Wednesday May 4, 2022

Two Heads are Better than One?

Jade, Lucas and Capers add scales to the snake head and tail

The KW Clay guardian is growing more and more. Today, the children created the second head for guardian which they designed after a snake. We studied pictures of reptiles and our earlier designs to create a strategy for creating the second head. The children were excited to put their knowledge of the materials to work.

Jordan: What should we use to make the head?
Bea: Armature!
The children look through the different shapes
Bea: We should use this one. (She holds up a thin hollow tube)
Cate: Yea
Remy: But heads are round.
Jordan: Let's look at the snakes in the picture. What shape are their heads.
Cate: Long
Bea: Long. We should use this (for the armature.)

As our head nears completion, we thought about details like the mouth of the snake:
Capers: Snakes have teeth
Jordan: What do the teeth look like?
Jade: They bend backwards.
Capers: There's 2 of them.

Building Together

On the low table, children had the chance to build with a variety of materials. As the work progressed, they created a series of roads that connected their different houses. The children used cars to travel between the roads to visit each other. The children developed a story line about some vehicles that felt old and rusty.  Other vehicles offered encouraging words to make the rusty ones feel better

Finlay - We need roads and we need some golden.  The golden is for top security.
Wilder - There’s a tornado coming.  The house will protect them. It’s really strong. 

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Spring Flowers

As flowers bloom outside St. Johns, we were inspired to make flowers of our own. Using some wire techniques we started to utilize in our guardian work, children used wood and various types of paper to make bouquets of flowers. Without tape or glue present, the children had to problem solve how they could attach their materials.

Problem solving by experimenting with materials

Remy: We have to use wire
Lily: You have to wrap it tight. Human tight
Bea: (testing the different wires) I'm going to add thorns to mine

Lily finds larger paper and decides to cut it. Afterwards, she wraps them together to make flower petals
Lily: I found a way less hard way to do it.
Remy: I'm going to make a bouquet

Our Bouquets so far:

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Printing 

As KW's work on guardians come to a close, the teachers asked the children what materials or experiences they would like to focus on for the remainder of the year. Wilder mentioned multiple times that he would like to go back to print making. Today was his lucky day! We brought print rollers back to KW this afternoon.

Wilder - First, you paint.
Finlay - This brush looks really ancient.
Cape - I like the rolling!  It’s like a steam roller.
Lucas - You paint only on the glass.
Cape - (While rolling on one of his many prints) Now, I’m really using my muscles.
Lily - (Pulling up the paper). Whoa!  That’s prettier than I thought it would be!  It’s like Bea’s rainbow, but it’s in stripes.  I love it.
Cape - I love it, too.
Remy - ( Looking at her completed flower print). It’s like the blue is hiding in the pink.