December 07th, 2021

Happy Birthday Fay! 

Happy Birthday Fay! Today we celebrated Fay’s third birthday. We shared delicious banana muffins and welcomed her parents who shared Goldilocks and Good Night, Good Night Construction site! In anticipation of her birthday, Fay’s birthday committee worked hard to create her gift. For Fay’s gift we continued with our tradition of wood materials, but this time experimented with prints of the wood grains on paper. ​

Day One-  Experimenting with the Printing Technique
Because printing is such a new technique for us, we dedicated a day to experimenting with the paints, papers and materials to figure out what would work best for Fay’s gift. In pairs, Ford, Charlton, Cal and Ramsey experimented with print making. The children spent time rolling the paint across leaves, feathers and lace to see what made the best prints. After a half hour of work, we decided that the most interesting prints were of the wood grain on paper, especially when compared to the alternative of leaf and feather prints on wood.

Ford working with a leaf: It’s not working. See. Oh see there it’s green!
Charlton: it’s kind of like green. Green on the feather!
Ford: Can i try that? (the lace) 
Ford after printing the lace : Oh, i made a rainbow!

Cal: Ramsey can use this one. I need black
Ramsey pulling the leaf off of wood: Look! It’s a leaf!

Day Two-  Making the Wood Prints

Having decided the previous day that wood grain made the most interesting prints, day two of Fay’s birthday committee focused on making the prints. Emma and Seon spent half an hour printing followed by Cal and Mimi who did the same. Each pair carefully took the time to select their wood piece, cover it in ink with the roller and then press and roll the grain onto the paper. In the end, we had 15 beautiful prints completed for the birthday gift.

Emma: You got this one. Emma uses a green one
Seon: It’s green! It’s a tree!
Emma: whoah! More green! Emma do it. Stamp, Stamp, stamp. 
Seon: Another one!
Seon excitedly: It’s a tree!!












Mimi: Can I do some? For Mimi?
Cal: I just kind of want some paint on this. 
Elena: Well Cal that’s the clean roller we’re using for the printing
Cal: I need some paint on it. I’m ready. I need that one. 
Mimi: I want to do that one, I want green. 

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Day Three - Arranging the Prints 

Now that we had our 15 prints it was time to arrange and collage them. Ford and Seon volunteered to work on this project, and were particularly excited to work on it in the Middle Room. The two children chose from the black and green prints and arranged several iterations of each design before gluing them to the page. The prints, the paper and the ribbon were all green to represent Fay’s favorite color.

Ford: Now, can we glue?
Elena: We should arrange them before we glue them.
Ford: Arrange?
Elena: Yes to put them on the paper in a beautiful way. 
Ford: Then what we gonna do? On here? Where are we gonna put them?
Ford: This one and this? 

Ford: I’m putting that here, and that here and that here. 
Seon: It’s a tree. 

The Gift 

The result was a beautiful gift of collaged wood prints, arranged and decorated with a green ribbon curtesy of Ford and Seon. When we presented it to Fay today she excitedly unwrapped it and shared it with her Mom, Dad and brother Van. We wish you a happy, happy birthday Fay!