Virtually There

When I made my list of wooden objects I was struck my how many kinds of paper I had listed. When gathering supplies for this project many weeks ago, I was hoping that I could get the children to experiment with different kinds of paper. So there was blotting paper in the pack. I played with making ink marks on blotting paper and using water, scissors and fingers to mould it into a leaf shape. One of the illustrations we had looked at in previous weeks was a pen and wash work by Quentin Blake. We looked at this and experimented with mark-making using twigs dipped in ink and the using brushed washes.

The children finished these pieces in the afternoon while they were still damp enough to shape. This whiteboard took shape the following week just before the session. The sound was still turned off but I could sense some excitement and see the work going on with children holding sheets of white paper behind their leaves and getting a friend to take the photo. Suddenly these incredibly beautiful images started to appear in rapid succession. Silent, miraculous feedback from the previous week’s activities. For me, this kind of spontaneous exchange is the Virtually There project at its very best.

I became immersed in making my own list of wooden objects, going through each room, evaluating, pondering the visible and invisible presence of wood. I selected specific objects that interested me and photographed them to share with the group.

We ran out of time that day so the stories will have to wait.

In trying to make a connection between trees and their uses and byproducts, the class had to look for objects within their home environment that had a connection to woods or forests. Some people made lists and others took photos. This is the first ever whiteboard created by Donaghey from scratch. They are good at using instant photos but in this case the imported still images from their personal memory sticks to create this display.

We played a game: “I went to the woods and I found….” -a variation of the list game “I went to the shop and I bought…” Each person added a fresh item to the cumulative list and the next person remembered it and added their own item and so on and so on.

There were some objects and products that showed imagination -things like shower gel and kitchen roll. The class typed and printed their lists and cut and pasted the words onto black card to make them back into the shape of a tree. I don’t have photos of the final pieces yet.

At break-time on the same day when I took the photo of the squirrel I spotted a tawny shape across the fields. By the time I got the camera it was nearly into the rushes but when I zoomed in I saw this fox with a limp grey furry shape in its mouth and there seemed to be a tail dangling. Could it be the same squirrel?

We thought about this story together, talking about prey and predators and linked it back to the idea of a dangerous wild animal like the wolf. The wolf is extinct from the wild here but most of the children would be enthusiastic about reintroducing it.

The idea of the fox catching the squirrel delighted the class. No squeamishness at all.