Session Outline
1. 1st word
What is the first word or image that comes into your head when you think about the dark?
What is the first word or image that comes into your head when you think about the light?
2. Stop and go
Movement exercise feeding in responses from the previous exercise .
3. Blind walk
Children split into pairs and take turns guiding their partner around the room.
4. Mapping the worlds of light and Dark
Part 1 Split the group into two, one group to work on light and the other on dark. In small group add geographical features to the two worlds.
Part 2 Swap worlds and then decide who lives on these respective worlds.
5. Close
Explain that our job is to bring these worlds to life so that we create a magical experience for the other students in the school. Ask the group to brainstorm their ideas as how we might move forward.
We decided that we would introduce the theme of light and dark to the children and asked them to begin by doing a word association activity. The children seemed to find this tricky initially as they tended to stick to the science of light and dark and kept offering sources of light! After some modelling and prompting they began to think ‘outside the box’. This was followed by a stop and go game and a ‘blind walk’ which encouraged the children to think about their other senses. The children were then split into 2 groups each group having an island outline (a ‘dark world’ and a ‘light world’). The first group added geographical features to their given island before swapping over and populating the islands. The children really came into their own at this point and had lots of good ideas that we had previously not though of. We ended the session by asking the children how they would like to ‘bring the worlds to life’ and they struggled a little to think of ideas, probably due to their lack of experience of working in this way. They did however decide that they would like to create a story about the 2 worlds and would like to use costumes, 3D modelling and drama to bring this to life.
The children were generally very well engaged throughout the session and seemed excited to be a part of the project. They were particularly engaged when creating the islands with all children eager to add their ideas. The practical nature of the session seemed to be very appealingly to the children and the class teacher commented that, “It was just what they needed at the end of a heavy week.”
As a triad we planned the session in advance and then spent time checking we were clear before the session began. We allocated sections of the sessions for each of us to take the lead on so the children had the chance to engage with all adults. However, we probably planned too much for an hour session and it did all become a bit rushed towards the end, Jodie hopes to spend more time with the class before January 20th to find out if they have thought of any other ideas and share some examples of ideas with them.
The session was generally led by the children and successfully met our main objective, to encourage pupil voice, what was unexpected was the extent of the narrative possibilities suggested by children’s work on the Islands. The group created two very distinct worlds with a wealth of detailed features and characters. Mysterious door -ways and cave entrances suggested portals between world. Ladders disappeared off the edge of the paper. Lands moved from lush forests to arid deserts and superheroes protected people against rooming dinosaurs
We left the session with a clear indication of how the children would like to proceed with the project. The next step is to create a narrative that links the two worlds .The children’s choice of characters and archetypes suggest a mythic structure which will probably be the starting point for the next session. We plan to experiment with shadow-play during the next residential as possible way forward after we have worked on the narrative.
We are looking forward to the next session!
(Photos to follow!!)
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