We're Having Fun With Junk

This week's camp is off to a fun and focused start.  We are working on two long-term projects: a sculpture and a sewing piece.  We are taking time to plan our work and put intention and meaning into our creations.

On the first day of camp, we made books out of discarded CDs.  We are recording our thoughts, ideas, plans and sketches in our books.

To connect the CDs, we punched our own holes and used plastic binding to secure them together.  We used wrapping paper and labels to decorate our pages and help them function as usable tablets.  

We also read the book, My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil by Hanokh Piven.  The main character in the book makes portraits of her friends, using found objects.  Each object has significance and is related to the friends' personalities.

We made some notes about our own personality characteristics, our likes and dislikes, in our CD books.  We are using our notes to  make sculptures of ourselves (or some cases robots).

Today we did whole body movement activities and sketched bodies in our CD books to activate our awareness about what parts there are to bodies before we sculpted.  

Then we started sculpting from an assortment of junk.  Some of us encountered problems.  How can I get my figure to balance and stand up?  How can I attach this piece to another one and make it stay?  

Through trial and error and collaboration with friends, we created an army of junk people!

Do you see your child here? Of course not...We are adding the personal details tomorrow!

We also started a sewing project today.  We got inspired about animals and other living creatures by looking in books.  Then we sketched a creature of interest.  

We then selected our favorite sketch and made a fabric pattern out of paper.  

Things get more colorful tomorrow!

After small group work each day, we have time for free exploration.  Here is a glimpse of what we've been up to!