April 7th - Building with Classes Day One.

Journaling by Shylene and various particpants.

Cementing Quadra's Community ... A MtC Project

Jobs today - on the board-
1) Importance of safety
2) Pick a Piece and Cement it down
3) Journal your experience - be an author
4) Return with family and Friends to mosaic with color and as longs as you can stay

We started working with all the classes today, a job that will take two school days. On Tuesday all the kindergarteners came through each glued a piece and today most kids got to glue at least two pieces.

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Div 7
Alan

1. I saw goggles, tiles, hammers and four pieces of board.
2. we glued two pieces of tile , smashed tiles, talked and washed our hands.
I felt that I was an artist.

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Thanking them all for all their designs and journal entries. When the students first arrive in the class we go over the design and how we got to where were today. I explained how the history of Quadra School was being shown in the 6 mosaicked panels and their designs are all over the whole mosaic. I showed the children their drawings and paper mosaics that now decorate the annex. I thanked them for their journals and told them their writing was being typed up to be used in the journal and later in our printed Documentation.

Each student was asked to get a pair of goggles and then make their way around the table. I showed them all how to pick a piece of tile, find it a home, cement its back, and stick it into place with just enough space between all the tiles.

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Div 7
Christina.

We used a hammer to break tiles into pieces. I broke it into five pieces and we wash our hands.
we glued tiles into a home.

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Then with the aid of three MtC team, two Quadra staff and many new volunteers we mosaicked about 75% of panels two and three, showing the school as a Tent and the first panel showing the annex itself.

Most of our volunteers were family and it was wonderful to see so many new faces and have the help, and creativity of a few new ideas.

As I always teach on these projects the evolution of the design is so important. Today while looking at all the colored tile Artisan Tile brought us today - I realized we would need to add a lot more color to the panels still to be made. First Len and I made sure we actually had enough square footage of tile in the first place, as looking at the little bits it simply does seem to be enough. After a rough measure - and I mean rough - Len simply walked over to the large panels stacked up in the corner, held up a panel of meshed tile and use them as a measuring tool, one, two .. Twelve the spring panel will take - approximately he says. We do the math, and take another look at all the tiles we have sorted, nipped and still meshed together - okay we will have enough, but we realized we have mostly bright colors. Okay. How do we make this work?

Looking at what we have Karen and I try to think of where all the color can go - I look at the three sheets of purple tile, and only a few purple flowers, one rainbow, a butter fly maybe two. That's the purple. hmm.. Karen says we can make more purple flowers, sure. But how about a purple Summer Sky?? Blue and purple spiral sky. Hmm love it.

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Div 7
Mariam.

Yesterday I went to the Annex with half of my class. When I was there I saw colorful tiles.
I even got to smash a tile. We had to wear goggles and it was hard to smash the tile. It took a lot of pressure to smash the tile. I felt that the mosaic is going to look fabulous.

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So all days the classes filed through the annex- 15 students and about 20min per group. Welcome backs, intro to design, cover our Jobs for today, goggles and to the gluing and smashing we went all day all.

We had fun with goggles gong over noses, fun playing in the water bucket for washing our hands, but fun wielding hammers had to the best for most of the students.

Great Personal Interactions Today

i. Having three MtC team players out helping build Community Unity in mosaic.

ii. Have a grandmother Hazel come out and stay almost all day long. She got to work along side two of her grandchildren today - wonderful.

iii. Mentorship moment with the room only with The Mentors and The Mentored - the truth of MtC. And for me with two of my mentors - the Stubels and my first "Mentoree" Lucy. Awesome moment for sure.

iv. Today we moved past the project and into each other. Nicole Grant and I were working the after school workshop late today and we both got to be there when some great conversations were happening about " It taking a Village to be a community". And ideas of Cultural values, life experience, personal history and wisdom. It's always so rewarding for me, as the artist who started an idea, to be there when the project takes this turn.

v. The coloring book ideas for the design, outlining all the big design elements in a thin black line as a children's coloring book would be done. Looks great. - More evolution and the reason I tell everyone to stay open and not get married to the final outcome of the mosaics.

vi. I put a pile of leaves under the fall tree today for the kids to plan in, way back in 1912, (when the only thing to play with was leaves J Just kidding.) I have great memories of playing in the leave in Stanley Park in Vancouver as a child. Great memories…

vii. For a quick fun break I took the chance to play in a game of "go go stop", so fun. really really fun.. It's been a while since I played that game. Thanks for letting me play J

We ended off the day on a good note, tidied up the room, being very grateful not to have to put all things away and headed out for the day. We are all looking forward to returning tomorrow to finish seeing all the students and for Saturday our first Community Building Workshop :)