Thursday, January 6th

Mixing Colors in the Studio

Today in the studio, children revisited tempera paints and explored mixing colors for the first time.  Rachel and Brigitte introduced the idea of mixing colors during morning meeting. When making plans, Rawls was very interested in mixing colors right away. He hypothesized, "...and purple make brown!" 

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The first group to visit the studio and experiment with mixing colors included Charlton, Ellie and Rawls.
Charlton: What color is a strawberry? Red! What color is lava? Red! 
Rawls: (mixing red and white) It's going to make light blue. Later, he made orange and noticed it: Orange!! 
Rachel: How did you make orange?
Rawls: Yellow! 
Charlton: What color is a strawberry? Red! What color is lava? Red! 
Rachel: Does your color have a name? (asking about the red/slightly orange mix that he had created).
Charlton: (my color is called) Great White (Like the shark)!
Ellie enjoyed painting red all over the white paper. She mixed a little bit, adding yellow, but not  enough to change the color. 

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Ford and Emma visited the studio in the second part of the morning.
Ford was enthralled with the idea of mixing colors:
When beginning to mix red and white: It's going to make blue. 
While mixing red and white: No, red!
Then mixing yellow and red: It's red! No, it's orange and red. Like a volcano!
When mixing blue and red: It could be blue or red. Let's see what happens. It's red. 
Then adding yellow: It's still red. I have a good idea! I can mix that one and that one and that one and that one (all four colors), and let's see what happens!
He mixes them all: Whoa! It's a rainbow!!
It's like yucky mac and cheese! Ford commented about the orange/pink color mixture. 
Emma mixed blue and yellow during most of her exploration. Later, on she began to add white to the mixture: It's making red? It's making green!
Emma: What are you making, Ford?
Ford: I'm making a beautiful rainbow.
Emma: Emma's making a beautiful color. ​

Exploring Light with the Overhead Projector

The children have explored light and how it transforms materials at the light table, but today they had the opportunity to try out the overhead projector with a variety of translucent materials. 

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Ford and Rawls explored how the light from the projector and the materials became part of the classroom environment.

Emma observed the design that she created on the projector as it shown on the screen: Look!

Revisiting Some Familiar Materials

The children also had an opportunity to revisit some familiar materials upon returning from the winter break:

• Ford, Emma and Charlton explored ramps in the construction area
• Charlton and Rawls cooked as "chefs" in the kitchen
• Ellie and Rawls built structures with Magna-tiles