WOOT, WOOT....it's Wednesday!

1/9/2019

This morning we were SO excited to welcome the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday friends back to school. During morning meeting they shared a little about their holidays. Oliver showed photos with his cousins in Ithaca, Wolf shared a photo of a donkey (but before meeting he had happily showed many photos from the beach), Ellie went to the beach and the zoo, Palmer shared photos of a visit to the aquarium and a train museum, and Ada showed photos of assembling a tent with her family and playing with sand. Everyone was busy over the holiday but also quite pleased to finally be back at school.

During the meeting Melanie also shared examples of creations that had been fired and glazed by previous St. John's children. She asked what material they might be made from and some of the ideas shared were, "fabric, clay and rock." We are beginning to create clay pieces that can go through the process of drying, firing and glazing. Melanie explained that school has a special oven for clay called a kiln. And later, when we went outside, the children saw the kiln. They looked inside to see where the clay goes.

In the studio, the friends were busy at work with clay, learning and practicing techniques to create specific shapes, as well as scoring and slipping so that two pieces of clay can "stick" together. Some will continue to work on their pieces tomorrow and/or Friday. Some pieces will probably be ready for the kiln next week.

In the classroom, the new setup and materials were of great interest to the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday children.
The children busy in the kitchen, but also enjoyed the spacious new setup for building blocks and driving vehicles.

Oliver, "There's music on here." (plugs it into the speakers). "I made a phone call. I called Caroline. She's outside on the ladder getting the leaves off to put in the trash can."