Friday, January 28, 2011

Loving Them To Pieces


I feel like all I've been doing this year is writing about boxes. These are the top and bottom of a long box that came along with our giant tube (which I've still not had the courage to cut up into shorter pieces). Watching children play with boxes makes me want to write a poem about them.


Or sing a song. These they seem to like to hide under, together, making it feel for a few seconds as if there are fewer children at school today.


Then suddenly they burst back out into the light, bringing with them all the sound and motion that we expect at Woodland Park.


I wish I had a huge warehouse for storing these kinds of thing, but instead we need to use them up, wear them out, then either get them into the recycling bin or cut them up for art projects, like this incredible glue collage on which we've been working off and on for a couple weeks.


A project built on a remnant of the last box we loved until it was no more. 


A collage made of the parts of other things we've used up, but not found the heart to throw out.


And then when we're finished gluing, once it's all dry, then maybe we'll throw it out. If history is to be a guide, it will take a long time before that happens.


I might even go over it a few weeks from now and pick it like carrion for parts to re-use yet one more time.


In fact, I'm pretty sure much of it will soon be stuck to the side of our new long boxes.


But not before we've loved them to pieces.

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5 comments:

Scott said...

Looking at your collage made me think of those "I Spy" books. I kept trying to figure out what I was seeing among all those parts.

MOM #1 said...

Oh, the boxes are usually more fun then whatever came inside of them, LOL.

Play for Life said...

That collage is awesome Tom! What a wonderful collaborative project. If it ever comes unstuck from the table (and I'm doubting it ever will) I reckon you should keep it, it's a ripper!
Donna :)
BTW Does this box mean you have a new awning? ... AND I'm so glad you're too chicken to chop the tube! :)

Let the Children Play said...

I'm putting a collage like this one on our "must do" list for this year Tom.

And in other news, we were recently told that we were getting an enormous umbrella for preschool and thanks to your box posts I was more excited about the boxes it would come in than the umbrella itself :)

Lara Bishop said...

Teacher Tom this is now my second blog post to you and I get more excited each time. I am so excited now to take that idea into my classroom with elementary students. It teaches art skills as well as recycling skills. There is so much art today that uses old things to make a masterpiece and you never know if an artist will arise in your class and make a magnificent piece. What a great idea. As I told you before I was once a preschool teacher also. Boxes will and always will be a huge thing. We would get boxes donated and we would paint them and draw on them and make them into anything that we could think of and the kids loved this more than all of the toys that we had. What a great learning tool and a wonderful idea.
Lara Bishop
My Blogspot
http://bishoplaraedm310.blogspot.com/
tweet me @ http://twitter.com/#!/lmb808

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