CREATIVE MAKING

My name is Lorna Rees and I am co-artistic director of Gobbledegook Theatre, we make theatre and stories for early years. I make puppets and props which are integrated in our work. And we make things with children!

To find out a little more about us, our blog is here: www.gobbledegooktheatre.blogspot.com
The things I want to focus on in this workshop are: Making things as part of a story Collaborative making EYFS and 3D modelling

From this workshop you can amend these makes to anything you like, but Ive created these worksheets to get you started. If youd like them in larger print or emailed through to you then please leave me your email address at the end of the INSET. You might not want to use the framing device at all but might want to make the salt dough fruit and vegetables (for example), all of which is absolutely brilliant but hopefully this session will give you some techniques and confidence in your own creative making skills. If you did decide to use this scheme, you could quite easily stretch it out into a week-long project, or a days activity or even longer potentially you could fit it in with an allotment or a farm visit. WE ARE GOING TO MAKE: Wooden spoon couple and children Patchwork House Fruit and Vegetables from salt dough and tights: carrots, peas, tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers. Through out these worksheets youll find this:

*Top Tip

which will give you ideas for extension activities, or

different approaches you might take with each of the makes. Id love to hear about any more top tips you find when making these with your groups! Lorna Rees Co-artistic Director Gobbledegook Theatre, 07815 756946 gobbledegooktheatre@googlemail.com

Lorna Rees September 2010

Creative Development
Requirements

(what the EYFS curriculum says)

Children's creativity must be extended by the provision of support for their curiosity, exploration and play. They must be provided with opportunities to explore and share their thoughts, creativity, ideas and feelings, for example, through a variety of art, music, movement, dance, imaginative and role-play activities, mathematics, and design and technology. Aspects of Creative Development Creative Development is made up of the following aspects: Being Creative Responding to Experiences, Expressing and Communicating Ideas is about how children respond in a variety of ways to what they see, hear, smell, touch or feel and how, as a result of these encounters, they express and communicate their own ideas, thoughts and feelings. Exploring Media and Materials is about children's independent and guided exploration of and engagement with a widening range of media and materials, finding out about, thinking about and working with colour, texture, shape, space and form in two and three dimensions. Creating Music and Dance is about children's independent and guided explorations of sound, movement and music. Focusing on how sounds can be made and changed and how sounds can be recognised and repeated from a pattern, it includes ways of exploring movement, matching movements to music and singing simple songs from memory. Developing Imagination and Imaginative Play is about how children are supported to develop and build their imaginations through stories, role-plays, imaginative play, dance, music, design, and art. What Creative Development means for children Creativity is about taking risks and making connections and is strongly linked to play. Creativity emerges as children become absorbed in action and explorations of their own ideas, expressing them through movement, making and transforming things using media and materials such as crayons, paints, scissors, words, sounds, movement, props and make-believe. Creativity involves children in initiating their own learning and making choices and decisions. Children's responses to what they see, hear and experience through their senses are individual and the way they represent their experiences is unique and valuable. Being creative enables babies and children to explore many processes, media and materials and to make new things emerge as a result.

It is difficult for children to make creative connections in learning when colouring in a worksheet or making a Diwali card just like everyone else's EYFS
website, 2009,

Lorna Rees September 2010

THE BEAUTIFUL GARDEN

Once upon a time there was an unremarkable and deserted patch of land. One day, a poor and hungry family, who had been travelling far and wide, came upon the land. The family were sad and tired. They had many children but nowhere to live and no food to eat. They decided to make the land their home. They had no money or possessions to build their house with and no materials, apart from what was lying all around in the soil and in the earth. So they built up a house from scraps, made from patchwork and piecing together. They sewed new clothes from the fabric found all around and they were as happy as they had ever been. The new house had a door and windows and contained lots and lots of love. But the family were still hungry. SO they decided to grow things. They grew wildflowers so bees and insects might visit the garden and pollinate the vegetables. And oh, how they dug the weeds! And oh, how they sowed their seeds! And oh, how they watched their garden grow! Love and care and effort were put into the Garden. The plants and wildlife were so happy and the ground was so fertile that something magical happened. The plants in the Garden grew and grew into enormous watery cucumbers, crunchy carrots, luscious tomatoes and delicious strawberries. The family were no longer sad, hungry and homeless, but happy and well-fed, warm and contented. And their love grew and grew and continued to grow forever, in their beautiful garden.

*Top Tip You can use this

Lorna Rees September 2010

story as a framing device. You

can then add things to it like the names of all the childrens wooden spoon family. You could potentially use all of the puppets, house, vegetables etc. in a sharing with another class. 3

PATCHWORK HOUSE
Materials 2 Large(ish) Cardboard boxes Lots of wallpaper samples/different wrapping papers Pre-cut windows and doors out of small oblongs of cardboard Pre-folded and possibly already stuck roof made from cardboard box by a member of staff Pen & Buttons for decoration White PVA (gloopy) Glue Scissors This is a whole group collaborative make. Collaborative projects promote teamwork and a feeling of group achievement. However, it can be worth having a few things pre-cut and prepared for younger groups as it can then be put together quickly and impressively (and they can stick them on to the house itself). Cut lots of strips and patches from the paper. You might want to have some of the paper pre-cut into sections, but my preferred approach is to hand out the safety scissors and invite the children to cut away! Each child should choose a bit of the paper, put glue on their piece and then stuck it onto the large house box. This can be totally haphazard the aim is to cover the box in lots of different types of paper. Take it in turns until the house is totally covered. You might want to create one smaller team to focus on covering the windows and doors. For this, ask the team to cover pre-cut card shapes. These should be covered in whole pieces of contrasting paper and with a pen you can add the frame detail of the windows. Depending on time you might want to have made some door furniture such as a letter box or a cat flap for the back door which can then be stuck onto the house after it is fully papered. You might however, prefer to have these parts pre-prepared which only need pasting onto the house to finish it. Finally, add a button as the door knob.

*Top Tip *Top Tip

Big DIY chains have a lot of wallpaper on display

and youre welcome to tear off samples, which you could then use for this session. You can also use interesting pages of old magazines or newspapers though. You could try a similar approach to this on a wall or

a large sheet of paper as a display item. All you would need to prepare is a shape for the children to glue within.

Lorna Rees September 2010

*Top Tip

You might like to try a session where each child has

a small box and they model their own 3D house using the same method.

Lorna Rees September 2010

WOODEN SPOON Family

Materials Wooden spoons Pipe cleaners Blackboard paint & chalk Scraps of fabric Thick paper/card or patterned pieces of card/glitter/wool to decorate Glue Scissors Plasticine and Plant pots to display These are fun, easy puppets to make and really encourage 3D modelling skills and lots of individual creativity. Take the blackboard paint and paint the face of the spoon this might take a little while to dry. You might want to do this in advance of the making session for the children (this is one part they probably shouldnt do as the paint doesnt come off easily). You can write their name on the back of the spoons head. Draw or chalk a face onto the spoons face. This can be changed if its blackboard paint (and if you want to you can change the expression of the faces and potentially introduce emotions and how they look sad/happy/worried etc.) Tie a pipe cleaner round the top part of the spoons handle to create arms. Now you can use scraps of fabric to make the clothes around the pipe cleaner arms. Or if you are using paper you can draw shirts or dresses on two sides and then stick them together. Or you can add glitter or hair on their heads. To display the family, squash some plasticine in the bottom of a plant pot and push the spoons handle into the plasticine until it stands up. You can group the puppets or each wooden spoon puppet can have its own flower pot with a name on.

*Top Tip *Top Tip

Get the children to make up names for watch of the

family and use the wooden spoon puppets to tell other stories. They can use the blackboard faces to create emotions sad or happy are usually the easiest to draw.

Blackboard paint is really versatile and useful in the

classroom. You can make chalk boards, nature tables and its great for displays. Young children love using chalk and the effect it makes.
Lorna Rees September 2010

FRUIT and VEGETABLES

Salt Dough Strawberries, Carrots, Tomatoes and peas (or anything else) Salt Dough Materials Flour 2 parts Water 1 part Salt 1 part Pipe cleaners (green preferably, cut in half or quarters by member of staff) Green plastic bags/bit s of green tights cut into little bits and long bits Paint (fruit and veg colours red, orange, green etc.) Salt dough modelling is great for early years (2 upwards) as the dough is usually so salty its pretty disgusting to taste and children tend not to try eat it! This is a two part make, you can make the dough and the shape of the fruit and veg and then need to leave it to dry for at least a full day. Its therefore better for a setting which sees the children on a daily basis. This is really messy (and fun) so you might want to split your groups up so theyre quite small. Put all of the dough ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir. Mugs are a really good way of measuring out the parts of the ingredients. Each person in the group should take a turn at putting ingredients into the mixing bowl. The mix might look alarmingly soggy for a bit but usually firms up quite quickly. You can always add more flour if it is too wet. Then pour the mix out onto a work surface and start to knead it. Once the dough is fairly stretch and elastic you can mould it into shapes, carrots, strawberries etc. Talk about the shapes with the children, and ask them what fruit or vegetable theyre making. If the food has a stalk or stem, then loop a piece of pipe cleaner over once, get a bit of plastic bag/green tight and put the pipe cleaner over it and stick into the salt dough where the stalk should be (it should look like a stalk). The children might need a bit of help with this step. Leave the dough to set on a tray for at least a full day and once the dough has dried you can then paint it.

*Top Tip

If you add lemon juice to the mixture it makes the

dough set harder. If you add vegetable oil it makes it easier to mould for little hands. Varnishing it afterwards improves its longevity and makes it shiny.
Lorna Rees September 2010

*Top Tip

You dont have to use this scheme of work to make

salt dough food, - with early years you might like to make the food from The Hungry Caterpiller, or the fruit from Handas Surprise. Or you might get the children to model their favourite food.

Lorna Rees September 2010

CUCUMBER
Materials Green tights Scrunched up newspaper Yellow or white paint Snip off one leg of the green tights. Get the group to tear up newspaper (lots of fun) and then scrunch it up into bits. Stuff the leg of the tights with newspaper, once the leg is half-filled tie it up at one end and then double it over and tie again. Paint yellow/white stripes down the side of the big green sausage.

*Top Tip
You can use this easy technique with other coloured tights to make enormous fruit and vegetables, red for tomatoes or orange for carrots.

*Top Tip
To grow a lawn in a whole group, get a large waterproof tray. Place a wet towel (or lots of kitchen roll) on the tray. The fabric should be quite damp. Carefully sprinkle a few cress seeds into the hands of each child in the group and ask them to sow the seeds into the wet towel. Put the tray somewhere warm and sunny and keep it damp. It should take about a week for your lawn to grow and you can display it in front of your patchwork house!

Lorna Rees September 2010