“And our whole body makes shadows.” - Gracie

The book fair committee decided that all of the decorations are gonna be about light because they know how much we love light at St. John’s. There’s gonna be light tables, overhead projectors, projectors, and we get to help make some of those decisions. - Elyse
“[last year] There were a lot of books in here.” - Will, 4.0 years
“But now it isn’t like that.” - Caroline, 3.4 years
It isn’t like that now, but guess what? In three weeks, the book fair committee is going to decorate Blake Hall for the book fair again. And guess what? We get to help decorate! - Elyse
“The whole school can decorate!” - Will
We’re going to decorate a window. We get to decorate a whole Blake Hall window. - Elyse 
“Are we going to get to decorate one or are we going to decorate all of them?” - George, 4.1 years

This week, we began conversations about our beloved St. John's Book Fair. As a first step, we took small groups to Blake Hall to explore the space and windows that we will decorate. 
**We ran into Laura, our bookfair decor chair.**

“It’s kind of dark in here.” - Henri 
“It’s magic for my shadow.”
- Gracie, 3.11 years 

“I see my shoe too. It’s also sparkly.” - Lillian [her shoe in the light], 3.5. years
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“What is this light source? What if we decorate this window?”
- Henri, 4.2 years

When we were making spiders, what part of your body did you use? - Jen
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“Hands!” - Gracie, 3.11 years

You made shadows on the floor. How did you do it? 
“Sun!” - Pierce, 4.1 years
“And our whole body makes shadows.” - Gracie 
Could we do something with that for the windows? - Jen
“Yes. With some sun. I have another idea. You can get some shadows from outside.” - Gracie 

Reflecting on our experience in Blake Hall

"The spooky, spooky Tarantula shadow. It was my hand." - Henri, 4.2 years

"They are sparkles. Some of them are big, some of them are medium, and some of them are small. [it was] When we saw the rainbows." - Lillian, 3.5 years

"Sparkles." - Gracie, 3.11

"This is the Blake Hall window. The red and black are the parts that were not light, and the yellow is the part that did have light." - Henri, 4.2 years

"The rainbow we saw in the window [near Brown Room]."
-Gracie, 3.11 years

Every child has had the opportunity to visit Blake Hall and there are some fantastic ideas about shadows, decorations, materials, and more. We are still working on transcribing all of the amazing things that they said, and we intend to share their words, photographs, and drawings next week.  So, stay tuned!