[026] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 14 of 31: Building Blocks

"All his best years of active life had been spent in the care and guardianship of trees. [...] He could not live for long away from them without a strange, acute nostalgia that stole his peace of mind and consequently his strength of body. A forest made him happy and at peace; it nursed and fed and soothed his deepest moods. Trees influenced the sources of his life, lowered or raised the very heart-beat in him." - Algernon Blackwood, The Man Whom The Trees Loved (1912) ( pdf ) ( audio )

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Today is an experiment with color.

I recently took Erica Spitzer Rasmussen 's inkmaking class , and I was extremely inspired by the brilliant yellow color that we made by mixing turmeric powder and isopropyl alcohol. She told us that we could make lots of other colors using alcohol infusions. That's all the permission I needed - so, today, I bought a 12-pack of little pint jars, a bunch of bottles of 90% rubbing alcohol, and got busy.

I'm going to let these sit for a while, and make some wooden blocks to dye.

I'm going to make a zillion of these little blocks. They're great for using up scrap pieces that otherwise I'd just burn.

This abundance of little pieces is an activity informed by the Reggio Emilia approach to education. After World War II, the city of Reggio Emilia was rubble.

Parents and families got together in the city to rebuild and to start teaching their children again . They used the scattered bricks and broken lumber of their city as teaching tools. Children were allowed to be creative and encouraged to grow into that creativity.

There's a lot more to the Reggio Emilia approach than just this idea of " loose parts play ," and I encourage you to look further into the history. Loris Malaguzzi's idea of the Hundred Languages of Children vibrates with the volatility of truth.

These blocks I soaked in turmeric ink, and look at the color! Wow!

These next ones I soaked in wild grape and elderberry ink. BAM!

I tried two more experiments with blue milk paint and za'atar alcohol ink, but they were pretty devoid of pigment.

There is much more to be discovered here! Three cheers for experimentation and play!!!

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"The wonder that lies hidden in our own souls lies also hidden, I venture to assert, in the stupidity and silence of a mere potato." - Algernon Blackwood, The Man Whom The Trees Loved (1912) ( pdf ) ( audio )