hands and hand-tools

There were so many incredible things that happened today at school. Everyone was engaged in the simple yet elegant projects that the collaborators led for the day.Mackenzie rocked the ojo de dios making all day.Finagling yarn and dowels.Ben contemplates the beginnings of his ojo de dios.The Flying Fish watch carefully for the next instruction.Soon almost everyone was engrossed in making ojos de dios.The kids did crayon rubbings with different textured objects and surfaces.Some bookmaking and illustrating.Making play dough by hand. Sofia's face says, "Gross!"The handmade play dough resulted in moments of imagination and negotiation for some of the boys. They made up a series of rules and names for themselves during doughy battle.Carving potatoes into shapes...Ben found that a second go at making the alphabet carvings resulted in better letters. It just the kind of discovery we want the kids to start making!...and then making french fries at the end of the day.Josh taught the kids finger binary counting.Debbie came in and did some gardening by hand with the kids.The collaborators have picked up on three different main threads of interest for the kids - fiber arts, paper arts, and drawing comics - and have started shaping the day toward including those interests in the everyday exploration during By Hand. The more days like this, the better!