This year, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I decided it was time to talk to E about the events that day. He seemed ready. We discussed the attacks, the thousands of lives lost, the impact to our country, the war that began as a result, and the heroes that emerged that day. Because E has a passion for architecture, he seemed to connect with the memorials in NYC so we watched some virtual tours. Then, we spent time creating artwork to process our own feelings on the event.
9/11 Art
E created a 3D representation of the rushing water going into the monument in NYC at Ground Zero. The piece is titled “Window On A Memorial” and includes two folded designs to create the illusion of depth.
The tower art is a mixed media collaborative piece representing the original towers, a yellow origami rose, and a watercolor background highlighting the blue skies of that morning meeting grey smoke.
We spent time this week brainstorming a list of questions E had about beach life. They covered all aspects of marine biology, astronomy without light pollution, and historical relevance of our destination. The list will serve as starting points for our activities in the weeks leading to our travels.
To document our travels, we began photography lessons using E’s own camera. We took nature walks to capture photos illustrating the beginning of the seasons changing. E also began a visual journal which will be leveraged to capture his thoughts and feelings week to week in a manner that does not require physical writing.
Seasonal Transitions
E captured monkey grass still blooming near a lawn covered in the last of the crepe myrtle tree blooms.
Our focus on both gross and fine motor work continued this week as well. We spent time in the gym working on core strength and obstacle courses for motor planning. We also completed tweezer activities for fine motor.
Tweezer Precision
We typically use the zen sand table for calming art with patterns and texture but today we leveraged it to add complexity to our fine motor work.
Math continues to be a point of struggle. This week, we focused on hands on math rather than computational math by following Zoid’s lead with introducing straight edges to create parabolas. E was very interested in this work because he loves optical illusions. We decided to extend the experience by creating a physical art piece for the gallery. He conceptualized a design of “going into a black hole” and we gathered materials to make it a reality. He seemed to enjoy painting the wood black and hammering each of the nails. The project will be completed next week.
Straight Edge
E used a straight edge to carefully create a parabola based optical illusion
Black Hole Illusion
E gathered tools to create his design for the Black Hole Illusion. First he painted a wood board black. Then he carefully hammered in nails at equal distances around the board to form a circle.
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