from the atelier 2/02/08

Hopefully, everyone got their flyer for the Kahala Mall Show.  The show is a great opportunity to share your children's work with them.

I also put out a flyer about materials needed for the atelier.  Thank you to all the parents who have donated. The children really appreciate it. I will put up the list again. We don't really need craft items; we need "beautiful junk" items.  We also need old towels and drop cloths. Thank you.

“Beautiful junk”:
-cigar boxes
-broken things, watches, necklaces, jewelry, wires etc.
-colored cellophane
-cut pictures or old photographs
-things your children find beautiful
-stickers
-beads
-keys
-chains
-small pieces of fabric

Four-year-old-class

This week I wanted to talk more about the children's assemblage boxes and encourage everyone to go into the gallery and look at all of the children's work.  As many of you know, our assemblage boxes came about after looking for something other than paper on which to collage. The children love, and I mean love!!!, to cut paper, and we had so much of it that we suggested to the children that they use it as a material for collage.  We had been collaging since last year and had never really collaged on anything besides paper.  So, as a provocation, we suggested to the children  that they might want to try something new to collage on, like a box.  A parent at the beginning of the year had donated a lot of cigar boxes, and here was the perfect opportunity to use this new material.  What would happen? Would the children be inspired by a three-dimensional surface?  As this project has unfolded and as I have written earlier, we began to watch in amazement as our children took the initiative to work week after week on their boxes.  The boxes became in a way a treasure box, holding each child's perspective, sense of wonder, beliefs, imagination, self-reliance, and much more.  They are a visual glimpse into the treasure in each of our children.  With each visit to their box, the box would change with the addition of  paint, photographs, or small treasures.  Each time, the child made an artistic decision, some thought-out and others part of their expressive artistic selves.  The children still continue to work with these boxes, and we will continue to provide materials and support.  We will also begin to reflect on this work with the children.

We also introduced the children to an assemblage artist named Joseph Cornell, who was one of the founding members of that movement.  Recently there was a retrospective of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and I encourage everyone to look at his work on-line. 


Three-year-old Class

This week, working with the threes took me back to my days at the San Francisco Art Institute, where I went to college.  Watching the children was like watching master sculptors working in their studios creating huge clay sculptures.  The things that struck us most these past couple of weeks working with clay were the children's enthusiasm, resiliency, determination, curiosity, expression, collaboration, problem-solving, ability to challenge themselves, and theory-making. 

The children this past week had the chance to take all 100 pounds of the clay that had been soaking over the break and begin to wedge (knead, pound, and pull the water out of the clay) and use the clay again.  This new beginning for our clay gave so much life and happiness to our room, it was as if we were watching the children see an old friend again.  The children worked hard to pull the clay out of the water bin and pound it on the table. They began to use new vocabulary to describe the clay - gushy and smushy - and new vocabulary for how they interact with it - pat, pound, pinch, roll, smooth, and dig.  We also had a very successful reflection meeting with the children on how it was working with the clay and how the clay had changed.  Today, as the clay sat in the water table drying out, the children once again went to visit, getting large handfuls of mushy clay and bringing it to the table inside, where the children pushed the big pieces together to create even larger pieces.  Unlike the master sculptors who had a goal for their artistic pieces at the beginning, our children had the freedom to create and recreate what the sculpture was and what it could do.  It went from a snowman to a beehive to a birthday cake to just the children's pure delight in watching and feeling their hands glide through the clay.

We as teachers remain in awe of our children's interaction and relationship with this medium and their ability to continuously define and redefine their relationship with clay. It is a delight to capture their conversations and interactions!

Kindergarten

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