Creature For A Day

Creating creature masks

Throughout the week, we have been taught and re-taught how to play and use our childlike tendencies while in the woods. Today, we got the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of children and it was inspiring to say the least. The children we engaged with today really enjoyed the opportunity to use their imagination within nature while making their animal masks. One group of children all decided if given the opportunity to be an animal they would all be different species of rabbits; jack rabbit, bunny rabbit, and a cotton tail rabbit. After they finished making their masks, they thought it would be fun to play a game and pretend to be those animals in the woods.

Creatures!

The children later suggested adding another animal to the game, a bear, where it would chase the rabbits around in the woods, much like reality. A different group with more children had a more diverse set of animal masks, ranging from a cat, dog, baboon, and a girl monkey. They let their imagination take over and created their most favorite animal.

Assir Abushouk, Katie Johnson and Britani Lolley

Day Four: June 9

Capturing a shot of beauty on the site through framing

Today we got an early start out at the Gateway site, we explored the area more extensively than before in small groups in order to gain a better appreciation of the affordances that the site has to offer. My group found many natural "forts" and convenient nooks found in trees around the area, we documented each find with a framed photo. After the exploration exercise, we came together as a group to discuss our ideas for our "pods" for this week.

Reviewing the plan for the "Creature for a Day" Pod

Through our discussion, new ideas were thrown out and critiques were given to improve and build on each others ideas. Following the discussion, we broke up into our groups to begin creating our "pods." My group's idea for our first "pod" was to have the children create masks out of paper plates and found materials, and then use the masks to act as their chosen animal. We are hoping to incorporate an aspect involving the construction trucks driving by, asking the children to react as their animals would. So we spent the day creating our workspace and making model masks for the children to draw inspiration from.

We wound down our day with a group tour through each groups "pod." The groups had built on their various ideas and had created; systems of nature trails leading up to a mud mansion, a "bug city," a theatrical area surrounded by trails, as well as a relocation community for animals that had been affected by the wildfires in the area. It was amazing to see all of our ideas come into form, and to see all of the different ways in which we interpreted the various information we have been presented with this week.

Testing out the "Adventure Theater"

With only an hour of extra preparation time left in the morning before children begin arriving, we're all excited to see how our visitors respond to our creations!

Katie Johnson