Wednesday, March 3rd

3/3/2021

There is so much going on in the Brown Room!

Did you know that we currently have TWO design projects in progress?

If you need a reminder to catch you up, we are currently designing both a DRAGON costume as well as working on an all school PAJAMA design project.

Today, let's focus on sharing updates about the pajama project!

The Brown Room is now well on their way to making some awesome contributions to the all school pajama design.
Last week, we became acquainted with the pajama project documentation board at school and began to grasp an understanding of the meaning of this exciting collaborative project.
We immediately had some questions about the project specifically regarding what the process of designing pajamas for the school would entail, so we asked Lou Lou Baker (Cape's mom) to join us on zoom and further explain her job as an artist/designer. This helped us gain an even deeper understanding of the work! After Lou Lou was able to guide us through her own process, we were ready to use this learned information to begin our own designing.

What would "St. John's" pajamas look like?

Before beginning to take on the challenge of creating physical designs for the pajamas, we needed to have a collaborative brain storming session together as a class to begin to come up with ideas for potential designs. We know that pajamas can have endless amounts of amazing designs on them (we have seen so many different types of designs during our school pajama days), but what if we wanted to create pajamas that made us think about our school? What would St. John's pajamas look like?

With a shirt and pants. - Bea
My symbol! - Finlay
The playground. - Hugh
... (thinking about the outdoor classroom space)
Mushrooms! and trucks are on the playground. - Lily
Rat traps are on the playground. - Daniel

As we continued our discussion and shared our ideas with one another, we decided to focus on thinking about the school environment. We recalled on our many "school tours" where we had the opportunity to become more familiar with the entire building and all of the spaces within the school. We even reflected on some of our school tour documentation and looked at photos of the different spaces around the school.

St. John's symbol! - Bea
(noticing the "imagination brain" in many different photos around the school)
You could draw the kitchen. Or paint the kitchen like Cape's mom. - Bea
And the stairs when you go to pick up (dismissal). - Bea

Suddenly we noticed that there are LOTS of stairs in the photos from the school tours. There are staircases all throughout the school! How many different stairs could we think of?

We walk up stairs to go to school. - Lily
There's two stairs! - Hugh
One down to the kitchen, one up to the school, and one down to pick up. - Bea
And Molly's stairs! - Wilder (referring to the staircase to the bell tower in Molly's office)
And one to go outside! - Hugh

That's a lot of stairs! We counted and could think of five different staircases that we have visited/used within the school.

Designing Stairs

A small group of children volunteered to begin the pajama design process with staircases in mind.

Where is the best place to get inspiration for drawing stairs? From real life examples of course!
We set out around the school to observe different staircases and begin sketching our initial designs ...

Research / Observations:

Shape

Curvy, curvy, curvy. So that you can step on them. - Hugh
This is my first time (drawing steps). They go up and down. - Lily
They go up and down. - Daniel
They turn! They're like zig saggy and they curve. - Hugh
(observing the difference in the shape of the staircase up to the school)
We could follow the finger! - Lily
(tracing the shape of the staircase with her finger in the air)
It's a triangle. - Daniel
(observing the difference in shape of the landing step versus the other ascending steps)

Shadow
(observing the staircase outside)

The shadows on the stairs do line line. So that's why I have to do (draw) line line. - Hugh
They look like an accordion body! - Hugh

Quantity

10 stairs! - Lily
(counting the amount of steps on the staircase descending to the chapel of the carpenter / dismissal area)

After deciding that a staircase design should include at least 10 steps, Hugh and Lily worked together to create a design that depicted enough length for the appropriate size, length, and amount of stairs.
This was challenging!

Our initial designs are fantastic! The intentionality behind the work and effort we are putting into this project already is truly amazing.

A special birthday!

How can a building have a birthday? - Hugh

Remy and Michael visit the number line that is used to depict the age of the school.

Even a school can have a birthday!
Tomorrow, our school turns 24 years old.
We will celebrate tomorrow with a special school sing along and Tucker Room children plan to present a birthday gift to the school.

In the Brown Room, we decided to create our own special birthday messages with well wishes and love for our school too!

Remy's Gift
"It's like Beyonce. It's a fashion show. A fashion show store. For the school. I have to wrap it! With pretty gems."