Sketchpad

Representing Language Learning

26

Mar / 20

26 Mar / 20

Posted by Lianna

We've been focusing on the role of language development for young learners as an important part of our STEAM Starters project. In collaboration with the teachers at our partner sites, we've observed just how important the process of introducing new words then reinforcing their use through meaningful interaction can be. At one site, the first activity we engaged in was Light Play. After a few weeks of gaining an understanding of the materials through play and observation, we decided it was time to introduce concept words to describe the phenomena we were observing.

We talked about the fact that some materials can bounce the light, like mirrors, and others can bend the light, like lenses, and some can do both, like Mylar. We tested these ideas and noticed how you can look through a big fresnel lens and it will distort your face for others looking at you (bending the light), that a regular mirror's reflection looks normal, but a rumpled Mylar mirror will make you look different (both bounce and bend). The last concept was that objects can block light to create a shadow. We used our bodies and objects we found around the classroom to block light and make shadows of different sizes.

Creating posters has been helpful for documenting the language and specific words we use with concepts and phenomena. It's also been an interactive way to capture kids' ideas and descriptions for what they're building.

Several weeks later we switched activities to Marble Machines at this site. Again after a few weeks of exploring the basic set of materials, we wanted to introduce some new materials for building and revisit the concept of a brainstorm. We placed the four new materials on a board in a way where they weren’t really connected to each other and asked the group what they noticed about each one. We started with the large white funnel and introduced “funnel” as a new word. From there, we could describe them by size (big or small), color (black or white) or length (short or long). The clear tube garnered some interesting descriptors including slide, plastic, glass, tube, and even cucumber! Once we had names for all these parts, we brainstormed as a group how we might use them in our designs and sketched the ideas out on a poster. They came up with different ways of combining materials such as small funnel to long funnel, large funnel to tube, and tube to track. This is my favorite part of the process because it re-centers the process on practical applications of how the materials can be used. As we continue to introduce new language to describe the concepts and materials the youth are exploring, it's important for us to make sure this language development is in service of their ideas and understanding.

Wooden sharks: Preschool explorations with the Glowforge

24

Mar / 20

24 Mar / 20

Posted by Luigi

This is a guest blog post from Casey Federico!

In my daughters’ Spanish Immersion preschool classroom in San Francisco, children have daily opportunities to visit the art studio, or “taller,” to try out new mediums for representing their world.

Each May, in preparation for the end of the year celebration, children are invited to choose sea animals they wish to represent on paper and through movement.

In the taller the children are given resource texts to begin sketching their sea animals, using black permanent pen on white paper. Teachers support the children in noticing the details in the photographs and transfer those details into their drawings.

Having been exposed to the Glowforge in the Tinkering Studio, I wondered how the children might experience having their sea animals cut out and engraved in wood.

The teachers and parents agreed to share the images with me, and I began working on scanning and printing the images on the glowforge.

I collected all of the children’s images and made photocopies of them to bring to the studio.

The first step in the studio was scanning the images on the glowforge, using the glowforge’s trace image tool. In most cases, the trace was simple.

In some cases the glowforge had a hard time knowing what areas to cut, and which ones not to. On this shark, the machine wanted to cut out each tooth individually.

In these cases, I thickened some lines with an orange sharpie to help the Glowforge understand where to cut and where to engrave.

The cutting itself was straightforward, using the Glowforge app to place as many images onto each plywood panel as possible.

Finally the animals were complete. Back in the classroom the children were excited to see the animals, but confused about the process. I wished we had visited the machine directly so the process was clearer for them, and so they could inspect and ask questions about the machine.

Back in the taller, each child had the opportunity to paint their animal. The teachers again invited the children to look at books for color inspiration, and to notice small details.

Each child painted their original drawing and their wooden animal.

The etched lines from the ink drawings made separating colors into sections of the drawing easy, and children noticed how differently the wood soaked up the color.

At the end of the year celebration, the children posed in front of the mural they created with their drawings and compared their wooden and paper creations.

Every child took their wooden animal home with them at the end of the celebration, a piece of art to display, play with, and remember.

After this small exploration of the Glowforge’s capacities in the early childhood setting, I’m eager to explore more. What if these children had drawn self-portraits, had them cut in wood, and used them in the block area throughout the year? Once exposed to the technology, what ideas would occur to them next? Eager to explore this opportunity with more teachers and classrooms.

Macrame in Tinkering Afterschool

20

Mar / 20

20 Mar / 20

Posted by Jake

Wishing everyone health and safety around the world.

While youth programs and public hours at the museum are on pause so the surrounding public health issue can be more effectively tackled, we’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on the semester so far, and the beautiful work we’ve seen kids and teens make. It helps soothe the soul in anxious times.

Our major project in the Tinkering Afterschool programs, which is a long-running partnership between the Exploratorium and the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco, for spring has been to learn knots with rope for a variety of macrame creations. We’ve spent weeks working on these, and have started to see many of them come to fruition. Keychains, bracelets and other wearables, and hanging planter holders, not to mention some gorgeous wall decoratives. As mentioned, because we’re all on pause, we still have yet to wrap up this activity with youth, so we’ll need to do a later post with the final outcomes!

Though we’ve done weaving and even handmade looms from cardboard, wood, and recycled materials, macrame was a relatively novel practice for us. So we gathered together as a staff and team before the semester began, back in January, and did some shared making and thinking!

Having open-ended, mostly informal sessions of making like this resolves the pressure of learning something, to simply enjoying the process of flexibly, reflexively exploring. It also gave me a better grasp of the ways to talk around macrame so that others are picking up what it is all about. From this session, I was even able to concoct a plan for a tabletop rigging that allowed student projects to latch onto so tension could be more easily, crucially, provided as the knots formed amongst the strands of rope.

After a few introductory program sessions teaching some of the basic, and very versatile, knots (Lark's Head, Half Knot, Square Knot, and the Double Half-Hitch for inquiring minds) we opened things up and let everyone loose to channel these new learnings into their own personal makes. Wood branches, keychain rings, dowel rings, and carabiners were provided as the bases for the rope knotting, similar to how a loom acts with a weaving. After a few sessions, conversations started roaring about the other kinds of knots and braids we each already knew about, from those learned on the playground making friendship bracelets, to those used on shoelaces or other household things, or the kinds of braids used in each other's hair! What began with me instructing some basics became everyone taking turns sharing the knowledge and expertise they already had, and the stories of who passed it onto them. And each of these shareouts provided yet more possibilities of things to incorporate into our macrame projects, for personality and complexity.

Here is a sneak peek of some of the projects kids are working on or have finished!