testing… testing…

This week’s session was devoted to testing the suitability of materials for our project.

The children suggested the material needs to:

– Stay in one place

– be flat like the playground, not bumpy

– waterproof

– strong so it doesn’t blow away in the wind

We discussed the notion of TIME and our project……

How long would the material be down on the playground?

some said:

3 hours

wee while

2 days

overnight

a week

one hour and 1 minute

We talked about the fact that Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped walkway was not PERMANENT and the idea of something being TEMPORARY.

We had lots of suggestions for the idea of temporary – it stayed a while but NOT FOREVER.

We also discussed the idea of how it might look? Was that important?

We mostly decided the material should be a very NOTICEABLE COLOUR!

It was time to explore some materials and in preparation I posted a lot of samples of materials down to the school. To make the exploration of the sample of material more mysterious, I suggested to the Teacher that the children be blindfolded so they relied on other senses than their eyes to find out about the sample…….

session 8 - 010 — Relying on other senses than our sight to find out about the material sample… how does it feel? Is it soft?

session 8 - 013 — What are the edges like?

session 8 - 008 — Does it make a sound? Is it noisy?

The children offered lots of descriptive words:

rubbery

loud sound

scratchy

rough

like cheese

squishy

flat

bumpy

spongey

And then the children took their blindfolds off and were very surprised and interested in their small sample of material…….so they looked more closely and noticed things about its appearance as well….

Daniel noticed there was a sort of texture and pattern to his material and he said it”looks like a maze” “like lots of wee stairs….”

The children made a drawing of their sample in their sketchbooks…..

The next step was a discussion about how we could TEST material to see how it would fare outside. The children decided the material samples could be tied, taped or weighted somehow. They also said they would guard it in case anything happened to it!

As the children began to go outside I got to witness the activity through the Teacher’s iPad!

The children's enthusiasm for outside activities is wonderful! — The children’s enthusiasm for outside activities is wonderful!

Discussions took place as to where the samples should be placed.... "over at the edge of the playground"! — Discussions took place as to where the samples should be placed…. “over at the edge of the playground”!

There was plenty of tape for the job! — There was plenty of tape for the job too!

Samples of materials were tied, pegged and taped using duck tape and masking tape. The children made sure all the different samples were fixed outside using DIFFERENT METHODS…….