Birthday Gift - Kits

As you will remember, our Brown Room Birthday Gifts were collages. Towards the end of the year, the children began participating in preparing the materials - cutting the paper, finding the tools, and setting up the materials for the committee to use the next day. When we began to think about a birthday gift for our Rainey Room year, we reflected on the children's interest and skills with choosing and preparing materials. Our reflection and brainstorming led us to the idea of a kit.

Our goal was to create opportunities for the children to brainstorm (about the birthday child; known languages/approaches/techniques/materials), collect and prepare materials, and think creatively and openly about the use of materials (languages). We also anticipate that it will provide opportunities for introducing new languages/materials. 

Will and Cully preparing collage pieces for Lillian's Brown Room Birthday collage. 

Rainey Room Birthday Gifts - Kits!

We encourage you to take a few minutes at drop-off to read through some of the children's ideas about kits. This has been a great opportunity for divergent thinking, problem solving, mathematical concepts, creative expression, community building, getting to know each other, etc. It is a challenging concept, and the children are certainly rising to the occasion -- as we knew they would. 

"This is hard. It's a lot of thinking." - Henri, 4.1 years

Exploring Materials and Possibilities

In addition to discussing the idea of a kit (kits we know, who to ask for more information, containers, etc.), we took some time to reacquaint ourselves with some of the spaces at St. John's where we can find materials and inspiration -- Tucker closet, the Atelier, our own studio shelves, etc. 

Pierce's Wire Kit and Celebration

“I think Pierce would like a wire kit. What colors does he like?” - Gracie, 3.11 years
What goes in a wire kit? - Elyse 
“We can put wire and fabric.” - Gracie
“We can put rubber bands.” - Will, 3.11 years
“We can put tissue paper.” - Caroline, 3.4 years
“We can put some examples [of wire and fabric together].” - Caroline
“It [the instructions] would be about what you can make with wire. ” - Will
What do you think he will make with his wire kit? - Elyse 
“Something he likes. Maybe a truck.” - Will

“We could put in the wire kit, some wire cutters.” - Gracie 
“We can’t give all our tools away. They could try to find them at Target because Target has almost everything.” - Will 
Could we add a message about wire cutters to his kit? - Elyse
​"Yes!" - Gracie, Will, and Caroline

Wire Cutters by Will, 3.11 years

“We could show them what a wire cutter looks like. We could draw a picture of it.” - Will 
​“Now I want to focus on drawing wire cutters. I told you I’m an expert. A cutting expert.” - Caroline

Collecting and Preparing Materials

The children made a video about how to poke holes in fabric so that you can put wire through it, and they also cut fabric and tissue paper to include in the kit. Together, we went to Tucker Closet to choose containers for the materials to put together a beautiful wire kit. 

Celebrating Pierce

Laura and Stephen [pictured above from zoom] shared a book about Pierce! The children loved it!

Opening his wire kit. 

4 times around the candle for 4 years of Pierce.

Blowing out the candle!