Session 6 on-line entailed a little more discussion than is usual due to the nature of our explorations and the short gap since the last session. We needed to refresh our memories and spark some further ideas about wrapping…..

Did the children think we could plan a bigger project for wrapping something? 

Some suggested:

school chairs, the whiteboard, the whole school the whole classroom wall….

How could all this wrapping relate to our project on PATTERN?

I reminded the children that the last I visited there was snow that day.. Mrs Crummy described to the children the snow that lay on the playground like a blanket. So if we had a sort of blanket covering on the surface we could notice the footprint patterns, like the footprints in the snow.

We talked about how the sole of our shoe would make a pattern if we walked in snow or stepped in paint and walked over a blanket! So I asked the children to think of places around the school where we might be able to collect footprints…

These thoughts sparked ideas about template / pattern, so for example having a shape and cutting something to fit it or pattern as decoration or even the idea that pattern could mean a pattern of movement, like the birds flying in formation.

I reminded them of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped walkway project that they planned very carefully for many many years. They used their imagination to dream up their idea, then drew and photographed as research for their ideas for wrapping things and places.  One of the things they did was to draw their objects / locations from different angles / viewpoints.

LOOKING AND DRAWING FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES:

As a first task in preparation for something larger, we can practice making a drawing of an everyday object from many different angles. The children placed a chair on top of the desk of each table so that it was positioned differently each time. Then I asked them to sit in different positions around the table to each draw the chair. We would end up with many different drawings of the same object, so it tells us different information about each side of the chair. The children used A3 paper and charcoal.

GATHERING MORE INFORMATION for our plan:

I suggested that we should find a location suitable to wrap. I asked the children to go outside in groups to have a look at suitable locations round the school.

These could be inside or outside.

They could notice how big it is, where it is and what sort of shape it is and so on.

When they came back they told me what they saw…..

One group went outside, two stayed inside one at one end of the school and the other group at another end.

Some suggestions:

The mat at front door

The school dinner hall

stairs

yard

football pitch (someone noticed foot marks on the goal posts at the football pitch!!)

corridor

Another discussion took place where identified 5 possible places and decided to vote on each location so that it was DEMOCRATIC.

The votes were as follows:

Dinner hall 13

Football pitch 1

Yard 0

Stairs 3

Main corridor 5

So the Dinner hall was to be the subject of our wrapping project.

FINALLY… 

I reminded the children that this was only a plan and that we also needed to gain PERMISSION – just like Christo and Jeanne Claude did for their projects. In our case we would have to ask Mr Madine the principal.

The children had some ideas on this

“just ask’

“beg”

“Give him a fiver… or a new car….”