Atmosphere Art

We are studying meteorology, and we spent some time last week learning about the different layers of the atmosphere and what happens in each layer. Here are a few of the models we created.

Creativity Building

Here's a little exercise we like to do called "30 Circles." Given a sheet of 30 blank circles, we first filled in as many circles as we could in one minute. Later, we did it again, thinking of as many different ways we could use the circles as possible, with unlimited time to work. Here are just a few examples of the kids' ideas. I loved some of the detail in drawings made with individual circles (check out the row of pencil-drawn characters in the 5th photo, below), as well as the fact that many students automatically thought "outside the box" to make several circles into one element, like a traffic light or snowman. Some circles encompassed a complete little story (a shark fin in some waves, a sunny day), some played on the circle theme (an earth, a yin-yang, a spider web), while some just explored design and color. Neat! We'll continue to use these in many different ways in the future.

Spirits win Spirit Award!

We won the Seabury Spirit award on the last "First Friday" and we can't wait to plan our special half-hour with Head of School Sandi Wollum! More to come soon.

Time Travel to the Middle Ages

      Last week we traveled back in time to Camlaan Medieval Village, a living history museum near Carnation, WA recreating rural England in the 14th century. Read on to see how we literally got a taste of what it was like to have lived in the Middle Ages!

  Our hosts Roger and Christina welcomed us at the gate to the village.

 Roger explained that the houses were all made of wattle and daub (see more below) and that everything inside was handmade and built to last.

 The students explored a small garden where plants and herbs for food and medicine were grown.

 The inside of the wool dyer's house. We noted the mostly ceramic pots, and other things made of natural materials.

Muriel the sheep would have been one of a flock of about 300 that the village's livelihood would have been built around. The sheep would provide wool, meat, milk and parchment for the village to use and sell.

Cooking utensils used over the fire.

 Roger points out how the "wattle" was constructed by carefully threading branches through a frame. In structures built to live in, this would then be covered with a mixture of straw and clay called "daub."

 In the blacksmith's hut, we learned how children would apprentice with their parents to learn the family trade. Children the age of the Spirits would be doing clean-up work and tending the fire for a few more years before starting to learn how to work with the blacksmith's tools.

 A Spirit examines the carved wooden pegs that would hold the hand-hewn beams together. No nails were used in construction, but these buildings are strong and sturdy.

 A scene from the mural in the feast hall of the Boar's Hede Inne, depicting the hounds at the beginning of a hunt.

  Each of us got a large slice of bread to use as a plate - called a trencher.

  This idea really appealed to the Spirits and Navigators!

 We passed around large platters of  sliced fruit and vegetables, cheese and sausage.

 The feast begins!

  Christina pours some "muste," a lightly spiced grape juice drink. One student described it as "a little taste of Christmas."

 A Ploughman's lunch.

 Roger serenaded us on a lute as we ate. (See the Navigator's blog for a short video.)

 Roger showed us the linen undershirts worn under clothes, the mail Knights wore under their Coat of Arms Velvet tunic, and also explained that it was not until the Renaissance that Knights wore full suits of armor. Knights in the Middle Ages wore only mail.

The royal tapestry hung over the fireplace.

It was too bad we were not able to make it to Camlaan during their Michelmasse Festival -- it would be really neat to visit Camlaan during one of their events. Here's a link to the calendar: http://www.camlann.org/calendar.htm and the website, for further exploration: http://camlann.org

Thank you, Camlaan!

Illuminations

      After studying some original illuminated manuscripts from the Philadelphia Libraries Collection "Leaves of Gold" project (see website under "Explore More" at right) and looking at some pages from the Book of Kells, we put our hand to making some illuminated documents of our own. I confess to being a bit of a magpie when it comes to all things shiny, but I thought this was one of the best uses of glitter I've ever seen, and the details the students included were absolutely beautiful!