Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Outside Day!

Wood and Wire Challenges

We've noticed whether it's a construction challenge, art journal challenge, or a challenge of some other kind, children are eager and determined when presented with the various "challenges" offered lately in KW. Today the children were presented with a few wire challenges. The children approached them like a fun game but really they were putting some of their cognitive and social understandings to the test. They had to make a mental plan for their actions, try/test it out, evaluate whether it worked, and problem-solve along the way. The group challenges added a social layer to the task at hand providing the need to communicate and problem solve with others as well as patiently take turns in some instances or find ways of working together at the same time to accomplish the goal. When it came to working with wood and wire, children also had to use their physical strength and coordination working with tools (ex. hammering nails) and their hands to manipulate materials in complex ways (ex. twisting wire.) 

​A few of the challenges presented today: 

• No Touch Wire Group Game - each person twists and manipulates wire and adds a bead or object in a way that does not touch the bead of the previous player
• Wire Group Game - children had to twist and manipulate one large piece of wire with their peers at the same time...then undo the twists, loops, and bends together bringing the wire back to one large loop.
• Wire Base Building - hammering large nails into wood bases 
• No Touch Wire and Beading - Add wire and manipulate it as you bead so that none of the beads touch one another. 

​

Paint Workshop

Meanwhile in the outdoor studio, we had a paint workshop. Children have been requesting for some time that we offer Bubble Printing again so we brought the fun outdoors along with exploring painting with a new and unusual tool: a squeegee! 

Many colorful prints were made with the bubbles and children were presented with another challenge: try and layer a few or several colors on the same paper. When we first began and in the times we offered the activity in the past children were sometimes hesitant to layer the colors. A similar conflict of thinking came up during yesterday’s art journal game when some did not want to add more than one “step” to a page. We’ve been encouraging children outside of their comfort zone with this to give layering a try in times that sometimes seem strange as the unknown result can leave us feeling unsure. As seen today, children (and adults too!) are often pleasantly surprised what can happen as we embrace the process in exploring materials and expression through the arts. Today, Lou Lou, who had started out with one print per page, decided to take on the challenge. Before long she was layering several or all of the colors and explaining, “Look! Look at this!!” She appeared thrilled with the layers of colors and the ways the print changed over multiple steps.

Then a surprising thing happened: children began thinking outside the box in terms of HOW to come up with the print! Some tried putting the paper on top of the soapy paint liquid and THEN blowing bubbles in the paint so the print would rise to meet the paper. Others tried putting the paper on the table next to the bowl and blowing paint bubbles until they spilled over, falling ONTO the paper. Some even tried dipping the paper completely into the bubble liquid rather than stopping at the initial bubble print. Caleb liked scraping/popping all of the bubbles after collecting them on the paper. There were several variations along with the color-layering combinations. There was  even a "bubble bridge," as James called it, where you blow bubble in two colors next to one another until the bubbles meet, creating a bridge of multicolored bubbles! Additionally,  Lou Lou noticed one of her printed pages looked like a flower and she decided to paint the rest of the flower using a paint brush.

Exploring painting through the use of a squeegee was interesting. James discovered the squeegee side less successful in creating large marks than the sponge side of the tool. He and several others created long scrape-like marks pulling the sponge down, up, and across the paper at the easel. Abby, who often enjoys mixing colors in her art, figured out a way of dipping the sponge slightly in various colors then pulling it across the paper, creating a rainbow-like mark.

And more!

Other big-hits today were playing with Shelly’s House in the outdoor classroom, imitation-reading books together, challenge bodies in bib-body climbing/hanging/flipping/swinging, and play with water and sand. What a fabulous Outdoor Day we had together!!