clay

Our resident mud specialist, Amy, spent last week in the studio while I was attending an amazing symposium with Carlina Rinaldi, Mary Catherine Bateson and forty inspiring educators and big thinkers.  I am still assimilating much of the information from the week but promise to offer some of my insights here, once they are fully formed (please stop by the studio if you'd like to find out more or join me for the next Mindful Dialog on November 20th).

Amy is a remarkable artist, person and co-researcher alongside children.  Building on our experiences with grapestomping, Amy added a mud stomping station where children could revel in the tactile experience of clay.

Amy shared with me how collaborations with clay emerged as children explored manipulating clay into shapes, buildings, roads, castles, cities and more.

As the children worked, several formed thoughtful partnerships to realize big ideas and plans.  F and L worked together over the course of two class periods to create several interconnected castles and then used flattened clay balls to surround their structures with "earth".

The studio was still overflowing with generous inspirations from the natural world and several children explored clay with these tools in a variety of ways. In the words of J, "Nature gives us fancy tools!"

Clay is now permanent language of expression in the studio and will be available for use in the weeks and months ahead.  We look forward to seeing and hearing what the children have to say.