Construction Camp Week 9
We built a roller-coaster-train-cart and tracks with the 5-7 year olds and a arbor-fort-textile-sanctuary with the 7-14 year olds this week. We had a blast, we worked hard, we played hard and we focused. The highlight of the week for me was the peered teamwork. There was tons of it across all ages. The work ahead of starting up the school year keeps me from saying to much but there are a few good photos over at our flickr.
Construction Camp – Swing and Tunnels
In just one short week we created take-home anywhere swings that can be thrown over any tree, a group swing that held 8 people, and an enclosed tunnel/maze with two tiers. Make make make.
Some of the multi-age play moments at the park and on our cork floor where among the most lovely and self-sustaining of any group games of the summer.
Catch more photos over on our flickr.
Construction Camp Wrap Up!
From drilling and hammering to creating a local café and a micro economy in 5 days.
Check out a whole week worth of construction camp photos over on our flickr page.
By Hand Camp, Day 5
A whirlwind day followed by a whirlwind week!
Check out the last day of photos from By Hand Camp here.
Highlights include a giant harmonograph, a spirograph of sorts and gravity painting on 14 foot pieces of butche paper hung from the ceiling.
By Hand Camp, Day 4
Mounted paintings, finished our suspended harmonograph, made collages, played with wire and had a ton of free play time. My kind of day.
The free play that happened at the park was beautiful. Games were invented that simply could not have been created by an adult. There was chanting, turn taking, shared burden and shared responsibility. They were the kind of games (and kind of cooperation) that can only happen when you only have as much power as the other people want to give you. It’s the nature of unregulated peer play to teach an entirely different set off skills.
By Hand Camp, Day 3
What a day! With the fourth of July we only had 5 kids show up to camp today. In the morning we hot-glued nails face up to paper and wood. Then we dropped paint-filled balloons from our 20-foot kid-made tower. It was possibly the most dangerous art I have ever been a part of. In the afternoon we did coke and mentos experiments till we where soaked and tired.
We had 12 bottles of coke, enough for everyone to try twice. The result was amazing. The first try most people played it safe, but with the second bottle people got really creative. There was the “shower head” modification and the double-bottle fuzz catcher. Trial and error, the most powerful teacher.
By Hand Camp, Day 2
Today we worked on three major projects: our own personal accordion notebooks and suminagashi prints, and continued work on our drawing machine.
We climbed high to put paracord over our rafters.
We did so very attentively.
The kids took the camera.
They got some really great shots.
The afternoon was all suminagashi and pendulum building.
More on the pendulum tomorrow.
