Interactions with materials

Today the youngest children at our school visited the studio. This was the first time many of them had been into the main building. It was interesting to see their interactions with each other, the space and the materials in it. A group of boys thought about what they could do with a yellow and a white string, a black spiral notebook binding, a red holder for a steel wool pad, and a wooden spool, concentrating hard and inventing many combinations. They chose the objects from an array that was layed out on a long bench. The boys played with the objects and put them down, drew a little then passed the pieces to each other, figuring out how to connect and re-connect the objects.

Some other children found uses for materials that were like a game, or a dance, rolling and stacking wooden spheres and using marker tops and modeling clay by turns as they explored and noticed what the studio is.