It was time for another Tuesday Construction challenge.  Caleb, Teagan, Dagny, and Elena were the primary builders.  It took awhile for them to decide  what the challenge would be, but after some negotiation they reached an agreement:  A building with one room big enough for a human, and other rooms for animals.    As you might expect, they accomplished their mission once again.  A bit of their conversation:
    Teagan - Look at my dolphin.  He has a  nap room and a bed room.
    Dagny - (With her bunny) This is his bedroom.  He just needs a bed.

Today was the perfect day to restock our paint supply with some freshly mixed colors. While taking the time to do this we thought we'd try out a medium recently discovered: paint pouring medium. Children mixed the medium in with paint and poured it over pieces of plastic water bottles. We weren't sure how it would turn out with the tempera paint, as directions usually call for acrylic, but we experimented. While the results weren't quite what we imagined, children enjoyed the experiment. Dagny described the experience:

Children continued work on their wire sculptures using some refreshed supplies. Children worked independently but shared ideas and inspiration, often building off of one another's ideas. This was especially true  in their journal work today:

Dagny - "I'm trying to do a book in a book."
Cate - "Like me!" (Cate had shared her book inside her book earlier.)
Abby - "Look at my rainbow page."
Dagny - "I love your book, Abby." 
Cate and Lily also made rainbow pages in their art journals. 

In recent planning and team meetings for KW, the adults have been reflecting on children's art journal work. Some of our wonderings are:

• Where are we in this process, what's next?
• How can we facilitate more intention and personal meaning in the children's work?
• How can we better understand the children's thoughts, feelings, and process?
• How can we help the children reflect and see what inspiration they may find in their art journals?
• Could reflection lead to more complex art journaling or possibly ideas of how to  express an idea from their journals in another medium or language?

So we thought about having art journal conferences as a casual, but intentional way, of setting time aside to reflect on the work. 

We presented the idea to the children during our pre-lunch meeting today, asking "What is an Art Journal Conference?" 
Hugh - "We come and talk about our art journals.
Tommy - "Talk about what is in your art journal."
Hugh (Thinking about something special in his art journals)- "Do you know what my little flaps are called? I call them little books."
James - "I can tell you one thing. I glued something on and not very much and the next day, it was jammed shut."

A few children met to reflect on their journals today. First, Lily invited Cate to listen in on her's. Unfortunately we missed photos of the two meeting but here are a few things that were said:

Q: "What do you notice?"
Lily: "It's pretty. Watercolor pretty." (Flipping through pages) "Pretty, prettier, prettier, less pretty, not pretty."
Q: "What would you add so you like it more?" 
 Lily: "A puppy! I will show you. I would do this."  (Draws on clipboard.) 

​The next pair to meet  was Tommy and Will. Tommy showed his journals.
Will: "You had that mirror thing, right?" 
Tommy: "Yup." (Shows how he made it and his latest "mirror" which increases in size as you flip the pages.)
Tommy: (Shows various "Mr. Sun" pages.) "Here's a Mr. Sun fail."
Q: "Why do you say it failed? What don't you like about it?" 
Tommy points to where the depiction is blurred.
Q: "What could you change or add?"
Tommy: "Blue, blue, blue." (Points to the spaces around the sun, indicating that he would add more sky.)
Throughout the reflection on Tommy's journals, the idea of symmetry ("mirror") was discussed as this is a common theme throughout his journals.

Will shared his journals. Will showed the "rules" in two of his three journals such as the cross-out over "LC" and the check next to "WC."
Will explained: "See LC, my sister can't read this. But WC, check, I can read it."
Q: "Can we read it or is it only for you to read?"
Will: "I'm not sure."
Q: "I notice you like to use stencils in your journals."
Will: (nods) "I like to make it real." 
Q: "Do you have any ideas about what to do next?"
Will: "Add rules and a title." 

We're looking forward to see what other thoughts arise as we reflect together in the coming weeks. 

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!"  

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. 

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):
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Children continued preparing their clay slabs for future mixed media work. They made decisions about where to place the holes in their clay slabs:

Children added to their sculptures today, using all the wire techniques they worked with last week: twisting, bending, looping, poking, and making knots.   While most of this work is individual, Sam and Lou Lou took a collaborative approach today as he invited his good friend to work with them.   They made sure they were in agreement, before making any changes to the sculpture.  

There was so much interest in working with wood, wire, and beads this afternoon that a few children built their base and added wire and beads to it. The No-Touch-Wire challenge continued as children used fine-motor manipulation and cognitive planning to create with the wire in a way that the beads would not touch one another. Children used a variety of materials such as traditional beads, clay beads they had made earlier in the year, and fabric to name just a few chosen today. 

.As we did yesterday, we challenged the children with the Dice Game. What appears to be most difficult about this game is following through on a few consectutive steps/rolls  and doing so on just one page in their journal. Some children default to turning the page after completing a step and others want to stop playing the game after just one or two steps. As we have given the children many opportunities to work at their own direction in the journals, we also see there is  value in having to follow-through on layering with the random choice of the dice. With encouragement, the children stuck with it. What seems to be happening for many children is after they have completed step three or four, they suddenly start embracing the challenge of the game as well as appear to have many of their own new ideas they want to try. Both yesterday and today children combined some of the steps in interesting ways as well came up with innovative ways of thinking about a step. For instance, upon seeing the roll "tear and glue," James tore the edge of a page straight off and then glued it to another page. Hugh liked this idea and tried it as well. Cate added a miniature book to one of her pages and Lily seemed to get everyone excited when she announced, "I'm going to add something from my pocket." The other children quickly looked to see what they had forgotten was placed inside their journal pockets. 

Also interesting is the way some children who usually prefer some sort of direction/starting point are embracing letting go and exploring the process more freely such as Will who opted out of the game today but worked on several pages. He even thought about his cover. After walking around the art journaling table for a bit, looking at tools and materials, Will wondered, "Is it OK to stencil on here (my cover)?" 

After the game was finished for today, several children did some free art journaling. Lily, Hugh, and James used the sewing machine to sew  together some ephemera for their journals.

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. 

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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!!

We started out with the intention of having an outside day in KW, but the rain had other plans. Fortunately we were able to get through most of lunch outside, enjoying a change of scenery and some fresh air before the rain began. 

As we've been mentioning, our explorations in various workshops tends to loop around and layer the knowledge gained from each language onto one another. So as we've been discussing and thinking about where we're going in our wood workshop it becomes natural to think about combining wood with wire and beads (a workshop we've yet to do with two we've already worked with.) Today the children began building bases to combine these languages and possibly others as we go. As you can see in some of the notes from the experience, children bring along what is already known and test it in this experience. Abby also became so engaged with her work that she continued forward in including the wire and beads! When she was finished she proudly showed her work to the rest of the group. 
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Also today, children had the opportunity to build together at the light table. Through this experience and others, the children were eager and content  to take moments of simply being together.  One example is Lily and Cate who are seen below reading together and making a plan for the walkie talkies they will try communicating through over the weekend. We hope your weekend is fabulous and filled with moments like these of being with one another. See you next week!