sharing skills
Another fantastic day of Expression, filled with collaboration and helping each other work through project roadblocks and sharing knowledge in areas of strength.Audrey's great-great-great grandmother created a lace pattern book 120 years ago when she was a teenager, and Audrey brought it in to share with the Ssalson Raptors. She explained the history in this video:
The boat builders spent the morning working with clay to see what kind of design would best float on water. They worked on several different designs, and Logan was particularly tenacious in pursuing the idea of an air sac flotation device.
Despite many failed attempts, he kept at it, and this interest sparked a conversation about the occurrences of air sac design in the natural world. Aidan was quick to point out that fish control their buoyancy with these same kinds of air bladders. Ben was the first to discover that making tall sides - or "gates," as he called them - around the side of the "boat" kept it afloat.
The first prototypes sank quickly, so the boys started timing the buoyancy of their boat constructions.
After the designs became more sophisticated, they dubbed their most buoyant design a "forever boat" and tested it to see how many pennies versus how many ounces of volume it could hold.
They practiced reporting their findings on a chart in the space.
Theo and I continued work on his self-inspired muffin making project. Yesterday, we talked about the recipe that he remembered and determined the differences between baking soda and baking powder. We talked about what buttermilk tasted like and what kinds of proportions bakers used to create the right consistencies in baked goods. Today, we honed in on making prototype muffins from the recipe we worked on and scaled down the amount of ingredients.
Tomorrow, we'll figure out the science of why the center of Theo's prototype muffins exploded through the middle after they baked!
We thanked our volunteer electrician Tim Falconer for wiring the kitchen today by inviting him to Kristie's hot lunch, a fitting thanks for the one who made it possible for hot lunch to be made in the space in the first place! The collaborators set some new traditions around the community hot lunch: waiting to eat until everyone has sat down, setting the table and cleaning up after, and sitting together during the whole meal to enjoy the community building that happens over food.
Natasha Mei used the quilt-making skills she learned yesterday from our quilting expert to do a quick explanation for the Flying Fish about what a quilt is and how you make one. Check out this video:The Flying Fish worked together and took turns using the sewing machine and cutting out squares for their patterned quilt.
thisThe stop-motion crew continued to work out the software for their animation project and created a more formalized storyboard for their mini-movie. Mark came in to help guide their process, and Anthony was back (hooray!) from getting surgery and was able to jump in with them for a time too.
Connor and Henry worked on their interactive comic project, with the concept of prototyping a high priority for their work process.
A sweet moment from the park.
Roland explained the origins of his found objects and showed off some of his work.
As a last note after a long Thursday, I just want to thank everyone who reads this blog and supports this school, these ideas, the families, our staff, and the students at Brightworks. Your readership and encouragement for us as a community is overwhelming. Sometimes it's hard for me to get to the blog after a busy day and a commute, but knowing that there are people out in the world - including our own Audrey, who, according to her mom, won't go to bed before reading the day's post (meaning I should try harder to get them done before her bedtime!) - who read with dedication and joy keeps me dedicated to ending my days with this review in pictures of the learning and growing that the kids do each day inside and outside the walls of the school. Goodnight!