Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Roll 'em!

On Friday, children worked carefully to create the symbolic version of the dice game for art journaling.  Today it was time to play the game with friends.  The symbols were easily understood by the players.  However, at times following the prompts made some children uneasy.  The first roll indicated that children trace something or draw or write their feelings.  Maisie traced stenc​ils and Lily drew rain and a sad face in grey.  "The rain makes me sad," she said.  On the opposite page, she drew a sun and a happy face, saying, "The sun makes me happy."   The second roll indicated that children should use print or glue things.  Lily initially didn't want to cover up her work with paint.   She thought it might ruin or obliterate her work.  She and Maisie talked this through with Maisie saying, "It makes it better."   Eventually, Lily felt comfortable covering something she had previously done.  
When the dice indicated making a print, Tommy wasn't sure he had the right materials.  However, he quickly engaged in problem solving saying, "I have an idea, trace this stencil and then cut it out."  The resulting solution is shown in the video below.   He also noticed symmetry in his work saying, "It's like a mirror!"

Construction and Wire Challenges

Also on Friday, children began building wooden bases for wire work.  Today they were able to add the wire and a variety of materials with holes.  However, in the interest of complexity, we challenged them to do "no touch wire."  This requires that after each bead (or other material) is added, the children must manipulate the wire so that the next bead (for example) does not touch the one before it,  The wire can be  bent, twisted, knotted, looped, etc.... anything that will provide space between the materials.  The children eagerly took on this challenge!   Some of the work is displayed in the hallway and more will be coming soon.

Tuesday Construction Challenges have been popular for the last two weeks.  Today's challenge was to build a  home with at least four rooms.  As a further complication, some of the rooms had to be big enough to fit various animal friends brought in by the children.  Here's a bit of the discussion as they worked:
   Cate - This is not a room.  This is a place for seal to jump on.
   Caleb - And that (block tower) is the place for the electricity.
   Hugh - We have three big rooms and one small room.  The small room is for Cate's seal.
   Elena - This is a hotel where they can eat.
   Dagny - That's beautiful, Elena.
   Hugh - Yeah, it is.
   Elena - It's a special hotel.  It's special because you can float around on boats.
   Dagny - These are teeny rooms.  They're toy storing rooms.
At times, it seemed like the biggest challenge would be to build a room big enough for Sam's dinosaur.  There were times the dinosaur tried to enter a room, only to have the walls or doorway crash.  Eventually, children decided using the entire light table would provide enough space to accommodate the dinosaur.  Another Construction Challenge complete!