Sugar skulls, Cornifer the Class Pet, and more!
From the kids: Everyone immediately said their favorite parts of this week were: playing DnD and discovering our class “pet” Cornifer the truck. Individually they said:
Riot: DnD was their favorite because “confetti and kazoos”. Xer DnD character has a weapon that sounds like a kazoo when used and causes the enemy to explode into confetti. Xe got great joy out of this every single time!
Ernie: “THE DOPAMINE” “THE DND AND THE DESTROYING CORNIFER! DOOOOOOPAAAAAMIIIIIINE”
Yarrow: “DnD because it was fun to kill the players” (said with a devious laugh)
Jude: “I like DnD the most this week. It was mildly fun”
Amber: liked playing DnD, and putting Cornifer back together.
The kids all said that they are most looking forward to playing DnD next week.
Teacher Kelsey’s Week 5 Recap:
On Tuesday this week we spent a few hours at Dragon Park, enjoying the beautiful autumn weather. The kids voted to explore the lower section of the park, where they all climbed all over the play structure in the most unconventional ways possible.
They discovered static electricity on the slide and experimented with how they could get their hair to stand up the tallest, and whether or not they could shock each other.
Then one of the kids discovered an abandoned toy car, and they all took turns sending it down the twisty slide and launching it every which way to maximize destruction. At the end of our time at the park, they all carefully collected every single piece of the car, dubbed him Cornifer the Class Pet, and announced they were bringing him back to the classroom to put back together.
Tuesday afternoon Jaybill came in and taught the kids the basics of computer programming. They walked through declaring variables, loops, and are working towards making a dice rolling program.
The kids ended the day by planning what they were going to do to repair Cornifer the next day, and each volunteering to bring something from home or contribute in some way.
On Wednesday the kids started the day by reassembling Cornifer the truck. They took turns hot glueing and/or taping pieces back on that they had carefully reassembled, which required quite a bit of problem solving and discussion to determine how the truck fit back together, and what they wanted it to look like at the end. They also figured out how the pull-back mechanism worked that made the truck roll forward, and were able to fix it so it rolled better. Once Cornifer was fully reassembled, Amber meticulously repainted him.
Next on the agenda was Music Appreciation Hour with Erin! Erin walked the kids through the process of learning a new song step by step. She introduced the kids to the protest song “Hold On” by Heidi Wilson and talked about the purpose and impact of protest songs, and the context around the creation of this particular song. Once we had sung through the song several times, Erin taught the kids about harmonies and then we tried our voices at singing in rounds!
After music class, we walked across the street to Baker St. Cafe for everyone to get a Bubble Tea, and for Yarrow to get something to eat since she forgot her lunch. We then walked to Dragon Park to meet Atma for Creativity Practice at the round tables. This week Atma brought a big bin of musical instruments, and let the kids try out an accordion, a ukulele, a conch, finger cymbals, xylophone, and tambourine, among other instruments. The kids followed their interests and all cycled through most of the instruments, spending about 45 minutes making joyful noise together.
After running around the park for about 15 minutes, we headed back to the classroom and spent the rest of our time together decorating the sugar skulls we formed in art class last week.
On Thursday morning the kids jumped right into DnD, continuing our campaign designed by our Dungeon Master Yarrow. As a group they are working through differing opinions and priorities, distributing resources, working out strategies for battling enemies that complements each players strengths, and resolving disagreements while still working towards common goals. They are also really branching out and leaning into the creativity that role playing games offer, giving more detailed descriptions of their characters motives and actions, exploring new possibilities for the plot, and really learning to make space for each other. Yarrow is delighting in coming up with ever more interesting ways to challenge our players, and gaining confidence leading the group through the story.
In the afternoon the kids had math class with Andrew, where he walked them through integers and prime numbers, and then worked with each kid to determine what level math they are learning. Next week Andrew will be doing more individualized lessons with each kid that is tailored to their current level of math knowledge.
The kids ended the day with a bit more DnD, and then built a big fort under the pool table with every couch cushion in the room. They all piled in there together and spent a good amount of time strategizing how they would best fit and who was in charge of which cushion, and the consequences of letting light leak inside the fort. The day ended with a collective cleanup of the room and then a game of hide and seek with Cornifer the Truck to tide them until next week.
Kelsey Kilday and the kids