Materials PrepLast Thursday night was our New Parent Reception! In preparation for this event, Jen invited the children to help her cut bamboo pieces! There was a lot of enthusiasm, and many of the children approached this challenge with confidence and prior knowledge! We love to provide these types of opportunities for the children -- they are excited to use real tools and take on these "grown up tasks". Their faces light up and there is such a sense of pride and accomplishment as they work! Portfolio Drawer ReviewsPortfolio Conferences begin this week, and we appreciate you all taking the time to sign up and join us for these meaningful conferences with your child. For weeks, we have been gathering to review the children's work, document their reflection and memories, etc. They have been sharing what they learned in Rainey Room, their favorite materials/tools/languages, and much more. We cannot wait for you to hear from your child! Climbing Trees and the Slack Line
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A Recap of Forming & Shaping the Cobb House Model"We also have to make the right way inside. To make how the parts inside." -Lillian
"We have to look around and see if our clay shape matches the Cobb (house)." -Caroline Creating Our Cobb House Model RoofThe Cobb house awaits a roof. What does it look like? Which materials will be best? How will we approach it? Questions that required answers and action. Outside and into the Cobb house we went to observe the structural components and the material detail. Lillian and Georgia work on drawing the interior of the Cobb house roof. Through the fronds of the Cobb house roof, Caroline looks in, while Georgia, Lillian and Melanie look out. Bamboo was mentioned and considered as a material which matched the actual Cobb house roof. So, we explored and cut some fresh bamboo brought in by Jen. Sourcing bamboo, of different diameters, and additional bamboo-like materials such as thin wood slats and grassy fronds, the children were free to explore the materials and possibilities for how to create the roof. "Then you can put it across. See?" -Eliza "Now I see what you are doing." -Adaline Going more time to studying the elements of the Cobb house roof, through drawing and general observation, we found that the Cobb house roof had a base beneath the visible fronds on top. A base would help support the weight of the bamboo or other materials. So our next approach in the process of creating a roof was to establish a base. Familiar to the children is a flat base, but the roof is not flat. It's pitched. So, we also spent time observing and addressing the shape of the roof. The shape of the roof "it's a triangle." said Will. So, we made a choice to learn how to do a different scoring technique, on cardboard not clay. We observed the sandwich like structure of the corrugated cardboard and worked on a small piece of cardboard, as a test strip or prototype, before we made any cuts on our large cardboard base. Will and Adaline, helped in scoring, cutting through, one layer of cardboard. Then they folded the cardboard on the scoreline, and to their amazement the flat piece was now standing. More consideration about the material for the top of the roof, and the thought came to mind to use the actual cobb house fronds. Cutting some fronds from the cobb house roof, we began to add them to the cardboard base using tacky glue. However, while doing this work, we can encountered a problem with our first attempt! The convex shape of the frond was not allowing the frond to adhere to the cardboard. "The tacky glue didn't work because the fronds were kind of bended and twisted and folded." -Adaline Bringing solution to the problem, some collective brainstorming after the children left, and Jen offered the idea of using chicken wire as a base or armature for the cobb house fronds. So, this was our next approach. "The wire will help us connect the roof." - Henri "We tried chicken wire. It worked, and we weaved. And pieces that were wrapped and gathered were staying together, and we had to use wire to connect them. We had to use the hot glue to put more on top. Weaving & Wrapping: Pieces wrapped and gathered Weaving individual fronds through the chicken wire
Wrapping wire and cutting it A finished wrapped and weaved roof. Reflecting on our cobb house roof Last week we shared our flower impressions to help us "remember the flowers when they die". That process has been a great support for our work to "remember the outdoor classroom", and more specifically, the children's desire to create "clues" about the structures that are leaving. A sneak peek at our clues (more to come on May 17th): "It's iron oxide!" - Rainey Room
"Is it that stuff that stains your hands for a little bit?" - Georgia Forming & Shaping the Cobb for our Cobb House ModelOn a Tuesday backwards day, we mixed sand, straw, and clay together to make cobb. Then on Thursday, Adaline, Lillian, Pierce, and Zoe - friends who were really invested in working with the cobb - teamed up together, with Melanie and Elyse, to form and shape the material to make our Cobb house model. We work with the texture and shape of the current and existing cobb by rolling it out to flatten it for a floor and walls. Then, we began considering the overall shape of the Cobb house by attending to the details of it - the doors, the windows, and the slope of the front of the structure to the back. Gradually we worked, adding handfuls or even pinches of Cobb, little by little, to the rolled out floor of the structure. Until, at last, we unanimously decided we had finished the Cobb house model, and the result is a close replica to the original! How do we make a slab? Where do we start? "What if we smash all the clay together, cuz Pierce says, and then we all take turns to smash and then we can start piece of the... on the Cobb house by bending it way." -Adaline "Everyone is going to smoosh this!" -Caroline
"Look how flat it is!" -Adaline Next up will be Cobb House Model Part 3: Creating the RoofRecently, we invited Brown Room to morning meeting to share about their work with spring, flowers, clay, and preserving memories. We knew that this would connect with the Rainey Room children's idea to have "clues" about the outdoor classroom as a way to remember it. Below are some moments from that conversation: “Flowers because we have to make some prints.” - Betsy “Of flowers?” - Lillian? Can you share why flowers right now? What have we been talking about? Elizabeth and Betsy, what season is it? - Sam “Spring!” - Will What's going to happen to our spring flowers? - Sam “Then they will die.” - Betsy, 3.4 years We thought, oh my goodness, since they won’t last forever, how can we remember them? - Sam “They will grow back up.” - Betsy Next spring. - Sam [Gracie explains cycle of the year] I heard Sam use the word ‘remember’. They were trying to ‘remember’ what the flowers will look like. - Elyse “Take pictures of them.” - Georgia That’s one option. - Sam “We made a clay print.” - Betsy "It will help us remember the green flowers. Then they get dead." - Dahlia, 3 years Are you guys trying to remember anything? - Sam “We’re trying to remember the outdoor classroom.” - Georgia “The cobb house.” - unknown Exploring impressions of flowers as a way to remember them: "First, you put your flowers on the paper and then you can cut them if you want to. You put them on the paper how you like it then you copy it to the clay. It's like you copy it. Then, you use the rolling pin to push the flowers in. Then you have to pick them out." - Adaline, 4.6 years Henri's Arrangment
Preparing for Visiting EducatorsYou may have read in the "5 Things" that tomorrow (Wednesday) is our last ECES day of the school year.
The entire staff is involved in the presentation tomorrow afternoon, so we will be using our work time today to finish preparing together - Please look for our next formal blog post later this week! Parents are invited and encouraged to attend these events -- our presentation will begin around 1:30 pm. As we continue our journey to "remember the outdoor classroom", we invited the children to think about their idea to create a model of the rope swing. Many of the children suggested clay as a material for creating the tree. There was a lot of enthusiasm around this project, and when the group (George, Eliza, and Will) came together to determine how to create the trunk, we had to do some brainstorming and problem solving: 1. What techniques do we know for creating something tall out of clay? 2. How do we make it tall enough to hold a model rope swing? 3. How do we work together to make one tree, not three? 4. How will people know it's a tree? After some experimentation and debate, the children decided to use armature to create a hollow trunk for the tree. **Unfortunately, there are no photos of this process because everyone involved had their hands in clay.** The next day, a new group of children volunteered to make the branches! Again, we discussed possible techniques, and they all agreed that rolling coils/pinching coils would make branches. Many, many times we referenced the lines of the branches that we can see from the Rainey Room window -- branches are NOT just straight lines: "It's curvy." - Win "It's zig zag." - Pierce The tree as greenwear (dried clay that is not yet fired). The tree as bisque -- fired once without glaze. What's the tree without a rope swing?Over the past two weeks, Melanie has been working with children to explore braiding and rope twisting techniques. They also worked on tying knots because the bottom of our rope swing is a HUGE knot. Today, we added our rope swing to the tree.
Creating CobbAfter making Cobb houses out of red clay, firing them in the kiln, and adding roofs to them, it was time to move on to making a model of the Cobb house using actual Cobb material. This model will live on at St. Johns. But first, we had to make some Cobb. What is Cobb we wondered and researched, and how does it hold its structure if it is not fired in the kiln? We found out that we needed three basic materials. Clay, straw, & sand. "We had clay and straw and sand. We started with a tarp placed on the ground next to the existing Cobb house. We took wet, but not too wet, red clay and placed it on the tarp. Next, sand was added. Not too much at once though because we could add more but we could not take away. We did not want the clay to get too dry with the sand. If the clay got too dry it would begin to loose its elasticity for molding. Many hands make light work, and the sand was gradually merged into the sand. Now for the straw, the additional adhesive and structural material. We continued to mix the materials together--pushing and smooshing with our hand and body strength. We added some more sand and more straw as we worked to get the mixture to a pliable consistency that we thought was just right. "We're going to put our feet in it?!" -Georgia Oh, we also used our feet! Our Cobb is mixed and feet and hands are washed away of the clay that was covering them! The Cobb awaits for day 2 of our project or Cobb House Model part 2: Using the Cobb to Construct the Cobb House Also...An unexpected change in the outdoor classroom. A mourning dove is nesting in the shed. Respectfully and empathetically, we are keeping out of the shed and being quiet when nearby, but first a glimpse at the bird.
Finishing what we started! Some children worked together at the message center table using cut outs of the children's illustrations, reduced in size, to arrange the drawings to create the visual part of our letter to our alumni siblings. This letter asks the alumni to provide their memories and stories of the outdoor classroom in support of our outdoor classroom memorial project. (A copy of this will be sent home on Monday in the children's cubby bags.) We look forward to reading your stories. Our Letter: Dear Alum...It's My Mommy! Megan Paleologos as Mystery ReaderWe loved having you join RR and spend time reading to us!
"It's spring in here!" - Rainey RoomSpring inspired weavings Spring Inspired Sewings Spring Observational Drawings At the easel "A house with a flower." - Gracie, 4.5 years [on the right] Pierce's painting of the Bricks and concrete of New York City "The whole world, and the police car, and the police hugging the man, and the road and cars, and the sunset. Those are trees with fruit on it -- oranges." - Gracie and Georgia Happy Birthday Lillian |
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May 2024
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