Forest Days

Dalkey School Project N.S.

Session 6

Spookiness in the Woods

As we get close to Samhain the woods seem spookier. I sent a slideshow to the classes during the week. This made us look for spookiness in our woods.

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On our way up to our base the children found spooky branches and vines that come alive at night, lumps and bumps on trees, strange textures colours of fungi, and they noticed that there were many faces and eyes on trees looking at them. Scary stuff!

Third Class

Fifth Class

Second Class

Third Class

Break time making tea.

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This was our story at break time.

How to Live Life like a spider, by A. Spider

1. If you’re a spinner, spin

Not all spiders spin webs; in fact, only half of us do. Web spinners use silk to ensnare prey. Other species of spiders hunt their victims, or lurk and wait for prey to come to them.

Each type of arachnid is uniquely suited for and adapted to its hunting technique. A web weaver will always weave — it will not decide to suddenly chase its prey on multiple spider feet. A trapdoor spider will always trap. In this way, spiders differ from each other, yet remain true to their spidery selves.

Spider takeaway: If you are a web spinner, keep spinning webs.

2. Walk the line

We spin two types of silk. Dragline (or non-sticky) silk is the architectural support for a web. Stiff and dry, it forms the web’s foundation.

Viscid (or sticky) silk is the tacky, wet, flexible silk that creates the spiral shape of many webs. It’s this stickier silk that snares our prey.

We spin both silks, and understand their differences. When walking our webs, we walk on the draglines, avoiding trapping ourselves on the stickier strands of viscid silk. While not exactly walking the straight and narrow, we realize we must travel on the stronger strands, avoiding entrapping ourselves on the sticky parts.

Spider takeaway: Walk the line, or weave a new path. Revisit or re-route when stuck in sticky spots.

3. Build with beauty

We weave ornate and intricate webs that rival — or exceed — human art. In fact, our name, arachnid, originates in Greek mythology.

Arachne in Greek Mythology was a skilled weaver.  Arachne was a mortal woman who challenged Athena to a contest. Her finished tapestries proved superior to the goddess’s, and Arachne was punished, transformed into a spider that could forever weave masterful work.

Spider takeaway: Whenever and however you can, add beauty to the world.

4: Do the work, daily

We are hard workers. We are the world’s most important predator of insects, keeping swarms of pests at bay.

Web-weavers are especially industrious. Most web-building arachnids must build or re-build their webs every day. For us, the larger the web, the greater the energy expenditure. However, the cost-benefit is also high, for the larger the web, the greater the likelihood we will catch large prey — whether in the form of an uncommon insect, a bat, or even a bird!

Though most of us can subsist on two small insects per day, one large catch can provide enough nourishment to allow us to thrive, and even to reproduce. With great spider effort, then, comes great spidery reward.

Spider takeaway: Do your work, daily and you will go far.  

Third Class made their own web and spider game.

One person was the spider and the others were flies. There were two teams one at each side of the web. The idea was to clear your side of all flies. Each fly had to go through the web without touching it. If they touched it the spider said Buzz and they had to go back. They loved the game and kept adding to the rules. They want to do this for next week again.

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Usually we invite parents to join us at this time of the year. As it is not possible this year the children weaved a bracelet to bring home. With the skills they could make one for each parent.

They loved this skill and as they got in to the rhythm they began to tell round robin scary stories.

Third Class

Fifth Class

Second Class

Forest Days

Dalkey School Project N.S.

Session 5

Weaving

Last week we dyed string and wool using natural dyes having been inspired by the story ‘The Women Who Weave’ from Why the Moon Travels by Oein De Bhairduin

This week we told a Native American story called the Web of Life as it fitted in so well with our theme. We continued using our dyed string from last week by weaving bracelets with each other and for each other.

We talked about friendship and working together.  What do they like in a friend?  What good things do they wish for their friend?  

I reminded them of Grandmother Spider singing her weaving song. There was also singing while weaving in the story The Women Who Gather, “They would sing songs of hope and melodies of joy in a chorus of sweet voices with minds of clear intent, stirring and carding and weaving thoughts and prayers into the cords for the young.”  Some children created their own song while weaving once they got into the rhythm of it.

Weaving – The Nordic Slinging Braid

The children worked in pairs. The first step was to hang weights off four strands of their dyed string the length of your arm. We used wood cookies and conkers. These strings needed to be two different colours. The strings were tied together then hung above head height.

They faced opposite each other, each with two strings of different colours, one in each hand.

The next bit was simple; take the string in your left hand and let it swing across and swap it with the string in your partner’s left hand.

Now do the same with the strings held in both of your right hands.

Now repeat; left, right, left, right and… allow the rhythm to build, the strings to swing, from one person to the next, sometimes getting faster, or slowing down, stopping completely to untangle and laugh when things go awry. Build up a rhythm using words you would like weave into the bracelet like Grandmother Spider who took a very deep breath and softly began to sing her weaving song while she danced across the Sky. What words would you like to put in? Love, Good Dreams, Kindness, Brave, Health, Safe, Peace, Happiness? You will notice a braid starting to develop above your head and a pattern starting to develop in the braid.

Some braids were long enough to divide into a bracelet for each child.

Third Class

The children are creating landmarks as they walk up to their base. Here they are at the Green Rainbow.

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Fifth Class

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Second Class

Rhys is so observant. The children had just arrived and he was already looking for creatures in the rotten tree. It’s so good to have children connected to nature who also shares their findings with the rest of the group.

Observing a worm.

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“I’m thankful that we are away from all the bad things when we are here. There is no Corona Virus here”

A lovely feedback today. Some children are finding this a stressful time.

Senior Infants

Listening to woodland creatures

We made wood sorrel tea. The children had their little lunch break and a story while it was brewing.

Winter Worries

Winter Worries

Hedgehog lived alone in an untidy patch of garden, behind the weeds and under the log where she could hide away during the day. ‘Time I was up and about’, she said to herself as the sun was setting. It had been raining. Wet weather meant lots of slugs and worms and beetles. But, as slugs and worms and beetles were what hedgehog ate, she didn’t mind at all. She had just found a juicy-looking slug when she heard a voice. ‘Oh dear’, said Hedgehog. Hedgehog didn’t like company. Other animals made her jumpy. It was a good job she had her prickles to keep her safe. She curled up into a tight ball, just in case. ‘Hello’, said Song Thrush. When Hedgehog saw Song Thrush, she uncurled herself. ‘You gave me quite a scare’, she said. ‘Sorry,’ said Song Thrush. Song Thrush ate snails and Hedgehog ate slugs, so they often bumped into each other at dusk when looking for food. Usually they just said things like ‘Hello’ and ‘Good evening’. ‘Hello’, they said, and Hedgehog went on munching her slug. Song Thrush banged his snail on a rock to break the shell, a bit like you might break an eggshell to get at the egg. Then Song Thrush said something else. He said ‘Winter is coming’. Hedgehog looked around in alarm. ‘Winter?’ she asked in a small worried voice. She was only young and hadn’t seen a winter before. ‘It’s when the weather gets colder and wetter. It’s when food, like slugs and snails and beetles, get harder to find’, warned Song Thrush. ‘I won’t go hungry because I can eat berries from bushes’, boasted the Song Thrush. Winter didn’t seem to bother him. But it bothered Hedgehog. She didn’t eat berries. How would she live without food? What happened to hedgehogs in winter? She saw birds flying south to warmer places. But she couldn’t fly. She saw squirrels storing up nuts. So she tried storing up slugs and worms and beetles in her little home. But when she woke up the next evening, they had all crawled away and escaped! The weather grew colder. She began to worry so much that she couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned until her little bed was no longer cosy. So she went out and collected more leaves and made a warm pile against a log. It looked very snug. But she was too tired to worry about winter now. ‘I’ll sleep on it’, said Hedgehog, yawning. ‘Maybe I’ll come up with a better idea tomorrow.’ So she burrowed into the middle and curled herself up to go to sleep. And she fell deeper and deeper into the deepest sleep you can sleep. A special sleep some animals do called hibernation. Every once in a while she would wake up enough to turn over and go back to sleep again. When she woke up and opened her eyes fully, it was Spring! ‘Oh!’ she said when she realised she had slept all through winter. ‘So that’s what happens to hedgehogs!’ And she smiled a sleepy smile. She knew what to do next time winter came – no worries!

“Wood Sorrel tea tastes like apple juice.”

The children discovered Suzi Squirrel high up in the branches peeping shyly down. They were so excited. She was very high up so I gently lifted her down. She shyly hid in my hand and peeped out at the children. They were so desperate to stroke her. I asked and she nodded shyly. Her voice is very quiet as she whispered in my ear so I had to repeat what she said for the children.

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She said she was very happy and excited to meet us and thanked us for our notes and messages and gifts, especially leaving her favourite woodland treats. She told us that she is quite young and has been watching all of the other woodland animals getting ready for winter and wonders why she can’t be like them. She sees the hedgehogs are so good at finding bugs and they can roll into a ball; badgers can dig deep underneath the ground to make themselves homes; bats can fly and hang upside down; mice can run so quickly and are so small that they can hide everywhere. The children were so quick to reassure her and tell her how she can climb and jump and store nuts.

She was very tired from all the chat and petting and went back up her tree for a snooze as looked a photographs of hedgehogs and made our own with clay, teasels, pine cones, and sticks.

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Some children made homes for their hedgehogs and others walked around chatting to them and showing them around the woods.

Sitting in the tree to be close to Suzi

A drawing of Grandmother Tree

Before we left each child collected dried twigs and leaves and put them up with Suzi for her to make a cosy drey for the winter.

Forest Days

Dalkey School Project N.S.

Session 4

Experimenting with Natural Dyes

Last week we read a story from Oein DeBhairduin’s book Why the Moon Travels. There were so many questions and things to find out from the story, ‘The Women Who Gather’. This week we based our exploration on natural dyes.

I chose this story because there is such a great connection to nature.

“Once there were old women who would travel the land carrying tightly woven willow baskets to gather the fallen bark of crab apple trees, wilting St. John’s Wort plants and any fresh beetroots that they could find. They plucked the flax that grew brazenly along the roadsides and the wool snared in the thorns of the brambles, hawthorn trees and furze.”

This story tells of the Mincéirí tradition of making red cords to tie around newborns’ wrists to protect them. It tells of a people who use the natural environment to create. This fits in so well with our Forest Days where we are looking at how how we can use natural materials.

We have already tried making paints with plants and natural materials in our base. We extended this learning into making dyes. We used plants from Killiney Hill and added some extra plant based materials such as turmeric, paprika, beetroot and tea.

“Every evening, they would boil and dye the wool red in a big cast iron pot that rested on the campfire in the heart of the molly in which they lived. During the night they would continue to spin and weave the cords and render them red for young children. The would sing songs of hope and melodies of joy in a chorus of sweet voices with minds of clear intent, stirring and carding and weaving thoughts and prayers into the cords for the young.”

“They worked and worked and worked to make the cord of red, the colour of blood, tones of deep fire and iron rust.”

I brought cotton string, knitting wool, natural sheep’s wool, and cotton fabric to dye.

We learn a lot about the tradition of the Mincéirí, their connection to the natural world and also the richness of their imagination.

“In time, the old women grew smaller and smaller, less of this world and more of another, until one day they looked alike little more than a bundling of fingers, spinning and weaving, with gathering baskets on their backs, adorned with the stripes and shadings that once belonged to their dresses and beady pockets. They had become the first spiders.”

One of the second class children wondered could they be orb spiders?

I sent each class PowerPoint slideshow of ideas from the story.

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Third Class

I read the story again this week while the children were having their lunch. They looked for orb spiders. There were many webs in the gorse.

Experimenting with Dyes.

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Fifth Class

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Second Class

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Rhys is very interested in finding wildlife. He found a very long centipede, an eaten conker that he thinks might be the left over meal of a squirrel, he saw a squirrel and heard a woodpecker. He shared all his findings with the group.

Senior Infants

Map Making

Maps

Collecting nettles for nettle tea on the way up to the base. Some needed natures bandages for their stings.

Hidden in the base camp were 4 maps, and 10 apples. The maps were in an envelope hidden in the Grandmother tree. One map contained a message from Suzi Squirrel to follow a map to an area with lots of acorns and spend a quiet time looking up and listening. Three of the maps were replicas showing where the 10 apples were hidden. When they arrived at the base two children found two apples during free play. Then someone discovered the envelope in the roots of the Grandmother tree. Inside they found the maps with a written message for them.

They immediately linked the maps to the found apples. Having counted the apples on the map and counted the ones they had found they decided that there had to be more out there. They set off with the maps knowing that they held clues but not sure how to read them. The kept coming back to us adults for help asking what the different symbols meant. Eventually they ended up with 9 of the 10 apples.

Then I was asked to read the other map. Together we followed it to and area full of acorns. We sat silently listening for birds and squirrels, then collected up acorns to bring back for Suzi.

Back at base they decided on a spot to hide the acorns and each child made a map to show the hide for Suzi. They hid he maps around the base.

The Children’s Maps

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Forest Days

Session 3

Bird Hides

I sent each class a slide show about to prepare for the theme during week. I have noticed that this has really helped the children’s focus. Having discussed ideas the day before, they come prepared, motivated and focused

Camouflage and Building Bird Hides

This is the information I sent along with photographs.

A bird hide is a structure that’s used to help you camouflage while watching wildlife. You will need to think about being hidden from the birds and animals while having a window/view area to observe them 

You could build a structure or you could use a structure already at your base to hide behind. You may have to camouflage your face and head when you look out.

1) Choosing a Site

• Where will you put your hide?
• How many hides do you want to build in your base?
• Where will you put the look out/window?
• Will you put in more that one window

2) Gather materials – What will you need?

• Branches
• Logs
• Twigs
• Leaves

Can you think of other materials you might find in the wood? How will you attract birds/ animals to your hide?

3) Design – foundation, frame, strength, waterproof layer, viewfinder.

Third Class

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Fifth Class

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Finishing in stillness, listening and watching and feeling the woodland.

Second Class

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Senior Infants

We had a different plan for senior infants. A photograph of a puppet squirrel with a message on the back was hidden in the grandmother. During free play Noah found the envelope. He was very excited and seem to think that it might be a message from the grandmother tree. He called the others into the circle with our wolf call.

Sharing the message.

I was asked to read it. There was a lot of excitement and discussion. One child was a bit sceptical. Did Liz write it? I could honestly say I didn’t, however not many were interested in taking up this questioning and I notice as the detective work went on she totally join in. I was amazing, a whole story evolved. The idea of writing and meaning became exciting. That ideas could come from from a tree so they started looking at old letters and words scratched into the bark of the trees and created meaning from them.

Hieroglyphics

They sounded out these letters and decided that it meant “Under a Stone”

“Under a stone.” What could that mean. Ideas were shared. They began to look under stones. Maybe that is where Susie hides her food?

On another tree they read “5 M”. Could that mean 5 minutes? Could it mean 5 months?

Some wrote and drew their ideas in their notebooks. What an amazing morning.

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Forest Days

Pigment, paint and colour

Session 2

Dalkey School Project N.S.

Last week second class began to experiment with making colour during free play. The whole group got involved and they were so so engrossed and motivated that we decided to do more this week and introduce the idea to the other groups. I sent a slide show to 2nd, 3rd and 5th classes of cave painting and photos from the second class children’s own work from last week. We are finding that stimulating ideas in class the day before, give the children time to imagine and get ideas before they arrive at Killiney Hill.

What makes good paint/pigment?

What can we mix it on/in?

What can we use to mix it with?

How can we apply it?

Third Class

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They were so relaxed on this lovely sunny day. They finished with 10 minutes sitting quietly at their tree.

Fifth Class

We went into different environments to collect plants to make pigments. It was lovely to see great team work and invention when two children worked together, to collect blackberries and not have to get scratched in the briars. One had a hooked stick to pull the blackberries forward while the other picked them.

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While the children were creating their work they were very aware of the forest around them. One child in the final circle shared how she noticed two squirrels chasing each other up and down the tree. One had a blackberry in her mouth.

Second Class

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They finished the session by drawing in their notebooks.

Senior Infants

Fairy Houses

Senior Infants were sent a slide show of mini shelters/ fairy houses during the week to stimulate their imagination. They looked at each photo and discussed what they saw and what materials were used.

Mini Shelters

“Who is the shelter for?  Your creature? A mini creature?  A fairy? 

Look for the perfect place to build your shelter.

Gather up all the sticks you will need.”

I demonstrated how to make a tepee shelter by creating a tripod with sticks by sticking the end of the sticks into the earth. This would be a strong structure to begin with.

“Is there other ways you could make a strong structure?

Where will you put the door?

What will you use to make it waterproof?

What else would the mini creatures/fairies/bugs need inside, and outside?

Is your shelter near anyone else’s shelter?

Do you need a path or bridge to visit them?”

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Lucas did a drawing of the creature in his notebook before making a mini den for him.

Discussing ideas.

While the children are finding materials for their fairy houses they are also discovering lots of beauty that they want to share with me. “look at the leaf I’ve found. Look at all the colours in this one leaf.” I found a conker that looks like the colour of a cow.”

This fairy house have their own pet slug called Fifi

Food laid for fairies.

Forest Days

It’s wonderful to get back to Killiney Hill with the children of Dalkey School Project. The school are confident to start back on our Forest Friday sessions as we do not have to make many changes with the Covid restrictions. Our main focus for this term is the well-being of the children who have had such disruption to their lives. We are going to work with four classes, to catch up with the classes who missed their sessions last term. So on Thursdays we will have 3rd and 5th class on Killiney Hill and Senior Infants and 2nd on Fridays.

Five Ways to Well-being (Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning, and Give) are simple and proven actions to help people find balance, build resilience and boost mental health and well-being.

1. Connect: Build connections with people around you.
2. Be active: Boost your energy and mood by doing something active.
3. Take notice: Be curious about the world and savour the moment.
4. Keep learning: Learn something new to boost your confidence and have fun.
5. Give: Do something nice for someone

This week we focused on getting to know our new groups and our new base camps and to gather ideas from the children of what they would like to happen this term. It was very much child led, particularly by the children who have been part of Forest Fridays before. For Senior Infants it was time to establish our groups, place, and structure.

Some children began their own activities and games and others took part in Meet a Tree.

The children were asked to chose a tree by starting in a circle.  The were asked to turn facing and to look straight ahead and point in that direction and then walk until they met a tree.

The children were guided to get to know their tree through their senses:

4 things you hear

3 things you feel with your hands

2 things you feel with your feet

1 thing you smell

Bring 3 things back to the circle from what you’ve discovered and place into circle.

“Create a face for your tree.  Is there a start to the face already on the tree?  Is the tree old?  What is it feeling?  What could you use to create the face?  Use the clay to stick natural objects on to make the face.”

Third Class

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During our final circle we were very lucky to be able to watch a squirrel in the branches overhead.

Fifth Class

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Senior Infants

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On our way up to our base camp we used our senses, listening, looking and smelling. We stopped when somebody noticed something. hey were very excited to come upon this grey squirrel. He sat feeding while we watched.

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The children collected materials to make creatures to live in our grandmother tree.

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They found places to leave their creatures on and beneath the tree.

During free play they mad drawings in the earth using sticks, drew leaf shapes in their note books, tried our textures in clay and climbed on trees and rocks

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We had a lovely relaxing end to our morning lying on our backs looking up into the trees, then closing our eyes to listen to the wind in the leaves and the birds.

Second Class

A group of second class children started doing beautiful rock art experimenting with mixing berries and earth to make colour. Then they decided that they needed tools to apply the colour.

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Some children left the rock art to choose their tree and make a face for it.

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We finished off with a sculpture trail where the children had a chance to talk of they chose about their work

Week 7 – Senior Infants, Holy Family N.S – Painting the Paddy’s Day Parade!

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Over the last six weeks we have been experimenting and exploring colour through paint. Moving slowly and deliberately through one colour a week – mixing colours – experimenting with colour shape and pattern – looking at how the colours work alongside each other, on top of each other. We have created cave paintings, dyed paintings, monochrome painting, colour mixing painting, wax resist paintings, giant paintings, pattern paintings and collaborative paintings. I had suggested to the Senior Infants that this week we would maybe move onto another material – but they all wanted to continue with painting! So be it!

So as we had not experimented with different tools and techniques for applying paint we were going to experiment with different size brushes, gestures, actions and plastic knives. But this week with a figurative theme. We had just heard that the St.Patrick’s Day Parades all across the country were to be cancelled so we were going to paint our own parade. We talked about what might be in a parade – looked at some photos from last year’s parade to get some ideas. We noticed that the main colours in the parade were the colours of the Irish flag – green, white and orange – and we know how to mix lots of different greens! So we’ll be grand!

So here our the beautiful parade paintings from Senior Infants! Check out the Lord Mayor on his carriage with horses and the giant fish, the crowds of people, the dancers, the street and St.Patrick leading the parade!

 

Week 6 – Senior Infants, Holy Family N.S – Giant Paintings and Patterns

This week we worked on group paintings – giant paintings – so big they covered the whole table! To give us a structure I had divided one of the canvases into smaller spaces and shapes using masking tape. So each group – around a table added masking tape in lines to divide up their canvas. The idea was that each space would be a different colour. As Senior Infants are now master colour mixers this was no problem to them! A flurry of mixing and painting and the canvases were covered in a rainbow of colours.

But that was only the first part for today. The next part was to add a pattern on top in another colour. So we looked at each space and decided what colour would work well, be a contrast or different to the other colour. We had quick chat about different patterns – and if we needed ideas we looked at our socks! Always good inspiration for patterns!

Wow! Oh Wow! When we excitedly removed the tape we had these fantastic paintings of colour and pattern.

After break we had a look more closely at one of the paintings – picking out what we could see in the painting. We discovered landscapes, countries, roads, cars, faces – a whole world of images in the painting that we had not even planned on putting there! Lovely discussion. And what amazed me was how long we talked about the painting that they had only just completed and that the children did not just pick out sections they had painted. Lovely morning as always with Ms.O’Connell’s Senior Infants!

Each painting is 120cm X 120cm on canvas.

Week 5: Holy Family N.S – Exhibition Visits to Our Colours exhibition at The Lexicon

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With the school closed last week and then the mid term break it seemed like ages since I had seen the Senior Infants and the 4th Class group. We had no opportunity to discuss the exhibition visit before the day of the visits. So it was with great excitement the Senior Infants arrived and we had a quick refresh on some rules in the gallery around not touching the artworks, not running, not shouting….general gallery and library rules and most importantly listening to each other and their ideas on the artworks we were looking at. We also remembered the last exhibition they had visited at the Lexicon. It is good for the students to be aware that the exhibitions change regularly and they can also see how the gallery changes depending on the artwork that is on show.

Our Colours – Artworks from the dlr County Collection is an exhibition of over 30 artworks from the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Collection – including new works to the collection that have not been exhibited together before. I wanted to highlight to both groups the diversity or range of artworks in different mediums (eg. painting, drawing, sculpture, photography etc.), different subject/ imagery (eg. portrait, landscape, abstract etc.), 2D and 3D and different sizes and scales. Most of the artists in the exhibition have a connection to Dún Laoghaure – they may live here or studies here or have moved here.

We had some great conversations deciphering the artworks and also linked what we were looking at with what we are working on back in the classroom. So for example with Anita Groener’s large three part painting the Senior Infants discussed the colours the artist used to create the painting. The 4th Class looked at the centre of the painting wondering whether it was a human figure with some animal parts and whether it was coming towards us or going back into the painting.

In looking at Bassam Al Sabbah’s series of small artworks on a pink shelf we wondered if they were portraits of the same young boy through his life. Students in each class identified the writing on the painting as Arabic so we talked about how this artist was from Iraq and this was his language. We wondered if they were his family, if they were in a war because one man looked like he was wearing a soldier uniform.

In looking at Mark Grainier’s photographic image of an upturned car the conversation of whether it was art if it was a photograph was discussed. One student pointed out that the artist may have set up the scene to take the photograph so he was an artist.

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Each class then did a workshop in the Project Room after the exhibition visit. Senior Infants made beautiful stained glass artworks using coloured cellophane on sheets of acetate. 4th Class made sun catchers using the coloured cellophane on old CDs and then suspended from sticks. With the reflective surface of the cds we did a little bit of light projection on the ceiling and around the walls. So busy I did not get many images unfortunately.

Brilliant morning with Senior Infants and 4th Class! Great art chats and beautiful artworks made in a very busy morning!

 

Week 4 – 4th Class, Holy Family N.S – Weird and Wonderful Mythological Creatures

This week we were bringing together the elements of drawing, line shape and beginnings of form that we had been exploring over the previous weeks. But we were going to link them with our conversations about the zodiac, star constellations and mythological and half man/ half animal – or centaurs. Everyone was going to develop their own mythological creature. We looked at a few examples from ancient history and from around the world….loking at the similarities and different characteristics and styles.

Working first in drawing to develop the creatures. We then transferred these to cut paper shapes so that when we try to make them in papier mache we can identify the forms and shapes needed and how they will be connected. These also created lovely silhouettes as an aside. After break we began working with newsprint to create forms that will become the bodies of our creatures. We scrunched, wrapped and rolled and packed together the newsprint and taped it up so it became tightly bound. Just getting going! All to be continued next week!

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