OUR FIRST LAB EVER
Guiding ideas:
Día de los Muertos, building the altar
Ingredients for today’s Lab:
TinTin (Eva’s dog), tubes and joints for building, ribbons, collage materials
What just happened?!:
The idea of connecting parts and making a structure grow came from the amigues’ desire to build a robot spaceship and the maestres’ desire to build an altar. What was born was a vessel that could take us through time to meet again with those who are no longer here.
As the children began joining tubes, joints, and ribbons, the spaceship slowly transformed into something that resembled a skeleton, a living structure made of bones, memory, and imagination. Just like in Día de los Muertos, the line between life and remembrance started to blur. The children spoke of bones that could move, of light traveling through time, of loved ones waiting at the other end.
From this impulse to connect, objects, ideas, and stories, emerged the first form of what would later become the most Reggio-inspired altar to date at Mi Casita: a space built collectively to honor those who came before us, and to remind us that imagination, like love, never truly dies.
The children joined us in the Centro in two different groups. The groups journeyed from robots to surprises to space. Eva's dog, Tin-Tin, showed up.
We learned from REY that robots have really small mouths and they have funny-looking arms that look like little corn. TOLY showed us how Robot arms are wide and open. LIVNEH informed us that she did not know what sound a robot makes, but if we met a robot, we would know what sound it makes.
The second group wanted to let us know who would go there: penguins, dogs (Tin-Tin), and teachers. That you only had to go if you wanted to, and that you got to decide if there was music in space, and you could play the piano if you wanted to. There was a lot of negotiation about rules and consent in the second group. URSULA was going to the stars with "Babo", and there would be no going to space on Saturday because JUDE was not going to be here.
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(This is the poem that each amigue contributed by giving ideas for next week's ¡EL LAB.. together we decided that adding OH YEAH made reading together more fun)
Sorpresas...oh Yeah
Socks for princesses...oh yeah
Bugs on a train...oh yeah
Beetles, Escarbajos...oh yeah
Zapatos, mi zapatos-my Shoes... oh yeah
Green tractors, red cars, fans... oh yeah
Rainbow buttons rainbow clouds... oh yeah
I'm going to Halloween... oh yeah
A tree that grows big-un arbol que crece grande... oh yeah
Chocolate candy... oh yeah
Color candy... oh yeah
Chocolate chip bar as a treat... oh yeah
On my bed near my house, a fist bump, a big blue saddle, and a big fish... Oh yeah
And we have another Idea that just came out of me - in my home, I have a list of kitchen stuff, and if I bring my stuff, maybe we can have a kitchen... OH YEAH
