We started off discussing what we thought First Nations meant. Which lead to a brief discussion on whether they had grocery stores for food, or home depot for building supplies. To which they whole group emphatically decided that wanted to
Weekly Summary: Mosaic – Electrons – Art
Today we took advantage of the lovely weather to work outside on some mosaics. I introduced the idea by showing off some of Chicago-based artist Edgar Miller’s mosaic work. We passed around the dry thinset mortar, and they started positioning
Weekly Summary: Book spine poetry – Muons – Language Arts
Today we worked on book spine poetry with books contributed by most if not all of the Muons. The idea is to create poems using book titles. It was hard for some of us to get going, but we did
Weekly Summary: Poetry – Muons – Language Arts
Today we worked on poetry appreciation by reading 3 poems, “My Device”, “I Want a Dog”, and “I’m Not Hungry Anymore” from the book: No More Poems!: A Book of Verse That Just Gets Worse. We discussed our emotional responses
Weekly Summary: Bean Bags! – Quarks – Gym
Today we played with bean bags! I love bean bags. Everyone got a bean bag, and we practiced throwing them to ourselves. Next we switched hands, and then tried catching them on the back of our hand. We paired up,
Weekly Summary: Animation Studio – Electrons – Art
Today we pretended to be an animation studio with an imminent deadline. I gave the group 47 frames of animation (almost two seconds) from Disney’s Bambi (1942), with the request that they trace all 47 frames. They distributed the frames,
Weekly Summary: Movement Games – Quarks – Gym
Last week I tried out a few different movement games on our Quarks, to varying degrees of success. Lacking hula hoops, we had to instead use a jump rope (tied in a loop) for our first exercise. We all joined
Weekly Summary: Light and Dark – Electrons – Art
Last week’s lesson (at the risk of being a little dry) was on the subject of light. On the table, I’d set up a couple of balls as our scene; we began by making observations about how the room’s ambient
Weekly Summary: Clay in a bag – Muons – Art
The big block of clay was in a bag and placed in the center of our space. Muons were invited to pick up the bag as we went around the circle talking about any experience with clay we may have
Weekly Summary: Color study (primary and secondary colors) – Quarks – Art
Our first art class was dedicated to the study of colors. We started with a quick talk about everybody’s favorite color, and then read “Mix it up!” by Hervé Tullet together. Quarks enjoyed this interactive read, there was plenty of