As the Water Zombies continue on their architecture journey, they have been particularly drawn to buildings with curvy lines or unusual shapes. We read the book Nuts About Architecture: A Home for the Squirrel Family, where a family of squirrels look at a variety of famous houses on their search for a new home. The Water Zombies were inspired and enthusiastic about all the houses but especially loved the structures by Zaha Hadid, Gaudí, and Frank Gehry.

We have started initial conversations about what we could build with besides the unit blocks and they had some great ideas: pipe cleaners, magnatiles, cardboard boxes, beads, clay, and even crackers from snack time!

During our afternoon open time, two children found themselves at a loose end when the drawing table was full. I invited them over and one child said, “what can we even do with pipe cleaners?!” I suggested that they make homes for the animals and after that, they were hard at work.

Soon, they found a source of frustration and said, “we can’t make them stay up,” so I found some cardboard and tape. They then created a system where one of them would hold the pipe cleaner in place and the other would tape it down. They asked me to get all the green pipe cleaners as “the green is grass so the animals have food” for the animals while they built, so I could participate, too!

I asked them about their creation when they were finished and they said “it’s a castle. And the bat sits in the king’s seat because he’s the king.” They added “those guys [the polar bear and sharks] are dangerous so they have to cover their teeth!”

It’s exciting to see the children thinking creatively about how they can use material to build and the role that imagination can play in all of this. Towards the end of the open time, a child came over to see what was going on and got very excited about the castle. We look forward to having a conversation with the whole group, sparked by the Pipe Cleaner Castle!