Wednesday, April 24, 2019

4/24/2019

Wonderful Workshop Wednesday

We had a relaxing Wednesday afternoon together starting in our outdoor classroom. The children enjoyed being together and challenging their physicality in climbing, jumping, and swinging. The children have been noticing and celebrating the physical milestones they have accomplished this year such as Grace and Lou Lou who can get on and off the swing more easily by themselves, Elena who can make the swing go without any pushes, and all of the Tucker room children who were excitedly challenging themselves to climb and jump off high structures such as the tunnel. A couple of children were a little hesitant about that last one. Tegan encouraged them, "Come on, do you want to try? You can do it!"

As you can imagine, the remainder of our afternoon was spent in workshops, workshops, workshops!

Art Journal Care

Recently children have made note of some problems they need to fix in their altered art journals. Many of the journals have also become quite bulky. So the time has come to make some adjustments to our books. Children helped add to a checklist of problems they identified in their books and we started problem-solving those today! Several children made small adjustments such as glue things down, remove items from their envelope pockets, or attach their envelope pockets. Others went through the process of having pages cut out to remove some stress on the spines of their journals.

Lou Lou said, "I want to cut out some pages." As she went through her book she also realized she needed to glue in some collage pieces that were coming loose. She then sorted the work saved in her journal pocket, piling several items to be filed in her portfolio and choosing to add others to her journal. Lou Lou made plans to cut pages out another day.

Tegan had Jessica cut several chunks out of her book and noted a few times along the way, "It's not closing yet." In the end, she decided it was OK if the book did not close all the way.

Caleb anticipated a potential future problem asking that several sections of pages be removed so his book wouldn't become too bulky later on.

Sam was also concerned about future bulking in his book. After having some pages removed, he declared in anticipation, "With the empty pages I'm not doing anything because I don't want it to be like this." (He held his hands like an open book.) It was suggested that perhaps he can also cut some pages out ahead of time.

We'll continue to think about how best to respond to the the challenges children are coming across in this exploration with altered books.

Children also created in their art journals today adding to the pages with ephemera from their journal pockets, our table of mixed media, paint sticks, sewing, and even wire! (More on that in just a minute!) Tegan had a couple of ideas for the book pages cut out of the journals, "Oh! We can save these and add them to our books!" She donated her cut-out pages to the collage supplies. Later she decided to make a book with some of the pages and Abby tried the idea with some other paper. The children taped the pages together in order to form new books.

Wood and Wire Sculptures Continue

Many children continued their previous work with wood, wire, and beads including Sam and Lou Lou who worked collaboratively on their piece. The children showed affection toward one another while communicating and planning how to accomplish the task at hand. When they were finished, Sam proudly showed the work they had done. Grace worked with some loose wire and beads showing how she met the no touch wire challenge. Abby and Tegan even decided to bring wire into their art journaling. They threaded thin wire through the pages of their books much like string and added bits of fabric and other ephemera. Here's some of what the children said while working with wire (and a bit more reflection on journal care):