New Post:
Slopes, Skiing, & Snow
January 13, 2023
Read on to find out how we explored slope(s) & more in Links this week!
It Happened @Randolph School:
Notes from the Field With evan
The Birth of Slope Day
When Randolph students and teachers gathered together for the first time after a long winter break for a shared Links Friday experience of play, exploration and learning, it had all the familiar trappings of what has become one of the most cherished aspects of our school week and felt like picking up right where we had left off as a community. At the same time, we were anticipating a significant shift in this comfortable routine in the coming weeks as the Neighborhood and Carriage House take to the ski slopes and the Downstairs enjoys having the school to themselves on wintery Fridays. Seeking balance between the value we find in coming together as one school and the different opportunities winter provides, a Friday plan emerged that would emphasize the joy we find in living and learning all together while also planting seeds for projects and inquiries that will carry through each groups’ own winter experiences and keep us linked by a common theme. “Slope Day,” the newest Randolph tradition, was born.
In thinking about how to activate the community around the joy of slopes, we quickly realized that slopes are yet another of the many resources Randolph is rich in due to our expansive campus and how we are situated in the landscape. Despite the lack of snow, gathering at the top of our sledding hill felt like a natural place to start, and inviting the youngest and oldest kids in the school to each roll a tire down while the rest of us watched and cheered seemed a fitting opening ceremony to kick off this newest hallmark of our winter curriculum. What followed was a morning of rolling balls down hills to knock over sap cans, riding bikes on the driveway, creating waterfalls, inventing games with ramps, bricks, spruce cones and slides, building marble runs in the Block Hut and discovering all the other ways that experimenting with slopes and gravity evoke one of the “thousand languages of children.”
With clearly communicated intentions and goals and an open-ended plan, students became the lead architects and curators of these games and experiments, adding their own innovations and tinkering towards more beautiful, predictable, and exciting outcomes. One extraordinary result of this approach is a diverse menu of opportunities that are comfortable and stimulating for all ages, from the Downstairs on up. Meanwhile, teachers had the opportunity to play and explore alongside children while paying close attention to interesting questions, observations, and challenges emerging from Slope Day experiences that might warrant further exploration in the coming weeks. Once again, we adapted what started as a potentially disappointing challenge (no snow!) into an unexpected opportunity that brought with it fresh possibilities for collaboration between teachers and students alike.
A glimpse into our biggest ramp in action!
IMG_8840.movIn (and Outside of) the Studio With Nina
Balance Explorations
This week, as we prepare for skiing, we’re looking at the concept of balance- both physically, the way you’d need to balance on your skis or snowboard, and visual balance within art. We’re talking about art that is symmetrically balanced, asymmetrically balanced, and unbalanced. We started the week off with symmetrical and asymmetrical building, using blocks and gems to create balanced and unbalanced buildings. We worked together and on our own and talked about which kind of building was more challenging to create. For some of us, creating something symmetrical felt more natural. For others, making something asymmetric came easier to us. After getting familiar with these concepts through block building, we used more 2D materials to create radial symmetry in our art. Using colored pencil and starting from the center with our drawings radiating out, we created round-ish drawings in which each wedge was the same as all the other wedges, similar to the look of a mandala, pizza, or daisy, depending on how we each interpreted the prompt!
We’re excited to continue our balance explorations next week!
Fungi Friends Black & White
This week, the Fungi Friends have started a study of black and white/light and shadow in their studio time. We started by exploring white paint on large black paper. Nina shared some examples of famous artworks that were composed of only black and white. We were inspired! The white paint also reminded children of snow, stars, the moon, and ghosts! As they painted they dictated the stories of their artwork. We heard about a ghost chasing a dog down a trail, a retelling of the story Little Star and the Big Mooncake, and a story about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer meeting another reindeer he'd like to marry. Next we'll explore black charcoal on white paper and see what ideas, stories and themes emerge!
Back in the Stacks with Siobhan
Incitement to Reading: Open Library Time with the Barn Owls
Getting to watch kids be in charge of their own learning and encouraging their growing autonomy is one of the greatest joys of working at the Randolph School. I am fortunate to have many moments in the library where I get to watch kids living and learning joyfully and at their own pace. For the first three months of the year, we all worked really hard to get used to library practices and expectations and to figure out how to be in this space together peacefully. We practiced doing deep breathing to help our bodies be calm and peaceful. We learned how to browse for books independently using signs and category cards. We learned how to use shelf markers. We learned how to put books on hold and check them out. We kept track of the noise level and the energy level that feels comfortable for everyone and for the varied activities that might be going on at the same time when we’re all here together. We continue to fine tune and discover library rituals and practices that help things run smoothly for us all.
We are now reaping the benefits of all that big work. These days, all I need to do is stand at the library door with the hand sanitizer and the occasional reminder to take a moment to breathe before I release each student into the library to explore on their own. They go get shelf markers and dig in.
The pictures that follow show what some Barn Owls did in the library–with absolutely no prompting (or interference!) from me or any other grown-up–in one 45-minute period on a recent Tuesday afternoon.
Daphne came to me with a request for all of the -ology books in the library (Dragonology, Egyptology, Mythology, etc.) and together we quickly found them with help from the library catalog. She brought them to the rug with a group of friends and they started looking through them. More friends came over to join in. Then they decided they wanted to grab the globe from their classroom so they could find places mentioned in the books.
Savion got interested in Dragonology and asked me to help him find more books about dragons. He put a couple of Wings of Fire books on hold. He started looking at The Book of Dragons by Michael Hague and a picture in it inspired him to look at a map of the whole world. So I showed him the section of the library where we keep the atlases (under the call number M COUNTRIES MAPS) and we looked through a few until he found a map he thought was useful. (You can find it here.)
Magnolia got engrossed in Egyptology and brought it to the bean bag. She spent the bulk of library time there. In the end, she put Dragonology on hold so she can check it out when she returns the books she already has at home.
Cormac and Camille noticed that the author of Mythology is Lady Hestia Evans. Cormac remembered that Hestia is a Greek goddess he just read about in The Olympians series by George O’Connor. They asked me to help them find those books (call number V O’CONNOR). First they looked through Zeus. Then Cormac remembered that Hestia appears more in Dionysos.
After a while, Chloe and Annabelle branched off to read There's a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems, giggling and rereading particularly funny lines. They both ended up checking out Elephant & Piggie books to take home.
Lewis found some picture books that looked interesting and read a counting book he remembers from when he was little. Sam looked on and read an I Spy book at the same time. The latest Cat Kid Comic Club had finally arrived back in the library after being checked out, so Theo R. happily spent his whole library time reading it.
All the other Barn Owls were cozied up in window seats enjoying books independently and with friends. Sometimes they needed paper and pencil to make notes or drawings inspired by what they were reading. Sometimes they told each other stories that were prompted by what they were reading. Often they wanted to repeat funny lines to each other. This was not a quiet library time led by a grown-up. It was an active, lively, joyous library time that was supported by structure, routine, and assistance from a grown-up. It had room for all the kids here to make their own choices, follow their own lines of inquiry, and to be actively engaged with resources and friends. And best of all, their interactions with books are joyful, which will be forever fostered here at Randolph.
