The shop has been a lively place so far this term. A lot of kids are interested in using the tools, particularly the drills and saws. They are also fascinated by all the bins tucked away in the shop cabinets, and have been finding bearings (oh, the fidget spinners!), suction cups, straws and other treasures to incorporate into their work.

Our group project this week was to look carefully at an elephant trunk and try to create something that captured its flexibility and shape. The students did an amazing job, using laser cut sections, wood elements, balls, and panty hose to recreate the elephant. And, of course, they wanted to make the rest of the elephant too, including the ears and grey body. There was a lot of idea-testing, hot glue, and pride in the studio today! 

Oscar the otter showed up in studio today. He is a sage advisor for the kids, having travelled the world to meet all the animal species. He will correspond with the kids in the coming weeks-- they put letters in his mailbox and he will write them back, answering questions about their chosen animal's features or sharing his experiences and opinions. The kids were very excited to get to know Oscar, and many letters were put in his mailbox during his first week in studio.

At circle time, Lerato made a shadow puppet theater. We asked the kids to try to guess which animal their classmates were creating, and most of the time they guessed correctly, after a few tries a an occasional hint. 

One big part of the studio today was for each student to begin researching their chosen animal, and which features might be interesting to use as inspiration moving forward. The kids were given books, articles, photos, and google search results to fill out their animal research which went either in their design journals or on bigger sheets of paper, which allowed for some first exploratory drawings.