Two Kinds of Mud and Wet Concrete

The kids' first ideas for lamp bases.

Kid-made concrete bases

Avignon has declared that his lamp will be all about - would you ever even dream this? - weather! On his base he plans to sculpt a weather god; and on his lampshade he will paint all kinds of weather, especially huge, fierce storms with lightening, big winds, rainbows and the sun.

It's been a very big deal for me to get this workshop put together, especially when I realized that six of my nine participants are in first and second grade. But we've already had a lot of fun, including a great talk about electricity and ball lightening, and I'm still smiling about Avignon's, shall we say, brainstorm.

On other fronts puppets are rising up out of the mud.

Puppet-making in Ms. Megan's room; photos by Ms. Sonya

Speaking of mud, in our drum-making class one of the boys turned over a large bottle of paint and squeezed hard. Instead of a small dollop of green, he was stunned by a shooting cap followed by green paint everywhere - his clothing, the floor, the table, nearby students. If that wasn't jolly enough, there were the shouts and scrambling of shocked fifth and sixth grade boys attempting, to their amazement, cleanup time in the middle of class. They had barely any idea how to handle this situation. But they managed to get back to their Native American drums before the clock struck.

First and second graders have a good idea now of an eagle's wingspan.

                     And Sydney made this lovely poem on a stretched buffalo hide.