As exposition night draws near, all of our kiddos are working hard on their projects, some individually and some in groups. This week I had the pleasure to spend time with Sally’s group who are working to write and act out their own play. To help the kiddos think through ways to bring their words to life, Sally challenged them to engage in some interpretative dance experiences.
First she shared an example of some contemporary art activists who had created a dance performance to protest the creation of a mine that would harm animals and wildlife. Together the class watched a short clip of the video (you can watch it via this link: https://rosemontours.com/2014/03/04/trailer-for-rosemont-ours-a-field-guide/). After viewing the video, the kids broke up into three small groups to work on developing movements for their own story. Each group had a different part of the story (beginning, middle, and end) to act out, and had already chosen a piece of classical movement to use. Sally reminded the kiddos that the artists in the video they watched had used used a variety of spaces – high, low, and middle. The kids added their reflections: “they were going slow and fast.” “They were still.” Sally added the following directions: “think of a few specific movements representative of characters, emotions, and actions of your characters.” The groups got to work. I mostly watched and took some videos of their work. They did an amazing job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnM3J_imgYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN53urmLsVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miRiRS0q_-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z91yT-1afS8 {these videos are listed under restricted permissions - you can only access them with the links provided - they are not "searchable" via you tube itself}
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It is always lovely to watch children devote a lot of time, energy, and interest into a single project. Over the past month or so I have watched Abby (joined by Nyssa) work on creating caring homes for some local insects. Abby had found a small glass enclosure that became the home for a number of different bugs over the course of the past few weeks. As the bugs changed so did the items inside the enclosure.
On this particular day, I asked Abby and Nyssa a bit about what they were working on – who was inside and what were they building for them? The explained that there were two bugs – “this is Angel. The other one is Spirit.” They could tell them apart because one was bigger than the other. “The bugs we have in here, we call them beetle juices.” It was clear they cared about these animals as they spent a considerable amount of time developing their home. “These [buttons and gems] are fun pads for them to have fun on. It’s like an activity so they don’t get bored.” In addition to fun (“the gems are just for fun”) and game, they also had food for their little bugs. They created little bowls out of clay that held “salad” for them to eat. When I came back around to the girls after spending some time with other kiddos they had found another enclosure and were building another habitat! I guess they were creating an alternate home for one of the bugs, just in case they needed to be separated! During EBL time our students have the choice to create in many different ways. A few weeks ago (I’m a bit behind on my posts!) I watched a number of students create games after what I can only assume was a great workshop led by Faffs on game design. Creating games is a complex process as you have to think through the conceptual rules of the game, the physical game design, and then make sure that people can actually play with it.
On this particular day many of the children were engrossed with creating games during their creative time. Abby was particularly interested in a set of cards that I assume she had made during her workshop, and was playing with them during this time. Sula and Cyri were working on a complex game that challenged the player to rearrange many letters to uncover a hidden message! In the meantime, Parker was working quietly at a nearby table. When I asked what he was making he replied that it was a game – “called murder!” He had a flat piece of cardboard with a checkerboard pattern drawn on it and was carefully working on creating a pattern of blue and green dots. I asked how he knew where to put a green or blue dot: “cause, green, blue, blue, green so that it goes in a pattern.” Sebas was working on a game that seemed more of a challenge to make rather than play. He sat on the floor among many pieces of cardboard and a hot glue gun. “I’m making a game…it’s gonna be a game where balls go down and I’m gonna put a cardboard thing that says ‘finish’ and whatever ball passes to the thing that says ‘finish’ first wins.” While I absolutely love the act of documenting, it is sometimes sad to catch only glimpses of the children’s work. How did these games come out? Did the children play them, or was it simply the act of creating them that held their interest? While I don’t have these answers, I can say that it is always a pleasure to witness the kiddos think through design and process. |