Happy Birthday St. John's

On Monday, we celebrated the 26th birthday of our beloved school! It was a wonderful day, and we are grateful to everyone who came to celebrate with us! 

As you may recall from our blog, this has been quite the process for the Brown Room, and the entire school! The time has finally come to share more about how we "made a face for St. John's". 

A mouth for St. John's 

“How will St. John’s walk around the candle? How will it blow out the candle?” - WIll, 3.2 years
“We should get a candle.” - Eliza, 3.0 years
“I’ll draw the mouth.” - Cully, 3.2 years
“I will draw the biiiiig smiley mouth.” - Eliza, 3.0 years
“I will draw a big  mouth.” - Gracie, 3.0 years
For St. John’s? - Elyse
“You [Elyse] will draw the ears.” - Cully, 3.2 years
“A nose.” - Cully [about what Melanie could draw]
“Then you get closer and blow it out.” - Adaline
Can St. John’s do that? 
“No. No. St. John’s can’t walk because it don’t have feet. I have feet. I can walk.” - Cully, 3.2 years

All school collaboration

The Brown Room's conversations were shared with the children in Tucker Room and Rainey Room (and also during KW). While conversations happened in each classroom about how we might give St. John's a mouth, and the children were drawing self-portraits as a starting point, Joci began taking small, mixed age groups into the atelier to brainstorm and draw together. 
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The next step was to use the overhead projector and Plexiglas easel for large scale tracing.  This was new to Brown Room, so Tucker Room children were invited in to support them with this new technique. Below, Eliza and Cully are tracing a smaller drawing of George's that has been projected. 

'I made a big tooth. This is my teeth." - Eliza, 3.3 years
Cully traced the shadow of his head as they worked.

"You don’t want to be right in front of it.  You trace the line until it stops. Then you move to the next stool [to reach the paper]." - Remy, 5.4 years (Tucker Room)

At this point, Capers, Cully's brother joins him to draw. 
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"Capers is drawing so many teeth." - Cully, 3.4 years
"Because I have 100 teeth." - Capers, 5.4 years (Tucker Room)
Do you need teeth to blow out a candle? - Joci 
"A little bit.  The teeth have the air.  There’s a crack a little bit and it let’s out air.  It opens a little bit and lets the air out." - Capers, 5.4 years
[Cape chooses red for the mouth.]
"I’ll also use red for the tongue [to Cully]." - Capers, 5.4 years
"Cape, I want to see your tongue (on the drawing). " - Cully, 3.4 years
Actually that’s your tongue that you drew in Capers’ mouth that he drew. - Joci

Zoe's brother, Lucas, also worked with Joci and the Brown Room to trace and add color to the mouth for St. John's. 

[top]: Cully and Capers
​[bottom]: Lucas

The finishing touches

Once the mouth had been drawn at a large scale and colors were decided, the children had to trace it one last time - onto the largest paper we have! Before it could be painted with acrylics, it had to be prepared with gesso, a primer. 

Win and Adaline took the lead on this! 

George, Henri, and Lucas (Tucker Room/Zoe's brother) painted the mouth, teeth, and tongue. 

Meanwhile, Rainey Room, Tucker Room, and KW were working on the two eyes for the school! 

We're making a giant eye. The school is big so it has to be big.  We can reflect it onto the school. - Remy, 5.4 years (Tucker Room)

"I want a hat for the celebration." - Georgia, 3.3 years

​Adaline came to school with a party hat on Monday, so all of our Brown Room friends were eager to have a hat of their own. So, we made a slight change to our Monday morning plans and made party hats for our big celebration that afternoon. 

A face for St. John's

Walking around the candle as we counted to 26 to mark the 26th birthday of St. John's Preschool! 

Singing "Happy Birthday"

The Tucker Room children had a theory that the blue door should be used to blow out the candle! 

It worked!  With a little extra help from Molly and the Tucker Room children! 

A little magic behind the scenes! 

A huge thank you to Joci who worked with all of the small groups in the atelier to make this happen! And, to Elena, Molly, and Joci for hanging the face on the school! 

A more permanent home...

The St. John's face is hanging in the main staircase with our 25th birthday documentation! Please take some time to check it out with your child! We know they are all so excited to see it!