Charlton's Birthday Celebration

In keeping with our previous birthday gifts, wood was incorporated  into Charlton’s gift, while the base of his gift was a slab of white clay. The children have loved working with clay, since it was first introduced a few weeks ago. As an extension of our nature walks last week, we introduced using natural materials to print in clay. For Charlton’s gift, children use pieces of wood that they collected on their nature walk, which included bark, twigs and ginko shoots to print into the clay before glazing it with red and blue.

Day 1: Collecting Wood from Nature

We set out with a specific mission on our nature walk this time. We were looking for pieces of wood from nature that we could use to print into the blank clay slab. We found bark, twigs and strange little pieces of wood with stripes that we found out were "ginko shoots." 

Day 2: Printing in Clay with Wood

Ramsey, Bailee, Ragnar and Mimi joined Karen in the atelier to use the collected wood pieces for printing on the slab. 
Karen: How’s the clay feel?
Ramsey: Cold.
Bailee: Dirt (noticing that the pieces of bark were starting to fall apart and pieces of wood were starting to flake off).
Ramsey: Look! Yeah!
Karen: What colors do you think Charlton would like us to use for his birthday gift?
Ramsey: Brown. Because I think.
Bailee: Black! No Green!
Ragnar: I’m gonna do this one. I”m trying to get the dirt away. What happens if I press this one? Down? Nothing. Now done done? (Pulls the bark out of the clay). Yes it is. 
Mimi: I see blinking (looking at the lights in the atelier).
Ragnar: Why is the light blinking? I think it is out of battery.

Day 3: Underglazing the Printed Clay Slab

 Mimi and Rawls contributed to glazing Charlton’s birthday gift in red (his favorite color as confirmed by his dad, Addison) and blue (his favorite color according to Ford). 
Mimi pointed to the blue glaze, “Blue. I want that one,” but opted for red when she saw that Rawls was already using the blue. As Rawls brushed the glaze over the printed clay slab, he mused, “Blue, blue, blue." After Mimi and Rawls used the underglazes to color the clay, the next step was to fire it in the kiln. A clear glaze was applied after the first firing and the clay slab was fired a second time. 

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Day 4: Charlton's Birthday Celebration

The children of the Brown Room thoroughly enjoyed Charlton's special birthday treat, madeleines from a local  shoppe. Charlton's mom and dad, Eliza and Addison joined us for his birthday celebration and shared two of his favorite stories from home: Steam Train, Dream Train by Sherri Dusky Rinker and The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Following the St. John's tradition, Charlton walked around his candle three times to signify his three revolutions around the sun and then blew the candle out. Rawls and Cal presented Charlton with his gift and when Charlton and Eliza opened it together, Addison exclaimed,  “It looks like a fossil.” 
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