Taking time to play

Tuesday 22nd November, 2011

As the year draws to an end, it is nice to have a moment to play.  Term four is frantic. A shorter term, assessments, marking, reports and planning for the next academic year.  Inspired by @malynmawby's 10 minute project  and her "sandcastles" art work for @gcouros, I decided to spend 10 minutes completing a quick sketch.  Click here to see Malyn's creative piece.  I was due to pick up the kids from school, so the sketch had to be something quick. 

As I was intrigued by the title of @gcouros "playing in public" I thought of sketching something to share with him as the idea was creating/playing/learning and sharing with the world. That idea of PURPOSE once again. Pretty powerful in my opinion.  Purpose does give me a nudge!  I do enjoy, for the sake of enjoyment's value but sometimes I need that deadline. The purpose to get started. Life can get very busy and there is always something that needs doing. You can read about @gcouros original challenge here:  PLN challenge-playing in public.

Even though the challenge had ended, I wanted to give it a go. I sketched George's twitter profile pic.  

I used a free app called itimelapse pro on my iphone to create the process of the sketch.

This is me playing in public take 2:   

A funny story.  Take one went well. In fact, it is probably a better likeness to George.  However, I titled the sketch @gcourosa -with an 'a' on the end of @gcouros!  Why?  Mixing the two Couros brother twitter handles together in my haste.  As you do.  :)  Older brother Alec's twitter handle is @courosa.

Here is take 1:

When embedding these videos, I came across another You tube video titled 4 George-playing in public by Shawn Urban.  This is his blog post.

Reflections:

• Fun, Fun, Fun.  
• Learnt how to timelapse a video- am already planning ways to engage kids using this technology in the learning space.
• My daughter viewed the final product and was intrigued so hence she had a go as well!      Butterfly sketch by Jazzy
• Was very relaxing to "just be" to take time out from work and play.
• Gave my mind a break, therefore was refreshed and rejuvenated. 
• Nice affirmations via twitter and views.
• The importance of setting time aside to play was reinforced.
• Realising that play doesn't need to take up a lot of time.  Sketching both videos, rendering and uploading to You tube took less then half an hour in total. Twittering in between :)

Thanks guys!

Jeannette James