Orange Band: Seed, Week 6

Gardens and robots and sprouts and dough and prints and clay and rubber bands, oh my!We had our hands in all of the pots this week, and it felt really really good. We hit the ground running by doing some work writing declarations four the projects we chose: a mill that is also a model of a flower, planter boxes that let us peek at plant growth, and a plant play. We started our declaration writing process by thinking about the what and how of each project; what materials and tools will we need? How will we complete each project? After writing together a declaration for our most complex project, the mill/model flower, kiddos worked in small groups to write declarations for the other two projects. In order to write the beginnings of a plan for how to do each project, kiddos thought about the order they would need to use each tool and material they listed. Next week, we'll type up these declarations (so they're super official!) and also think about the why: writing abstracts for each project that explain how these projects connect to our work during exploration.A few of the project ideas kiddos proposed were more appropriate for explorative projects--not quite deep enough, other bands have done something similar, don't quite reflect work that we've done--but they were so excited about them that I decided we should do them anyway! Case in point: seed bombs and sling shots. Making the seed bombs was so messy and so fun. Just mix up some clay and some dirt, add some water, and then knead in a spoonful of seeds, and POW! You've got a seed bomb. Next, how to launch that bomb? A quick refresh of the design process: draw it, include dimensions and materials. Put it together (remember, be thorough! Just like Elsa!). Test it. Make it better. Then, clean up! One thing I really like about projects like this is that kids can work at their own pace. We don't all need to be at the same point in the project at the same time.Oh, and BREAD. We kept baking bread. I really like this as a practice because we change something small about our process every time; the point is to practice, notice the differences in each loaf, and also to eat delicious bread.Last Friday, we joined the Blue Band for the first time in their weekly printmaking practice. It was so awesome! So, we're going to keep doing it. This is another practice: we don't all need to be at the same point in the process at all times, we'll change something about the process with each print, we'll teach and and learn from each other, and we'll spend time on it each week.Yay!