Wednesday Sept. 30th

The Adventures of Pod B...
HOPSCOTCH...
(see captions on slideshow)

Conversations while Paint mixing...
Olivia: This is my daddy’s shirt.
Andy: And this is MY daddy’s shirt.
Olivia: Pinkish is the best color, right Andy?
Andy: Yeah.  Look what I did.
Olivia: A little bit of yellow.  It makes green!
Andy: Light black!
Olivia:  How bout I mix pink?  Mix, mix, mix.  Mix it up.  Pinkish… That’s so cool!
(Andy laughs)
Olivia: Now I’ll use yellow.  Mix it up into black.  Daniel would love this color, he loves black.
​

Weaving on the Giant Loom
Our weaving got a lot taller today using our "rainbow" strips of paper.  

We realized on Monday we didn't have purple or pink paper strips, so Olivia and Aida painted a few beautiful strips of paper that we can begin weaving in tomorrow.

(by Olivia)

Aida: Do you like all of my paintings? I was pretending this painting was clogged!

Andy and Oliver experimented with weaving at the same time from opposite sides and had a traffic jam in the center!  Then, they tried to backtrack, but it created a large unwieldy clump that made further weaving tough.  They still prevailed!  Later, Olivia and Fletcher had a similar traffic jam, which made us laugh.
Trial and error is a great way to learn about what does/doesn't work in any medium, and weaving is no exception.  This is one example of why using materials is such an important part of our curriculum... it allows for a lot of child-driven problem solving!

Adventures in Pod A
Collaboration:
The "Snake Incubator" and Making the Cobb House Clean Together!

Upon heading outside for Backwards Day this morning, Cannon suggested that the group build a “snake incubator.” His friends were totally onboard and thus a large, intentional, cooperative building project began. At points there were 6 children all working together on the structure. They used sand as “cement” between pieces of wood and stone and consulted each other about where to to put pieces and what to use. Here are some excerpts of conversation that happened during the build:

Maren (to Lane): Where should I put this?

Wolf (to Palmer): Cannon said to put this (block) here but I don’t think it’s sturdy.
Palmer: Well let’s put it here. (indicating another area close by)

Dakota: Cannon, can I help?
Cannon: You can help!

Wolf: (bringing over a stump to the sand area asks the group) Do we need this? 
Palmer: Yeah, we need stumps.

Cannon (to all): Keep on building!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

While the snake incubator was being built, Gigi was keen to use the obstacle course that had been built by the Rainey Room. However, she needed help getting the boat flipped over and into the correct spot. She asked Nora to help:

Gigi: Nora, do you want to help me?

The girls soon discovered that they needed more help. Other friends came to help and Wolf stayed afterwards to ensure that the boat got placed in the correct spot. 

After “finishing” the snake incubator, another collaborative project manifested through dramatic play in the Cobb house.

Maren: Do you like our apartment? (gesturing to the Cobb house)
Lane: Yes.
Maren: Let’s go in.
Lane: It looks so dusty.
Maren: I’ll get a broom.
Dakota (joins): What are you doing in here?
Lane: We’re cleaning our apartment. It’s SO dirty.
Dakota: I want to help.

Later, as the group wanted to continue to get all the mulch out of the Cobb house, they realized they needed to remove the tire. They informed Palmer and he asked Wolf for help.

Palmer: Wolfie they need the tire out.
Wolf: Okay.  
(he rolls it out for them)
Dakota/Maren/Lane: Thank you!!

Pod A was so collaborative this morning! It was wonderful to hear them working together and helping one another. It was also fantastic to see fluid groupings happening.