Week 3 Treehouse

Week Three Treehouse

Construction and Simple stimulation-

We started off doing small construction. People draw and write but i wanted to bring in something different so that people could make 3d shapes and not be trapped in materials/patterns they know.

We used 100 1-4cm polystyrene cubes and wooden food skewers to make 3d structures. I gave no reason apart from to see what we could make, i made a square and a triangle to show the concept.

The group all seemed to focus on this alot, some where sorting the cubes and putting all the same size on one skewer, others made very robust squares, others built very complex 3d shapes and also didnt mind if we connected them together, we ended up with 3 really complex designs. We then hung them from the ceiling so we could move them and look at the forms in 3 dimensions. The group didnt seem bothered by hanging and looking at the shapes the actual contruction process was what really engaged them.

This week i wanted to try to explore the sensations of the swing. A few of the young people love the swings outside and use this (i feel) as a calming self/stim. I couldnt build a swing in the session so took in lots of hula hoops (not the crisps) and we hung them from string so they would rotate, we also had multiple hula hoops that hung down like cylinders that you get inside. The hoops spin really fluidly and are quite mesmerising, and the group really focused on them especially one of the young people who uses the swing alot, he was very vocal about the hoops saying 'spin' aot without prompting.

Other people played with getting inside the hoops and one young person just held the spinning hoop for ages, looking really focused and happy.

We then started to change the room with masking tape and chipshop paper so that we could conect the hoops, build around them and just explore construction.

One member of the group really didnt like us changing his classroom but was reassured that it would be gone in 20 minutes (he took the most pleasure in removing all the construction later which was great).

The rest of the group all seemed really focused and played with the idea of construction and tape. It created a very playful atmosphere and people were goofing around alot having loads of fun and being very expressive. One of the young people who choses not to speak then started to tape up other peoples mouths and drew smiles onto the taped mouths which was quite a profound moment, she had been a little pointed with one of the other young people throughout the session but through this play there relationship transformed and they were in it together.

One of the young people who had been holding the spinning hula hoop then wrapped his hoop in masking tape and then gaffa until it was an amazingly rich full object he took 15 minutes to do this and seemed to make all the choices himself. 

We then took down all the created space and finished noone seemed upset by the destruction at the end.

Creating these sorts of spaces is always a good fun thing to do but i think because the staff dont have any preconception about what it should be it helps them to let go and have fun as well (not that they arent fun)

drawing and writing and even movement can seem scary or can seem to have a set or proper outcome whereas 3d construction can be chaotic and wild without being scary.

The hula hoops did really seem to have the mesmerising effect of something like a swing, it was very simple but amazingly pleasing to watch and to hold and to be inside of. 
With larger hoops we could make giant devices that you could all get inside it would be interseting to use magnets to make it move or to utilise magnets with this as you can get things to move magically then.
And it would be great to be able to make the masking tape and paper activity with something else so it could be reused, maybe velcro could be similar.