Friday, February 14, 2020

2/14/2020

Happy Valentine's Day!

Light Table Composition

Once again children arranged Valentine's inspired materials at the light table. They seemed to draw ideas both from their interests/imagination and from responding to the materials themselves.

Louise: "It's called the 'L Maren.' We're making an 'L' right here. We live in here."
Lane: "Let's make a dog house!"
Maren: "Yeah!"
Lane: "It looks like a lighthouse. This (stack with candle) could be the lighthouse."
Maren: "This (structure) is the dog house and outside is the doggie dance."

Headband Designs

In reflecting on the recent headband and headwear designs, we thought about the cognition needed to visualize a three dimensional design in one's mind and then translate that on the two dimensional page. We were also curious how children are thinking about the practical aspects of their design; such as visualizing how, or what is needed, to make their elaborate designs wearable.

We began wondering if children would respond differently to their work, specifically in thinking about scale and grandeur, if they could add to their own faces/heads. So today, we did just that: we prompted the children to design headwear on/around printed photographs. The children first responded to this provocation as a humorous invitation but soon were adding their designs thoughtfully.

Louise was inspired by her pink bow headband and drew a design with a gigantic pink bow attached to a headband.

Maren drew a large unicorn horn on a headband.

Lane: "It's gonna be a coconut headband...a giant stack of coconuts...(seeing the space still available) or maybe two stacks." She then added a rainbow headband saying, "It's made out of wire and clay."

Louise decided to make another: "It's a big flower." She painted colorful petal-like marks in the large shape drawn over her head. "...Lots of petals going down."

Valentine Messages

We had to have one more day of Valentine message making! Symbols were clearly on the children's minds as they identified familiar shapes, numbers, and letters, and made choices based on the symbolism of those shapes.

Lou Lou made a message for her friend Carter who moved away, "Because I miss Carter." Leigh joined Lou Lou in collaborating on a beautiful card which ended up almost like a book!

Jack: "I'm making a message for my mama."
He folded a piece of paper: "I did the Lou Lou fold." (Referring to a folding method Lou Lou had demonstrated earlier.) He then cut pieces away from the folded paper and seeing the shape of it: "This like a '4' or a 'H.'" Realizing Hilary starts with 'H,' he excitedly proclaims: "'H!' This is gonna be for my mama!"

Lane: "I'm making a message for my mom. I need a heart because that's her favorite symbol because 'I love you.'"

Lane (seeing a photo of Fletcher): "Oh, Fletcher, this is gonna be for Fletcher!" She added "a heart-like block because Fletcher likes blocks."

Wood & Clay Sewing

During our discussion of possible plans at meeting...

Jack: "I want to sew on wood."

Jill: "Is sewing on wood or clay the same as sewing on fabric?"

Leigh: "It's sort of the same as sewing on fabric but it's a little bit different because it has holes...the holes were bigger."

Jack drilled holes in wood for his own wood-sewing piece.

While sewing...

Lane: "It's hard clay and you can't smoosh it around (like fabric.)"

Maren uses multiple buttons while sewing. She notices that she cannot see the small ones, so she rearranges the order of buttons so all of the buttons will be visible.