everything is awesome
The kids’ usual analysis of a day at Brightworks is that it’s awesome.
Sofia wrote today, “I finisht my book shellf.”
Audrey was thrilled by her awesome day and wrote, “I read in Book Club. We played in the rain and yelled!”
Rain shadows, captured in photographs.
Elizabeth’s Dia de los Muertos after-school workshop.
Yup. Pretty awesome.
choose your own day
Monday brought clouds and rain, but also brought a hands-off approach to the kids choosing what they wanted to do with their school days. We sat down in bands and made plans for what each of the kids wanted to do for the day, and off they went to do and make and create. I hope you aren’t stunned when I say that the noise level was low and everyone was focused and engaged in their activities of choice.
Many kids continued to build the frame for Kid City.
Others made advertising posters for the play that they’re working on.
Or discussed the next moves.
More construction.
Gever brought in two huge boxes of fabric scraps when he picked up the Juki (the super-powered industrial sewing machine that can sew through multiple layers of heavy canvas or take your finger off, whichever is more appropriate). The fabric came in handy today – the kids made costumes or draped themselves in material.
Working on Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and game coding.
Making and creating.
framing, and an excess of paint
Construction in forms large and small framed this day. The older kids spent the morning constructing the frames of the two-story Kid City while the the younger kids headed to San Francisco General Hospital’s construction site just a few blocks away from our little school. Mix in a little paint and you have a day.
The foundation at the hospital went down three stories! Aidan assured me that this “isn’t too deep,” but they saw the crane moving things around so fast!
Setting out 2x4s back at the school.
Zada helped align the wood for strong joints and a steady Kid City frame.
Connor concentrated on the task at hand.
Theo helped Audrey with her play and assured me he would soon know the secrets of time travel (right, Theo?)
A quick break at the park before the younger kids came hurrying back to school.
After lunch, Kaia prepared her feet for a record in strides.
Coke took a break to read in the library – now located in the office area, thanks to Melanie and Kristie’s hard moving work.
Gever worked with Henry on some gaming code and Isaac wrote more in his tale of zombie mayhem, while Stewart and Theo continued to explore the world.
What can you discover from the footsteps of the kids at Brightworks?
Jennie – our friend and carpentry and kids’ tool education extraordinaire – showed Audrey how to use the chop saw.
Kai helped Mei stabilize her sawing so she could start building a table for her flower shop.
Logan started to construct submarine that will never sink.
Ben had plans of his own…
Clementine and Jennie work on sturdy joints on a shelf for Clementine’s Kid City shop.
Connor and Ben measure on the diagonal to square the frames for stability.
Setting the frames upright.
An experiment in tracing footsteps gone to the extreme – paint everywhere!
Quinn composed a poem for Sofia after she fell in the paint slide:
We’re painting a painting for painting the painting.
A painting was painting a painting.
She was a painting that was painting a painting.
She was painting who was painting a painting of painting that a painting can painting so well.
-quinn.
“Brightworks,” Josh said, “is where clean clothes go to die.”
Norabelle, Zada, Kaia: you’ve proven this correct. It will not be the last time.
