St James P.S. | Artist journal

My real visit to St James was a lot of fun. Ms Cross was expecting me but no one else knew that I was on my way! Rolling a big red suitcase behind me, I arrived to a classroom of shocked and stunned faces ( “they had only ever seen my head before”!!). This initial shock soon turned to excitement as we opened up the suitcase and examined its contents. The materials and objects inside had lots of different voices, we listened and found ways to make them sing!

Tapping and shaking, watching and waiting we performed together and a “sound track” unfolded across the classroom floor

Lunch time followed, and the children continued to explore sounds showing me how the things in their lunch boxes also had voices!!

We spent our afternoon creating sound suits, wearing elaborate collections of materials and objects, we jumped and shook and danced our way through the corridors of St James filling them with new sounds, entertaining parents waiting outside and along the corridors. It was time to pack up and hit the road again with the addition of flowers and chocolates to my suitcase I was very happy! Before I left Ryan reminded me the flowers needed water and asked if I would keep them in the studio so that the class could look at them too.

Ms Cross and her class had spent Tuesday afternoon outside gathering natural materials, I was interested to find out if these materials had voices and could make sounds.

I had also collected three different materials. The balloon made the funniest noises and got everyone giggling, its rude sounds were a clear winner. When it made a huge bang it was very quiet after that.  The feathers made quiet soft noises, so quiet we could hardly hear them. And the grass surprised us, this delicate material didn’t make a sound when we shook it. Someone suggested if its windy it might make a noise, and when I blew it, its voice sounded like an elephants.

Exploring the trays of gathered materials the children started to come up to the mic and camera to demonstrate how these different materials made sound. Rubbing, tapping and dragging the materials produced lots of different voices.

After a short break we decided to try some shaking. The children placed their materials into different containers and vessels, until they found a sound or voice for their materials that they liked. I had fun trying to guess what was in the containers, some of the smallest shakers made the biggest noises and larger instruments rustled softly. Ryan made a very special shaker that whispered a message to him when he listened really carefully, no one else could hear these magic sounds causing lots of curiosity and wonder.

We finished with a performance the children using a sound drawing I had created in the studio to direct them. Clapping and shaking we finished for today.

After our Easter break we got back to listening, I received a gift of this wonderful book.

It got me thinking about all the different kinds of sounds and noise makers in the world. Today we made a list of gentle and soft sounds, harsh and loud sounds and sounds that go up and down. A few of my favourites a heart, a clock, a grasshopper, a choir of birds singing, a motor bike, a food mixer, a stormy windy day. Sounds that go up and down seemed tricky to me but not Ms Cross’ class who told me lifts, hills and umbrellas make sounds that go up and down.

A vote was cast, the wining favourite sound today was the birds singing, and I conducted a choir a singing birds who watched carefully for their instructions.

We finished up with one last listening exercise using our listening devices and recording what we heard through sound wave drawings. With ears full of sounds we finished our session today with a room of loud clapping sounds.

Feeling a little forgetful today, and struggling to remember names the class made portraits of one another to help me. Drawing a portrait is a bit like listening, you have concentrate to get all the details. Armed with my new cheat sheet, I’ll get my head around the names in no time.

But back to this listening thing, is there anything we can do to hear better……..someone suggested if we are quiet and still and don’t making any sounds and listen more and more and more and more

I wanted to find something that would help us to focus on the sounds around us and in the classroom….maybe a listening device would work……….

So we got to making our own listening devices……..now everyone could hear really well, there were bird sounds, and talking sounds, builders making a footpath, there was drilling and stamping, the whiteboard quietly hushing us and my favourite of all a leaf falling off a tree!! Only one listening device did not work, it appears the glue has blocked the opening and sounds are getting stuck!!

After a slightly bumpy start we got going today……
……in our previous attempts to connect I was left watching excited faces eager to communicate, but all I had was silence.
Today everyone could hear me loud and clear, we exercised our ears with a wiggle and we were on our way. Communicating became our focus and we have concentrate on listening.
All kinds of wonderful sounds were floating through the classroom today, a radio, a noisy lot upstairs, the birds are singing, the wind is whistling and someone is counting?? Is that you Ms Cross??
Sound moves through the air in waves and the children recorded sounds making sound wave drawings. Are all these sounds really in the class room??
We decided that if our sound breaks again we will make actions, write a message or I could just visit the classroom (but I am very far away!).