Children's thoughts are always incredibly touching when you take time to listen - and I've found the ideas that have cropped up in the Dunkirk Primary School Protest Art Project so deeply thought provoking. The project is now drawing towards an exhibition which opens on March 18th, so I'm really busy pulling the children's work together (a process which always takes a long time!).
I've been working with several classes of children aged 6-9, and we've made many different things and there's been a HUGE amount of exploration of the issues around protest; we've looked at why people protest and how, we've examined how words and images can be powerful in getting an idea across to others. We've looked at ways you can gently make your voice heard and ways you can really SHOUT your thoughts out.
Its felt incredibly important to make time to really look at the issues that are important to the children - for example with Oak Class (year 2), who are protesting about litter, we've been on a litter pick in our forest school site to see just how much plastic rubbish accumulates. We've also hunted for tiny special natural treasures (seeds, feathers, twigs etc) which we are combining with a wonderful set of handmade papers created by the children with me. Its vital that the children have huge amounts of time to connect with nature in a hands on way - I'm so touched by how much the children want to protect wildlife and I'm sure its because they connect with it on a regular basis in all the outside work we do.
There's been so many connections made by the children in this project and I've been so struck by the ways they connect up so many other things they've been learning about. Its especially wonderful when the work that takes place in arts projects is followed up in so many other aspects of class work - and the teachers at Dunkirk are really skilled at this. For example Oak Class have been making instructions for paper making on the computers and they've also created graphs about some of the work we've done and Madrono Class (year 4) have created Protest Super Hero characters and written discussion texts in their literacy work.
As I sit surrounded by artwork and project documentation, I'm so struck by the depth of thought shown by the children. "Help the world and make it a better place" ... exactly...
I've been working with several classes of children aged 6-9, and we've made many different things and there's been a HUGE amount of exploration of the issues around protest; we've looked at why people protest and how, we've examined how words and images can be powerful in getting an idea across to others. We've looked at ways you can gently make your voice heard and ways you can really SHOUT your thoughts out.
Its felt incredibly important to make time to really look at the issues that are important to the children - for example with Oak Class (year 2), who are protesting about litter, we've been on a litter pick in our forest school site to see just how much plastic rubbish accumulates. We've also hunted for tiny special natural treasures (seeds, feathers, twigs etc) which we are combining with a wonderful set of handmade papers created by the children with me. Its vital that the children have huge amounts of time to connect with nature in a hands on way - I'm so touched by how much the children want to protect wildlife and I'm sure its because they connect with it on a regular basis in all the outside work we do.
There's been so many connections made by the children in this project and I've been so struck by the ways they connect up so many other things they've been learning about. Its especially wonderful when the work that takes place in arts projects is followed up in so many other aspects of class work - and the teachers at Dunkirk are really skilled at this. For example Oak Class have been making instructions for paper making on the computers and they've also created graphs about some of the work we've done and Madrono Class (year 4) have created Protest Super Hero characters and written discussion texts in their literacy work.
As I sit surrounded by artwork and project documentation, I'm so struck by the depth of thought shown by the children. "Help the world and make it a better place" ... exactly...
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