This week we gathered around clay balls in descending sizes.  We were thinking of our meatball makers as we prepped the clay for playgroup.

In the studio, we painted with salt and water, made marks with oil pastels on a large piece of paper, wrapped a stick (and ourselves) with ribbons, and explored large blocks of ice and pipettes.  Our bedroom was transformed into a kitchen, and there was a lot of cooking, serving and peek-a-boo play in the fridge.  It was a nice area for our young friends to explore sharing, negotiating and taking turns.  

In the message center we collaged cut up film and punched paper on transparent page protectors.  At the end of our time together, we shared everyone's design on the projector as well as some projected nursery rhymes.

We have been working on color studies, and today we gathered around a collection of plastic colored bottle caps.  They were presented in rainbow order, and we had an interesting discussion about why rainbow order is rainbow order.  Some friends suggested that rainbow order is from the color order of actual rainbows.  Other friends noticed that the colors in rainbow order are related to each other.  Yellow is next to green because yellow is part of green.

In our small groups, we painted boards to serve as bases for our color collection mandalas.  We tested how our materials looked on colored paper before we committed to a paint color.

In our other small group, we worked to fill a piece of cardboard with strips of magazine paper that had a color theme.  Then we glued our cut-outs from last week on top of the magazine paper background.

This week in playgroup, we gathered around a huge slab of clay with our cookie cutters standing up and waiting to make impressions.  Many friends tore chunks of clay off and rolled balls--even a few meatballs!

In the studio, we explored the projector and placing film, leaves and beaded necklaces on it to change the projected image.  Many more friends are noticing that changes on the projector result in changes on the wall.  We also painted with light paint on dark paper, cut film in the message center, explored balls and tunnels in the Goodnight Moon bedroom, and one group tried wrapping ribbon around a branch.  Flashlights and oil pastels returned from last week.  We closed by reading Goodnight Moon as it was projected on the wall.

Today we gathered around our crayon collection and helped to sort some new donations into the color bins.  

Old crayons seem to multiply on their own, so what if crayons became a material for creating mosaics?  In one group, we looked at Van Gogh's Starry Night and several mandalas for inspiration.  We peeled paper off of the crayons to reveal the beautiful cylinders of color hiding behind the labels.  We added our crayon collections to our painted sticks from last week.  Next week we will begin to deign our mosaics.

In our other group, we looked at a book that uses a projector to shine light through cut paper for the illustrations.  We planned and tested our own designs on the projector.  Next week we will create a background that will show through our designs.

Welcome to our Late Fall Session of our Materials Playgroup!  For this six weeks, we will be exploring light and shadow.

This week, we opened with something familiar--clay--and used cookie cutters to make impressions in slabs.  

In the studio, we explored light and shadows created by our projector, and we placed colored film and necklaces on the projector's surface.  We noticed that very few friends made the connection that changes on the projector made changes on the wall.  

We also made marks with light colored oil pastels on dark paper, we punched paper shapes in the message center, we used flashlights in our hidey-hole, and our balls and tunnels area looked a lot like a scene from a well-known book.

What would a session about light and shadow be without creating a lantern to light the night?  This week in Kids Workshop, in one group we made lanterns out of glass jars covered in tissue paper with beaded wire handles and sticks for carrying.

In our other group, we did a color study by starting with a single color and adding white to it.  We recorded our color changes on various wooden sticks from our reuse center shop.  We carefully removed the paper sleeves from a collection of chopsticks to prepare them for painting.  Of course we saved the paper wrappers for a future project!