a day of expression
A day of expression looks kind of like this:
Making a plan.
Reflecting on yesterday, and setting goals for the day.
More set setting.
Prepping to hang the sausage – which is actually going to be salami.
Snack.
Clean bowl… dirty shirt.
A new boat, this time made of wood.
More quilting.
A short ride.
Storytime on the front stairs.
Josh’s drawing game reveals a surprising new creature.
Working on quilt squares.
Set lighting.
Just another lovely day of Expression.
progress
The lull of focused work returned to the school today after the excitement of pig butchering and everyone split up into their groups of three and four to continue making progress on their declaration projects.
Clementine showed her group the coat that her great-great (great?) grandmother made from an old salt sack and scraps of fabric left over from other sewing projects.
Logan helped Aidan put the finishing touches on the boat that he was building with Ninja Ben (who was out sick today). They named it the SS Ben until Ninja Ben returns to give it a proper name. This video is of the SS Ben’s maiden voyage in a tub of water covered in pond liner.
Aidan explained weight distribution in the SS Ben.
The boat boys and their audience experimented with weight distribution and water displacement.
Back to the drawing board to record their findings and continue building.
Ben tested how long it would take to melt chocolate on a makeshift double boiler without touching it.
This morning, he tried out his steak with chocolate lemon sauce recipe on the Undead Goats. It sounded like the reviews were positive.
The stop motion kids checked out their progress.
…and went back to shooting.
The felting group came out from the fiber arts lab and relaxed in the welcome area.
The quilting girls have been hard at work on their squares.
A new construction project.
And we ended the day with a Toy Lab game: making a sinister story out of extra keyboard letters.
testing projects
The prototyping continued today with experiments in water for boats, using embroidery thread for quilting, testing ingredients in the kitchen, using stop-motion software, and felting. The kids are making huge strides in learning how to work in groups where everyone has their own ideas about the project and they have to compromise to make an even stronger project.
This morning, Ree showed some of the kids how she makes her own yarn on the spinning wheel.
Connor contemplated the joint on his design for a hand and worked with Henry to compromise on a project that combines their love of comics and gadgets.
Isaac, Ben, and Zada made progress in their best and worst food recipes.
Coke, Kaia, and Evan worked on the story for the stop motion animation movie.
Clementine, Ben, and Aidan experimented with which kinds of material hold water best.
Ben and Aidan played with soap boats.
Theo worked on a popcorn experiment: he predicted that it would take 2 minutes to pop, but we found that the actual time was 2 minutes 23 seconds.
Clementine, Norabelle, Lola, and Natasha Mei used paper and thread to make ornaments.
Stop motion practice.
Sofia, Audrey, and Bruno Kai worked on their felted nature scene.
Roland continued to absorb the kids in his art throughout the day.
At the end of the day, we all gathered together so we could see the short stop motion films that Evan, Kaia, and Coke prototyped.
Everyone worked so hard today! It was another one of those amazing days where the buzz in the school was one of intense concentration and work. Doesn’t get better than that!
