Students began class by perfecting their sponge-tossing skills. It’s incredible how fast and far a 2nd grader can throw a sponge, especially when they’re trying to avoid achieving the game’s accuracy objective. Regardless, the game helps everybody (primarily the instructors) to better remember names.
Once the projectile sponges had stopped flying, students joined their tablemates in a game of “Exquisite Corpses”: folding a sheet of paper four times, students drew one feature of a body, such as a head, then passed the folded paper to a friend, who added a torso, or arms, or legs, or feet. The results were fantastic indeed, although the class as a whole might benefit from paper folding practice.
Finally, the students returned to building, decorating or otherwise modifying the musical instruments they had begun the week before. A large number of cardboard box guitars grew necks fashioned from popsicle sticks, glue and pipe cleaners. Some guitars also doubled the number of elastic-band strings, greatly increasing the variety of possible melodies. In a nod toward practicality, one student tacked on to her instrument a pair of carrying handles that doubled as radio antennae. And of course, once the magic markers came out of the cabinet, the drab and colorless materials out of which the instruments were built suddenly reappeared as splashes of color.
Next up: using the instruments we’ve built to play together (in harmony if possible), and storytelling with song.
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