February 25th, 2021

Pod B

Beautiful Backwards Day
​There was plenty of sunshine for the Pod B backwards day.  Right away, Nora and Lane noticed a flower growing.  This led us to look to see if we saw any signs of the daffodils that we planted earlier in the winter.  We found some that were  just starting to poke through the soil.   As a group, we are enthusiastically looking for signs of spring.  
Cannon and Palmer focused on an elaborate animals environment.  The structure included a front yard, a porch, a sloping roof for shelter, and a backyard with a climbing feature.

Pajama Planning
Earlier in the week, Pod B came up with individual pajama designs.  Unfortunately, we know that there can’t be individual ideas represented on the school pajamas.  Collaboration is not an easy process.  How will we solve this problem?
Palmer - Do everyone’s idea.
Rachel - Well there’s about 44 children in the school, so that would be 44 designs.
Palmer - That would be amazing!
Lane - What if we could find something that all of the classes in our school…. all of the kids… like and put them on the pajamas.  
Some children suggest Thunder Cats, Ninja Turtles, BatI like man, and cheetahs.
Gigi - I like Thunder Cats, but I don’t want them on my pajamas.  
Lane - How about one thing that all of the boys like and one thing all of the girls like.
Palmer - We only need two classes.  Tucker Pod A and Tucker Pod B.
Jill - That might work.  Each pod could have an idea.  Is there one idea that all of Pod B would like?
Cannon - Well, all of Pod B has soccer today.
Lane - You gave me an idea.  I’m thinking that if we find something that both girls and boys like, then all the girls and boys would like the pajamas.  Animals!  Girls and boys like animals.  
Gigi - I don’t like pictures of animals.  I want to make myself look like an animal.  I like cheetahs.   
 Lane - I like jaguars and leopards.
 Palmer - I like jaguars, leopards, and gorillas.  
 Cannon - I like jaguars, leopards, and cheetahs.  I like all animals.
 Nora - I don’t like jaguars and leopards.  I like cheetahs.
​
As the group realized there was some common ground., they began drawing.  Some children  drew the leopards and cheetahs, while others focused on invented mythological creatures.

Construction
Lane is right, everyone in Pod B likes animals. Children built individual animal homes, but then found ways to join the structures, visit each other, or live together.  Today was also notable for being the first time Pod B used two ladders! 

Pod A

Compass Experiments
Children went outside in pairs with Melanie to play a game with the compasses.  First, they watched about 30 seconds of this instructional video that helped develop understanding about how the compass works. Inspired by the video, children began nicknaming the needle "Fred" and the large red arrow the "Shed" while they tried to ascertain which direction was North.  Children were able to read the printed words "North", "East", "South", and "West" on papers by remembering the first letters of each word.  Once they had placed the 4 blocks in the correct positions, they worked with Melanie to pretend like they were traveling to different parts of Georgetown, the USA and the world.  For instance, they went East to China, South to Brazil, West to California, and Northeast to New York City by running to the correct block and back. They practiced holding the compass flat on their hands, and found out the "Fred" (the needle) always points North.

The Pajama Project
Earlier this week, the children saw some  examples of LouLou Baker's designs for her pajama line. That day, each child individually created a design concept. The work included a wide range of ideas. Today, in an effort to think of design in a more collaborative setting, groups set out to create "St. John's pajamas" by drawing on large human figures. Though, they mostly drew individually, there were clear moments of collaboration. 
The first group consisted of: Aida, Grace, Olivia and Dakota. Each had ideas and got started right away. After some initial drawing, Grace articulated a collaborative concept when she decided to draw an idea that she knew Maren liked. During meeting Maren had mentioned that she thought that rainbows, stars and moons would be a good design.
With that in mind, Grace drew a moon and said, "Like Maren asked for. Now I'll draw a rainbow."
Later Grace asked Olivia for her opinion about the rainbow she had drawn, "Is that the whole rainbow, Olivia?"
Olivia responded, "The rainbow starts with red." 
Grace, "I have red, just not at the start."
Olivia, "I think so." (responding to the initial question)
Dakota then counted the colors and said, "That's only 1, 2, 3, 4 colors."
Grace, "Yeah, I think you're right Dakota."
Dakota, "What if you try some brown?"
Grace took the suggestion and added brown to her drawing.
At another point Aida was voicing uncertainty of what to draw next, "I can't really decide what to draw next."
Dakota then suggested, "You could draw a smiley face over there." (pointing to some open space on the paper)

The second group was Oliver, Fletcher, Andy and Maren. Like the first group, they worked mostly independently, but shared some ideas along way. 
For example, at one point Oliver said, "Mine is just gonna to be blue blue. What is yours gonna to be?"
Andy replied, "Mine's gonna be blue, green, blue, pink, yellow, brown, red. Because that is all the rainbow."
Oliver, "Uh, that is not the rainbow."
Maren, "Want me to tell you the real rainbow colors?"
Andy, "Yeah."
Maren, "It's is uh..."
Andy, "Red, orange, yellow, green..."
Maren, "Blue, purple."

Pod A will continue to work towards a collaborative design concept for our contribution to the school pajama project. Next week, we will probably share Pod B's conversation from today with the children to help steer them toward a collaborative concept.

Mystery Reader
Thank you to Randy and Carrie for being the Mystery Readers today! We appreciated their flexibility because in a crazy coincidence, we had already read one of the books they were planning to read during snack. Thankfully, they had some other great titles lined up. They hosted the call from Dakota's room. It was fun for her friends to see some of her toys in the background. (The Barbie dream house in particular.)
Randy read, "Goodnight Los Angeles." Since Dakota and her family used to live there, during the book, they made connections to Dakota's real life experiences. Dakota has been to the zoo, aquarium and Santa Monica pier, which are all featured in the book. Carrie read, "Little Elliot Big City." The story takes place in New York City where Dakota was born.