Lots of reasons to be grateful… today we had the chance of exploring a few more ideas together… Múinteoir Dearbhla and the children had now moved into a new classroom…. and we were all set to continue our ideas around the theme of INTERPRET and we did this is blazing sunshine!

First of all there was a need to make a short re-cap of what had happened during our journey and to recall the theme and where it had taken us…. we remembered the very beginning when I showed the children the drawings I had made about running… I now told the children that I was exploring this idea further with another artist, Robin who uses computers and digital media to create artwork. I explained that we had ‘mapped’ my running movement and that we could explore this idea together, using the space where we suspended the blue silhouettes.

We talked about how we could gather information and use it in different ways.

First of all the children went outside to sketch the outside space by sitting somewhere and looking out at all they could see:

When we came back into the classroom, we discussed ways in which we could measure the space more accurately. The children suggested we use our footsteps by counting how many it takes to get from one place to another in the space.

Here are the children at work measuring up the space…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The children worked very well in groups and gathered information that we hoped to use along with their individual sketches, to create a large scale group map or plan of the space.

We prepared some large sheets of paper by taping them together with masking tape and laying it all out on the floor.

 

We all talked about how we could transfer the information we gathered onto this sheet. There were still a lot of challenges because it took a while to decide on which direction we were all facing… ORIENTATION is very important! After much deliberation Luca went to the old class to get a photograph that showed an aerial view of the school. It was an old one but still it helped us make some important decisions. This discussion took a lot longer than we thought it would and we had to listen to each other to hear everyone’s view, but it was very fruitful in the end. Using charcoal sticks the children marked out the space as they understood it.

 

Further discussions took place… How could we further ‘MAP’ the space and in particular how could we map our MOVEMENT in the space?

Some children offered ideas:

trail rope; strin;, make a trail with pencils; look for objects that you pass (landmarks)!

These were great ideas and since we had plenty of wool / string available we decided to try and leave a trail of our movements around the space…

This was as frustrating as it was fun!

 

 

 

The children put as much energy into mapping their movement in the space as they did untangling themselves. It was amazing how the lines of wool criss crossed all over the place….

When we returned to the classroom again we had one more activity to try out…

I asked each child to go out individually and run around the space in whatever way they wished to go. When they returned I asked them to make a drawing of the shape of their run onto a piece of tracing paper…. when all children had completed this task, the drawings were laid one over another and each shape / trail was visible through the tracing paper. What a lovely effect!

Here are a few layers of drawings of each run on tracing paper.

 

By the end of the day we were all exhausted. It was a very fruitful session and laid the ground work for the last of our explorations, this time using digital technology working together with Robin on Friday.

Some thoughts on the day from the children…