We worked an event at the fairgrounds in Ottawa today. It was cold, and rainy, but mostly cold. Somewhere around 140 blue-lipped, shivering 6th & 7th graders came through.
*There were a few rotations where the kids didn't add in a stream channel and made a series of ponds and impoundments instead. This was new. I'm not sure what was different except that we used straight top soil, fresh from the bag... 7 -40lb bags straight from Dillons. It was granular (pebble/sandy sized pieces) and moist but still challenging to get it to hold a form. We sponge squeezed water onto the tables here and there and by the end of the day it was packing a little better. The cold really kept kids from going full force into the sculpting.
*The other noticeable difference in their approach is that there was a trend to focusing on each table as a unique community. Cooperation was happening in table groups as opposed to pairs of students or singletons. This happened in the groups of 15 or so. The larger groups of 25 were actually composites of students from 2 different schools. A couple of times this seemed to be a sore spot...the schools are set to be merged next year. However, I didn't notice there being anything unusual about the way these groups functioned at the tables.
*The amount of workspace the students in the larger groups had was challenging. The tables were 6 ft, we used a T figuration. That's 36 feet of frontage (6 ft + 2 ft + 3 ft + 6 ft + 2 ft+ 6 ft + 3 ft + 2 ft + 6 ft). The bigger the kids are the more frontage we need. The sets of 25 kids weren't anywhere near as satisfying as the sets of 15ish kids. I guess a rule of thumb is to have at least 2 feet of frontage for middle school groups.
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