Thursday, March 04

3/4/2021

Happy 24th Birthday, St John's!

Sing along had just ended and unprompted, Janie asked a thoughtful and heartfelt question, "Are we going to make a bouquet for St. John's? Let's make a bouquet for St. John's." Janie was clearly connecting our RRB birthday bouquets with the occasion of the school's birthday. Moments like this are inspiration for projects in the making. Janie's idea influenced another idea. "Do we have a birthday card for St.John's?" asked Jordan. Sylvie replied, "I want to make a birthday card." -Sylvie

"Are we going to make a bouquet for St. John's?" -Janie

Birthday messages for St. John's: (from left to right) from Jane, Lucia, and Janie

Houses and Treehouses

"Are you coming, Jane?" -Janie

All school year long, the children have loved expressing their interests and ideas through the language of construction. Nearly every time they build, it's a house. During the house building process a narrative often emerges involving feeding and taking care of animals, keeping out a monster, or weathering a storm. Last fall, Janie inadvertently extended the work of houses when she built a treehouse.

Treehouses have emerged in their play from time to time since then . However, there has been a recent increase in the relevance of treehouses. Last week, during our shared time with RRA working to construct a cardboard structure for paper mâché, the final structure was deemed a treehouse or a palm tree treehouse more specifically. (right)

The first day of our St John's pajama project brought the idea of house, by Jane, and treehouse (with an owl in it), by Janie. The second day, yesterday brought more drawings of houses (with floors and lots of levels) and treehouses, with a puppy who would live there, by Audrey. At the end of the day there was, again, the familiar narrative of a house (and our above pictured treehouse occupied by stuffed animals), and taking care of the animals with food and beds. Sylvie made a bed for a "sick" squirrel, provided with food and visits from other animal friends. (bottom left)

So, we planned, today, to focus specifically on treehouses through the language of drawing, followed by building, and it's not likely to be our only or last day exploring treehouses!