Wednesday, January 22, 2020

1/22/2020

Wood Reflections

Yesterday our wood building preparations including sanding pieces of wood. Today, we took time to reflect on the properties of wood through conversations. Here are some of the things children already know about wood:
   Joslin - It gets cut in shapes.
   Leigh - In the fireplace, there was black wood and Prater dropped it and black dust went everywhere.
   Grace D. - (Wood is) in straight lines. (Noting that almost all the wood we use has straight edges.)
Joslin - (Examining a piece of bark) I notice that there's little tiny pieces in the bark.... bumpy rough stuff that's not supposed to be there. Trees are supposed to be smooth.
   Grace D. - (Looking at round pieces of wood.) This is like a round circle..... I don't know where it came from. This is like a stump.
   Lou Lou - Wood comes from trees.
   Grace M. - The wood is inside of the bark because the bark protects the tree.
   Lou Lou - Trees can change over the years. The wood can change color a little bit. (Remembering building with wood last year) We builded super strong with wood. The wood is super strong. We pushed the nails in super far.
Children worked with drawing and watercolors to represent wood, trees, and their ideas.

Sewing and Relationships

Once again, children were sewing, both by hand and with the machine. We are often struck by the collaborative nature of sewing, even as children work on their individual pieces. Although Gigi has sewn with the Rainey Room, this was her first time sewing with the machine in KW. Joslin sat with her and chatted with her through the sewing process. Here's some bits of the conversations:
   Joslin - Which are you going to sew first?
Gigi - (After selecting her first piece) I know how to pedal nice and slow... it depends how you press.
Joslin showed Gigi how to lift the foot and turn the fabric in oder to turn a corner and sew around another edge.
   While Joslin had a turn to sew....
   Gigi - What is the white button for?
   Joslin - That makes it go backwards to sew the other direction, I'll show you.