zompples

Presenting – last arc’s stop motion video by Quinn, Kaia, Coke, and Evan!

exposition party

Let’s take a moment to breathe: take in the whole By Hand arc, absorb the two weeks of hard work that the kids did on their incredible projects, revel in the merriment of this evening during the Exposition gathering for parents and friends… and know that in this calm before the holiday madness, we – the kids, the staff, and the parents – can celebrate Arc 2′s success with full confidence and happiness at a job well done.

It was a night of portfolios…

…artists-in-residence…

…and presenting work.

Zada and Ben talked about their cooking projects that didn’t result in any edible food, but left them with good stories to tell about their foray into culinary arts.

The felters – Audrey, Bruno, and Sofia – presented their work in two parts. They told their audience how difficult and arduous their process of felting and creating a nature scene was to accomplish, then acted out their narrative of squiggly things and redwood forest creatures interacting and having an environmental impact on each other.

Connor and Henry explained the concept behind their interactive comic and their process of working together to come to make a decision about a project that incorporated both their interests.

Kaia, Evan, Quinn, and Coke basked in the glow of triumph as they showed their stop animation movie “Zompples” and told everyone about the steps they took to make their masterpiece and their struggles to get past complications and stresses.

Here’s a brief preview of the very first public viewing of “Zompples”:

Lola, Norabelle, Natasha Mei, and Clementine (through Skype video chat, as she was out sick today) talked about their quilt that they so steadfastly sewed together.

Last but certainly not least, Ninja Ben, Aidan, and Logan talked about their experiments with water and boating and showed off their handmade, floaty boats.

Thanks for all the support and generosity, parents.

Post-party dance party.

We came together this evening to celebrate the kids’ projects and the work they put in to get things done in collaboration, and as we all watched the presentations I could not believe that we’re all here together, on this crazy journey of creating a school and learning so much as we do it, and that I get to know all these incredible people as we grow and learn together. As always, I’m so happy that this is what I get to do with my time and that so many have put their trust in us to do what we love, with kids and parents we adore.

Happy holidays!

colored paper

Today was a day of colored construction paper and writing as the kids filled their portfolios with thoughts and memories from the By Hand arc. They were triumphant as they proudly finished, hard work ready for display!

A reading afternoon with Mackenzie.

Surrounding Anthony with jokes during snack.

The stop motion crew reviewed their completed animated movie for the first time.

And a break on the cork at the end of the day.

portfolio

Tracing the art lab.

Exposition week has proven most challenging for us as a school, but this week has been one of triumphs and scribbling pencils as the kids reflect on the great things that have happened during the By Hand arc and the struggles they faced during the process of working on their projects. Today everyone was focused on writing and drawing for their portfolios and everyone shared their work with each other to inspire more detail and more depth in their work.

Mackenzie taught the secret sound of “th” to Aidan, Ninja Ben, and Lola.

They read a story during quiet time and counted the “th”, “ch”, “ing” and “sh” sounds together.

The felting crew and the boaters…

…and the quilters and the stop motion team shared their portfolio work with each other to inspire further thought and more reflection.

Writing continued after the lunch park break.

Josh gave the Undead Goats a code to solve that would reveal the name of the next arc. Ben and Connor cracked the code and created a new one out of playing cards for the rest of the school, which they consider much easier than the one Josh made.

This week brings furrowed brows and aching hands, to be sure, but also minds racing with thoughts and memories about the arc and their projects!

writing

Everyone was hard at work on their portfolios today – writing and reflecting was the name of the game.

Other favorite moment of the day: The stop motion crew went into the workshop to do the sound effects for their zombie movie. Their screaming and stomping was distant, but we were still confused about what children were having such a good time… until we remembered they were our kids!