Our third session took a life of its own – with the children beginning by thinking about more patterns made by nature.

However we focused in on the patterns we could see in natural forms outside around the school. The children were asked to go outside and walk the journey that they usually run round the school grounds. With them they took a bag to collect natural things which may have pattern.

In preparation for this, I had visited the local park just a two minute walk from where I live and collected some leaves and took some photographs.

In Crossmaglen, in the classroom there was great excitement when the children returned inside. They began spontaneously and rigorously sorting these objects on their desks, spread out over newspaper. There was a real buzz about this activity with everyone on board.

The children were asked to choose a couple of objects and to create a template from which they would make their own patterns…..

The children made the template by placing the leaf on a sheet and carefully drawing round it..

We talked about the shapes created – both the ‘positive’ shape of the leaf and the remaining ’empty’ space which we call negative space.

The children began to create their own patterns from these templates. They used a new sheet, which was coloured and used their template to draw around the shape and repeat, rotate or overlap their design.

Look at the great results!

Patsy remarked that his design looked like the ‘map of the world’!

Jessica used an overlapping technique.

So that was alot of work done in one session, which will undoubtedly spill over into the afternoon. I hope everyone has fun completing their patterns.

We look forward to our fourth session soon.