Taylor made me some "work work work" stickers for the sculpture room just in time for the infamous plaster project. I love the plaster project for lots of reasons and most of those are curriculum based reasons. My students argue that I love it because of the entertainment value it provides me and that is certainly true as well, but honestly, there's so much this project does for the students.
But I will agree that there are some other small reasons I enjoy it. I'll share the photos of the two plaster pouring days from last week and demonstrate a couple of those reasons.
Here's a good example. I took this photo right after I gave all the warnings and instructions. They are calm, collected and trying desperately to seem unstressed by the looming disaster. Stacie's checking her messages. Logan's eating her elementary school food.
Less than 3 minutes later I took this photo. The pouring has started, the leaking has started and the panic has surfaced.
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Of course the group effort involved in pouring the plaster is huge, but just as important is the laughter. Check out Paige's face in that photo. That's the best face ever. This traumatic event places the emotional highs and lows side by side.
The white puddle grows larger while the cardboard form sinks lower. The smiles trail away.
And then moments later the smiles are back. Everyone is covered in plaster, everyone has done something they've never done before and even though they think their designs are ruined, they laugh.
Other sources of entertainment come along in surprising ways. I couldn't have planned for it to be 40 degrees and windy when I placed the foot washing pan out on the sculpture patio. I couldn't have planned for students to take their shoes off and brave the plaster in their bare feet.
Better than TV.
The next day it was the other class's turn. It's fun to see what one class warns the next one about. Some came in with modifications to their cardboard based on the advice of the first class. It's also fun to see what one class conveniently forgets to warn the next one about. Notice the bare feet in the image above. I guess they figured if they had to suffer through the cold water, everyone should have to suffer.
Caitlin and Laura racing to patch holes.
And then you have those students who are their own islands. Rashaad didn't have time for the bare feet nonsense. He threw on his pajama pants and wrapped his sneaks up in plastic bags. Smart guy.
And here they are properly bonded and showing off their plaster caked skin. And Seth is flashing the international sign for "work, work, work".
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