the colors they picked  - and the narrative that they provided around those choices. 

Gus and Noah explore easel painting for the first time.

Lily and Noah explore painting at the easel.
"I'm drawing all my family at home," Lily shared. 
She makes careful, individual dots on the bottom righthand corner of the paper.
Meanwhile, Noah uses sweeping vertical motions. 
After deciding to work with a different color, both head to the tray to switch their paints. 

Below are some samples of the children's work, alongside notes made by teachers as children worked. 

Elizabeth's first easel painting.

Thomas' first easel painting.

Thomas and Eloise paint at the easel.

Observational notes from Thomas' first easel painting.

Eloise's first easel painting

Observational notes from Eloise's first easel painting.

Elizabeth and Eloise select and trade colors, while listening to a curated playlist made up of Brown Room's favorite songs.

As the week progresses, each Brown Room friend will be invited to paint at the easel. To help our friends visualize this process (and ensure them that everyone will get a turn!), we have been using a 'Magic List'. This is a document that allows us, and the children, to track who has worked on a certain project, and who will participate later on. We look forward to facilitating and documenting much more easel work over the course of the week!