Questions
I began by explaining that after Christmas my colleague at the studios would be coming in, and that we should come up with some questions to ask him. Hands went up straight away, which I was pleased about because I thought I would have to give examples and encourage them to suggest questions. I wrote up the questions to save time and Millie helped them by suggesting they think back to a class where they had to think of open questions.
Collaboration Piece
For the next activity I wanted everyone to work together to create one piece, starting by getting them to put themselves on the paper and draw around it; either lay down entirely, just put a hand or leg in the picture etc. This started off well; they seemed really excited by it especially when they started using the paint, we talked about different techniques they could use but what I should have done is told them what technique to use so they all did different things. Instead by giving them free rein they mostly just coloured it in, but whether that is important or not I don’t know, it gave them a chance to express themselves how they wanted to and that was by ignoring the lines put down.
Story Web
I had time to do the photography exercise with them and I’m really glad that I did because it worked well; I began by asking the children to pick a photograph from the 10 I brought in. Once they had chosen a photograph, stood in a circle they were told to tell a story relating to the photograph as I threw a ball of string to each of them. This created a web of our stories and shows how we were all connected. It worked fantastically with them, I loved how they got excited seeing the web grow and saying things like “It’s so tangled, I can see the web growing!” Once they had finished we put the photographs and string down so I could take a picture to document it.
Behaviour
Overall, although it was the end of term and they were really excitable, they did manage to get the work done. Unfortunately at the beginning 2 of them were sent out because they refused to join in, but Millie spoke to them and one of them had just had a bad lunch time, became quite upset so she let him calm down, sit out for 5 minutes and join in again. I think they have been very well behaved,
