The Great Escape, Pompei and Vesuvius, 11-14 year olds

A History, Art and Creative Writing Project

    Stage 1:

   Students learn about the city of Pompeii and what happened when Vesuvius erupted. 

   Show them images to help them create the landscape and    the town.

An ABC of volcano vocab creates a dramatic scene: ash, bodies, crater, dust!

Stage 2: Roman people. Typical names, jobs and clothes are important for this section. 

In pairs the students invent a character

Stage 3: Students write a story about how their character escaped (or not) from the erupting volcano. Lots of  action and past tense practice.

All the sections are are put together and make up a great display.

Write some comprehension questions for other classes:

What was Magnus doing when Vesuvius erupted?

What happened to him?

Noone will forget these stories!!

Spring Display, 5 - 10 year olds

Spring is coming!

 It´s the perfect time to brighten up your walls. 

Recycle bits of paper/card and egg boxes for this display. You will also need lolly sticks, glue and scissors. If you think it´s too much work for one class, get another teacher involved. Joint projects are good ways of making connections between classes. 

Chick with Spring poem

Here´s a nice way to make a poem. Children just throw a dice to choose their word.

Spring is here!

The children are 1. dancing 2. singing 3. playing 4. laughing

 5. skipping 6. jumping

The flowers are 1. colourful 2. bright 3. dancing 4. singing 

5. laughing 6 your choice

The butterflies are 1. dancing 2. singing 3. playing 4. laughing

 5. skipping 6. flying ....... 

And I am happy!

In a corridor or classroom, this should cheer everyone up after the grey skies of winter!

Love My Green Dog, all ages/levels

celebrating creativity and diversity

                                                         "My kids had fun with this project" - Millie Maine 

                                 "An awesome project for the little ones! Thoroughly enjoyed it!" - Sean Rea 

This project was inspired by the Spanish expression "Es mas rar@ que un pero verde! (He or she is stranger than a green dog!). It involves storytelling and writing and leads to a group exhibition.

Creating a mysterious atmosphere the first part of the story is told by the teacher. It begins like this...

Something Strange Happened To Me 

When I was 5 something strange happened to me. It was a cold night. The moon was not in the sky and everything was black. Nobody was on the street. It was silent. I was walking home alone. I was scared. Suddenly there was a noise! Someone was crying!  Someone was sad. The sad noise was coming from the trees.  I went to see what it was. In the darkness were two little eyes. It was a dog! She was alone like me. Carefully I picked her up and put her in my coat. She wasn´t crying now but she was cold.

Soon I was near my house. There was a light in the window. The dog was warm next to my body.  I opened the door and took the dog out of my coat. It was incredible! That little dog was not brown. She was not black and she was not white. She was green! When I saw my dog I was ..................

Children write the next section of the story 

    

    

and illustrate it.

As you can see, everyone found it very easy to love something which they had once thought was strange!

Although the original project was written to introduce young learners to `was´, adapted material is also available for 6-14 year olds. To get photocopies and teachers´ notes email me on rowanhardman@gmail.com 

Collaborative Portraits, all ages/levels

Collaborative Portraits

Start the year with some fantastic friends!

Instructions 

Fold an A4 piece of paper in half

Draw round a pre-prepared template so you have a person´s head and shoulders on both sides

Make photocopies and cut the A4 papers in half

Give each student half a piece of A4 with the template drawn on.

Students draw their self portrait

Students draw their self portrait

Each self portrait is cut in half down the dotted line

Half of the portrait is exchanged with another student

The two halves are stuck together on a brightly coloured piece of card. 

A name is invented for the new person combining the names of the two students

Alaitz and Nahia becomes Alana

Rowan and Emily becomes Romily etc

Students do creative writing about their fantastic friend. They invent the friend´s hobbies, personality and more!

All the portraits are hung up on a washing line using coloured pegs.

All ages enjoy this activity - from 5 to 70!

You can use this as a fun reading activity 

Just write comprehension questions about the portraits of your choice and give them out to teachers who want to do the activity. eg: Where is Alana from? Where did

 she go in summer?

Remember little ones can´t read the info if it is too high up! 

Have fun!

Christmas Tree, 6-9 year olds

Instructions 

See teacher´s hand below.  Draw around your hand on yellow paper. Turn it the other way round - fingers down. Write a category of your choice (related to Christmas) on the thumb and finger. Cut it out.

In the Classroom

Brainstorm ideas for the answers to these questions or those of your choice

What do you eat at Christmas?

What don´t you eat at Christmas?

Who do you visit?

What do you like doing?

Who/What do you love?

Write all the possibilities on the board.

Give the children green paper. Children draw around their hands then turn them the other way around. Fingers down. Children write their names on the palm. They then choose an answer from the list on the board (ham, pizza etc) and write them on the corresponding finger

Cut out and decorate

Stick on a large green tree. Get other teachers and classes involved to make the tree bigger. The teachers´ hands make the star.

                                                                                                                  

You can use the tree to do a reading activity!

Have fun and Happy Christmas!

This project was done with 7/8/9 year olds in The British Council, Bilbao.

How The First Dreamcatcher Was Made, A Story to Tell, An Activity to Do, 6-11 year olds

A North American Indian Story
- from motherbird.com/dreams

Intro

Discuss what a good dream and a bad dream might be

Ask children what they know about the North American Indians

Introduce the characters and tell the story