As the Little Free Art Gallery is finally finished being painted, I have begun to reinstall the window, the door, the door handle, assembling the roof and the support beam!!!
This was a very fun and hands-on project to work on. I loved being able to have the freedom to choose something away from screens. Something I feel like my eyeballs are going to fall out of my head from the amount of screen time required to get my school work done, and the sheer amount of screens involved in every class is mind-boggling.
I’ve been struggling with a constant tension headache for days on end now, and I do wonder if the accumulation of looking at multiple screens in a windowless, extremely fluorescent room has been getting to me…
That being said, building something with my hands has been an absolute pleasure, and I have no doubt that this could translate well into a collaborative class-wide project to get students thinking, problem-solving, and building without the use of screens. I love seeing kids use their hands to explore the world around them and what better way than building something they can be proud of!
So!
It has now come down to the installation of The Free Little Art Gallery which was much easier than expected!
I borrowed a rather massive sledge hammer for an afternoon from a friend who was doing some extensive house renos in order to hammer in my 4×4 metal support beam. Since it had snowed a fair bit here in Fernie, I was worried that the ground would be frozen by now, leading to a struggle between me and the frozen earth, but it only took about 6 good slugs with the hammer to get the post fully in the ground! Success!
The only thing now is to figure out how to make it weather proof! I have sealed the door with old bike tubes to keep the elements out, and I used waterproof caulking around all the possible water-entry points.
Only time will tell how weatherproof this is now!!!