Future Series with Bolton Hill Nursery

Collective Map of Our Futures

leftover Valentine fortune from a four year old.

a watching eyeball

Photo courtesy of Ms. Wheatie, map by one of our yellowbirds.

This week, we sat as a group on the carpet map and talked about how we could map our future. An important thing to think about when talking about the future is planning, or mapping! Once we got some ideas, we worked on a collective future map. Each red and yellowbird made a future map on a shared piece of fabric, knowing that their maps would be added to by other students in the next club. Here were some of the stories the future thinkers had to tell about their maps: "The rainbows fall down and crash into the planet. Sometimes rainbows crash hard and break. The planet is also going to crash." -Malachai "The roof of the house is on a boat because it's going to the future house in the water."- Dahlia "A day goes on forever, but the future has an end." -Holden At the end of club, all of the red and yellow birds got into their groups to get a surprise club picture taken on a disposable film camera. They were surprised to discover that the picture doesn't get to be seen immediately, and that they have to wait until the film gets developed!

At the nursery this week, the redbirds and yellowbirds were love struck thinking about Valentine's Day. In keeping with the week of love and sharing, our club met to make anonymous fortunes for each other. We talked about what we thought fortunes were, and how they related to the future. In order to understand fortunes a little more, we broke open a fortune cookie as a way to feel the surprise of fortune and future! We all made drawings of possible fortunes and placed them into a magic bag. After depositing the fortunes, we reached into the bag without looking, in order to receive our surprise fortune. Images to follow.

This week, four Red Birds(four year old students) answered some questions about what they think "future" means. I got to ask my friends Holden, Zaki, Leilah, and Dahlia what they thought: "My future is gonna be like when I turn into my dad, or a cop, or the owner of a sprinkler company. But mostly, i'll be the skeleton of my dreams. The skeleton I have always wanted." -Holden "In the future, we have control of light and dark. I can turn the sun on and off, like now! I turned the lights off! We will live in houses in the rock."- Dahlia "Here is a picture of the future. I have a sun magic, and I fight with the woman on the moon, who has moon magic. G:So, Leilah, does that mean you are on the sun? L: Yes, I am the sun!" -Leilah Images Coming Soon.

Future Series is an ongoing club in part with the three and four year old students at the Bolton Hill Nursery. The club is partly based on the theories around Future Studies, an alternative method of thinking about and in the future. Each week we will posit our theories of the future and create a collective picture of what our futures entail.  We look at alternative futures and solutions to the future, our own futures, and futures existing millions of  years forward.