After the excitement of Circus Smirkus last week, we needed a mellow to week to cool down! This week’s activities focused on the bountiful harvest we’ve been pulling from our plot at the Bremen St. Community Garden. We’ve enjoyed our garden snacks for the past couple of months, but have noticed that there are many parts of the plant that we can’t, or don’t, eat. What could we do with these things besides compost them? The question of experimentation never lasts long at Harbor City School, as the Tugboats need little provocation to begin using materials in creative and unique ways!
We kicked off the week with a nature walk through the park, in which we collected materials to use for collages back at school. The students often want to collect rocks, twigs, and special leaves that they find on our walks. Typically, this only creates a mess at school and even a few tears if items get lots, so this project allowed them to capitalize on their interest. We gathered grass, leaves, twigs, bark, and even some fallen fruit. The resulting collages were a beautiful composition of materials that have their natural element in common, but don’t often go alongside one another.
On Wednesday, we attempted collecting of a new kind: bug hunting! Our parent helper taught us how to sweep the grass with our nets in an effort to catch flies, ladybugs, caterpillars, and other low-lying bugs. We didn’t collect as many bugs as we anticipated, but we are excited to venture out and try again soon! Back indoors, we took our natural art to a sculptural level by making corn husk people. Each child was assisted by an adult in using twine to twist and wrap the corn husks into the shape of people. Next, they added corn silk for hair if they wanted, as well as scraps of paper and fabric to create clothes. Once their dolls were dry, the dramatic play scenarios that erupted from the students were wild and imaginative indeed!
We ended our week using the plants as a means of applying paint to our paper. The Tugboats are fascinated by beets, with their secretive underground growth and their rich, vibrant color. They are not huge fans of eating the beets, however, and so we’ve got a harvest that we’re struggling to use. On Thursday, we cut the beets in half and tried using them as stamps. Their juice wasn’t quite strong enough to color the paper, but the shapes of the bisected beets were quite interesting, so we switched to liquid watercolor and developed some lovely color and shape studies! Today, we rounded out our beet art by using the beet greens as brushes. The students liked how the leaves left a smooth application of paint, as opposed to the segmented strokes left by the typical brush. They practiced mixing colors, blending red and yellows to make an array of oranges. It feels like we are getting ready for fall!
We also made some decidedly unnatural art this week with our Artist in Residence, Elaine. We collected glass jars and Elaine found some very exciting glow in the dark paint for us to experiment with! Each student painted the inside and outside of his or her jar with a smattering of neon colors. Elaine taught them how to “charge” the paint by shining a bright flashlight on them. We turned out the lights and watched our jars glow!
