Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Headbands!

There was a flurry of excitement and energy as children began working on some of their elaborate headbands today.   Lou Lou, Leigh, Gigi, and Ellie started by designing headbands.   While Ellie's drawing featured a turtle in the water, the other three children worked on variations of rainbows.   Here's the designs:

Another design option was continued work at the light table.  Gigi and Sam spent time here. Gigi created a delicate crown-like headband.  Sam began with a head wear design that featured his favorite color: red.  He added Sally with red jewels.  From there, he created a composition that included several of his Tucker Room friends.

Several children were able to work from design to implementation.   This process is definitely in its early stages and we'll be following through over the next few weeks.   Children already encountered challenges and made adjustments in the materials the used.  Here's a quick look at where they are so far.

Louise

Louise spent time thinking about how the wire would serve as a frame for her falling petals design.  She also thought about the supporting structure as she placed wire on her head.   As she worked, Grace M. asked her, "Are you making it like Coco Chanel?"

Grace D. 

Grace worked on her heart headband design.  Her first step was to carefully construct a wire heart.  She did this by following her heart painting with wire.  At that point, she began sewing her blue cellophane to the wire.   

Joslin

It was Taco Wednesday for Joslin!  She began with the idea of making her taco shell out of cardboard.  When the cardboard didn't cut well (even with our fancy scissors), she moved on to brown paper.  When the design didn't transfer to her satisfaction, she moved on to white panel board.  Having cut out the taco shell shape, she moved on to gluing on the "sauce" and "spice" materials she selected yesterday.  This took time and persistence, but she confidently stated, "I'm not going to stop."

Grace M.

Grace's butterfly was another exercise in perseverance.   Her initial plan with the wire was to make each  of the four loops individually.  However, that presented challenges in getting them to stay together .  With Jen's initial assistance, she moved on to working with one long piece to create the entire butterfly and then added beads.  We're looking forward to even more of these creatures in the days to come.

Leigh and Lou Lou

Leigh and Lou Lou were eager to move from design to implementation today.  Perhaps taking inspiration from the rainbow design in the Tucker Room mini-studio, they decided to trace their rainbows on clear plastic, and glue on appropriately colored materials.   Upon finding a perfect "crystal," they talked about making "the heart of the school."    Lou Lou -  I should do the heart of the school.  I found this crystal that looks like a heart.  The heart of the school means that anyone can come to this school.  Unless they're mean.
Leigh - Everyone's nice.

Little help from our Friends

We were thrilled to have Jen work with us this afternoon.  It was her expertise that helped us launch so much headband work today.   Children also pitched in to help their friends when an extra set of hands was necessary.  

Gigi's watercolors

Negative Space

Children worked with watercolors to explore the concept of negative space.   Presented with papers that had geometric designs  made with tape, the filled in the spaces with  paint.   When the paint dries, they can peel off the paint to see the white space revealed.  Everyone worked on watercolors today, but only Gigi had the opportunity to take off the tape.  More cool patterns to come!