“It gets darker and darker.” -Calder

To provoke further conversation about the beach, I provided a few reference books with inspiring images.

The children brainstormed ideas for their painting.

Quinton: See? In the picture in the middle of the wave there’s like, a darker part.

Calder: And in the back.

Quinton: Yeah, because it’s far away in the darkness.

Calder: It’s the deepest part of the ocean. The lower the sand gets, it gets darker and darker.

Quinton: The lower the sand gets, the lower the water gets.

To keep their ideas flowing, I offered the group oil pastels that can be blended with water and a paint brush. I anticipated them using the pastels to create the different hues of the ocean they were discussing. And while they did blend different shades of blue and green, through sharing their drawings with each other,  we also discovered that they had drawn the ocean from different perspectives.

Some had drawn the ocean in the foreground with the sand in the middle and sky in background and some had drawn the sand in foreground with the ocean in the middle and the sky in the background. Some drew two drawings representing both ideas creating an internal conflict.

To explore their different perspectives, we set up a light table in the Mini Studio with materials to create a beach scene. After observing that space, it was clear that the group was still processing what perspective to take. The East Wing teachers met to discuss this work. We viewed video and paintings and designed a field trip to the beach for some hands on experience with cameras. We wonder if this shared experience will bind the children in a shared vision.  -Teacher Sam