Pharaoh's Throne

Year 4 have been learning all about Ancient Egypt as part of their Cornerstones curriculum topic.
During the engage week we organised an archeological dig linked to the history of the site. (You can read about this here)

After the dig each group came out for their usual seesions over the next two weeks and were involved in designing thrones for Pharaoh.

Over the past months I had been collecting pallets from deliveries to school, usually they were left out in the service yard for disposal, but after reading an article on http://creativestarlearning.blogspot.co.uk/ I decided to start keeping them. Poor quality ones are used for firewood and out of the others I have constructed a wood store and in this activity the children saw an opportunity to use them for thier project.

Earlier groups kept their thrones to quite a low level but with some experimenting we found that it was possible to keep things quite stable and from their on groups became a little more daring with their designs.

Here are some of the results:-

Acocks Green Primary Forest School

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Forest School at Acocks Green Primary School. At first you as you cross the tarmac playground to the main building sandwiched between two main roads, you wonder where a Forest School site could be.

However, a short walk through a narrow gap open out to an outdoor classroom. Here there are tables, storage sheds and a wild boarder. The rain water is harvested from the shed roofs and for use in the mini raised gardens that each year group have.

Just past here are a couple of small wild areas and the nursery school site. This then opens out again onto a small playing field and beyond is the Forest School site.

It is amazing to think that just a couple of years ago this was an open space with some mature trees.

Now the site has a range of seating, a fire circle, a large wood shelter, wood store, mud pit, sand pit and an amazing treehouse.

Tina and Tina hosted the afternoon, sharing photos of how they had developed the site and how they ran the Forest School sessions. Children have the opportunity from Reception to Y6 to go to out for Forest School lessons. Groups are organised on a weekly basis for a series of at least 3 afternoons, and then after a rotation get another chance later in the year.

In addition to this it was interesting to see how they integrated the Y6 children into the younger children's sessions to provide additional support and learning opportunities.

Thank you to both Tina's for an interesting and informative afternoon.

 

Lost Gardens Project

We finally came up with six designs to create Lost Gardens of Helligan sculptures on our Forest School site.

Here they are:

 

 

Three tons of top soil arrived ready for the children to start moving and creating their large sized models of the creatures.

Lots of muddy hands later and the basic form is beginning to take place as you can see in the pictures below.

 

After creating the basic mud shapes the children will be choosing seeds and other materials to make the completed sculpture.

 

So what will they look like in the end? We'll just have to wait and see.