COMMUNITY SPACES

At Boulder Journey School, community spaces are considered extensions of the classrooms, as well as classrooms within themselves. Educators observe children at work and design environments that support ongoing explorations, inspire new investigations and offer opportunities for multi-age collaboration.  Should you visit Boulder Journey School, you may see children hunting for shadows, building a hiding nook, catching butterflies, and creating imaginary castle scenarios all together. You’ll hear their laughter, glimpse their whispers and experience their joy.

OUTDOOR SPACES
The outdoor spaces are both beautiful and inviting. They combine traditional equipment with a vast array of natural materials and naturalized landscapes. These include a garden with indigenous plants, a mini amphitheatre for storytelling and acting, a water flume for exploration and a playground filled with natural materials with which children create sculptures and other representations of their growing ideas. Although some structures remain permanently placed, others, such as small gazebos, tires, tables, and tree stumps, are shifted often to support the children and their work.

THEATER
The theater is a big space for children to use their bodies as a form of expression. It features a large stage with numerous costumes, puppets and musical instruments. There is also space for movement, with a climbing wall, mats, tunnels and cubes. You may find several groups of children using the space simultaneously; some traveling to far off lands in their newly constructed boat, ship or plane, while others settle in for a performance by their friends.

One unique feature of the theater is a space created expressly for the exploration of light and shadow. This is a small dark room that contains a light table, an overhead projector, and a great variety of materials with which to discover the concepts of light and shadow.

The theater teacher collaborates with children and classroom teachers in order to provide continuity between the work that is taking place in the theater and the work that is taking place in classrooms.

STUDIOS
Every classroom at Boulder Journey School has a mini-studio in addition to the large studio that is shared by all classrooms in the school. Studios house a variety of natural, found, and recycled materials as well as materials often associated with art (i.e. paint, clay, markers and paper). Upon entering the studio, you might encounter a small group of children imprinting in clay, arranging compositions of natural materials or exploring the properties of wire. We view studio spaces as resources for the co-construction, extension and representation of children’s ideas.

Working with open-ended materials, such as those offered in the studios, encourages children to use their own unique styles of learning to understand the properties and affordances of each material. Once the children understand a material, they begin to think about how the material can be used symbolically in order to represent an idea, thought or theory. In this way, materials become languages or vehicles through which children can communicate with others.

We think that children have a great deal to contribute to the world. To do this, they deserve multiple means through which they can communicate. It is for this reason that we include a studio and mini-studios in our school community.

MATERIALS ROOM
To maintain an abundant supply of natural, found and recycled materials, we invite families, educators, and other members of the Boulder community to donate materials throughout the year. We ask families to share stories of the materials, such as how they were collected and why they are meaningful, and to offer suggestions surrounding possible uses.

The Materials Room is devoted to the organization and aesthetic display of donated materials. Thus, children are invited to sort the materials by color, texture and type. Children visit the Materials Room to “shop” for materials that can enhance and extend their work. The space is also used (especially by the younger children) as a studio for the exploration and discovery of materials. 

WOOD STUDIO
In the outdoor wood studio, children use collected wood pieces and wood glue as the bases for wood sculptures. Their intricate designs consider mathematical, scientific and aesthetic concepts, including shape, symmetry, texture and balance. Working in the wood studio offers the children myriad opportunities to build and to represent their thoughts in narratives, which are shared with one another, with educators, with families and with visitors to the school.

TECHNOLOGY STUDIO
The technology studio is a new space where small groups of children can utilize technology as a tool to support and extend their hypotheses and provocations.  Children are offered time and space to experiment and analyze concepts such as sound, music, audio recording, mechanics, physics, refraction, reflection, projection, computers as a tool for research, and the creation and manipulation of still and moving images, to name just a few of the many possibilities that are introduced and explored in this space.

LIBRARY
Children and adults visit the library to check out books or to read together in the space. Books are organized by categories, including fairy tales, science and nature, reference, and award winning books.The organization of the library is designed to support children’s autonomy with respect to checking books out and back in. The library space is often used as a meeting place for small groups of children, who find reference materials readily at hand.

REFLECTION ROOM
The reflection room is a cozy, quiet, contemplative meeting place for children and adults. It is also a place for discovering the wonders of life in a saltwater fish tank. Documentation of the long-term investigation of an underwater environment is visible in this room.

THE HAWKINS ROOM FOR MESSING ABOUT WITH MATERIALS AND IDEAS
Inspired by Boulder Journey School mentors David and Frances Hawkins, the Hawkins Room was created as an adult studio and think tank. The philosophy underlying this space is that adults are better able to understand and support children’s learning when they dedicate ample time to ‘messing about’ with the materials that children utilize to co-construct and represent their hypotheses and theories. This ‘messing about’ with materials proves to be more fruitful when assumptions, challenges, thoughts and ideas are shared with others.

In addition to messing about with materials and ideas, the Hawkins Room is also the place where Intern teachers, participating in the Boulder Journey School Teacher Education Program, meet for weekly seminars. Teachers utilize the room to access the Resource Library, the historical documentation Archives, and to work on documentation of Boulder Journey School experiences. Visitors to the school through Boulder Journey School’s Study Tour Program use the room as a place for conversation and collaboration with Boulder Journey School educators.

HALLWAYS
The hallways are inviting and provoking. Designed by children, families and educators, the hallways include a gravity wall where children explore theories about slope and velocity, inclines that invite children to test their ideas surrounding shape, texture and speed and wind tubes, where children can discover how different materials react  when blown by fans.

The hallways are places for socialization and for building relationships among children and adults. A small movie theater space has been dedicated to viewing films and performances, composed and produced by the children.  Additionally, the hallways include several  “pets” - both live and inanimate - that welcome the children to school. The magnifying tank is home to Diggum the fish, while Brownie the dog and Reggie the cat are sculptures that live in the entry. Greeting and saying farewell to Brownie, Reggie and Diggum are part of the daily routine for many of the children at Boulder Journey School.

We have dedicated half of the older hallway to an extensive investigation of outer space. In this unique area, you will find a rocket ship complete with monitors, space suits, telephones and computers. Children at work in the rocket communicate to others using the space station and nearby moon buggy. Planets, stars, asteroids and satellites created by the children illuminate the dark sky above. Imaginary scenarios featuring astronauts and aliens are acted out by children of all ages. Should you pass by the rocket ship on your visit to the school, you might find yourself transported to extraordinary dimensions of the imagination.