Forest schools session
Every week we have been visiting the forest area with the children that are going to school in September. The children have been involved in different activities including playing boundary games, looking for mini beasts, den building and making spider's webs. These sessions have given the children time to build friendships before starting school together, plus their new teacher has also been able to visit them and get to know them.
To see the photos of the forest sessions click here:
The fire engine
As part of 'All talking week' and 'safety week' we arranged for fireman Norman to visit us in his fire engine. To see the photographs click here.
Photography Exhibition
Clifton and Lambert Exhibition
We have been working with Jay Moy from Creative partnerships for a number of years (2 and a half years at Clifton and 1 and a half years at Lambert). Jay is a digital media artist which means he has a range of skills linked to using cameras, video and computers. Jay has supported staff developing their skills in using photographs and videos to record what the children do in the nursery. As staff we have found this very useful to reflect on what the children are learning so we can plan further activities to support the children.
Mums, Dads and carers will have already, or very soon, seen the benefit of this by sharing the children's learning journeys with key workers.
We have also introduced using cameras with the children. We really want to make the cameras available to the children as part of their everyday nursery activities. Some children have become very good at using the cameras to record what they are interested in and thinking.
This has led to the exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery. We are extremely proud of this exhibition. Even though our children are very young they are very clever, they take amazing photographs that have some very interesting meanings. If you have not been yet you have until Wednesday 25th May 2011!!!
Jay has used all the work from the exhibition to produce a book. There are examples available in both centres and copies can be ordered on the internet. To see the pages from the book click here - select the first photo then hover the mouse over the right hand side of the photo and the 'next' button will appear so you can easily look through the entire book. To order a copy of the book click here.
World Book Day
World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. A main aim of World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own. Thanks to the generosity of National Book Tokens Ltd and numerous participating booksellers, school children are entitled to receive a World Book Day £1 Book Token . The Book Token can be exchanged for one of the six specially published World Book Day £1 Books, or is redeemable against any book or audiobook of their choice at a participating bookshop or book club. (Taken from www.worldbookday.com)
Due to a continued interest shown by the children in the story of the Gruffalo we decided to focus on this and explore it in many different ways. After reading the story and watching the animation the children baked a Gruffalo cake, made green jelly, made masks, retold the story with puppets, made 'wild' versions of themselves in the computer and went on a Gruffalo hunt in the forest. Photos from the Gruffalo hunt can be found in the gallery here.
Bear in a Bag
The Bear in a Bag project encourages the children to use the cameras at home by giving them an initial focus for taking pictures. The children take home a bag for the weekend containing a bear, a camera, basic instructions for the parents/carers and a comments book.
The children will have already used the cameras in the setting before they take one home so they are familiar with how they work. Before a child takes the Bear in a Bag home we speak with the parents and carers so they are aware that taking photos with the bear is just a starting point for using the camera, and they may find that their child quickly moves on to taking photos without the bear, and that this is fine and should be encouraged. We would like to see how the children use the cameras and what interests them, and the parents and carers know to allow them to experiment and be creative. Included in the bag is comments book so they can write down anything of interest that they observe or things the children say as they use the camera. When the children come back to nursery their Key Worker will download the pictures with the child to their own folder and speak with them about the photographs they have taken. The keyworker prints a sheet with small versions of all the photographs from which the child selects a few that they want to print out larger. The Key Worker speaks with the child about why they have selected those particular shots. These photos and the 'contact sheet' go into the child's nursery photo album. The photographs, parents and carers comments and Key Worker observations can then be used by the whole staff to inform their planning for provision within the nursery.
The photographs will be added below as each child has their turn to take the Bear in a Bag home.
Lilley-Mai's photographs click here.
Logans photographs click here.
Theo's photographs click here.
George's photographs click here.
Eva's photographs click here.
Jayden's photographs click here.
Tanaka's photographs click here.
Language of Photography
Clifton Children's Centre is taking part in a nationwide UK photography project called The Language of Photography, initiated and managed by the Sightlines Initiative. The project aims to explore the potential of photography as a language of expression for young children. It is essentially about the children using photographs to answer a question put to them by the staff, after consultation with the parents. The question might be, "What is beautiful?" or "How can we photograph time?" Through photography we can enable children to visually revisit their thoughts, feelings and experiences. By focusing the camera on key happenings we can help reinforce and consolidate children's experiences and learning. The project is an opportunity to investigate the point of view of children through photographic language. We are working in close partnership with Lambert Children's Centre and a joint exhibition is scheduled for 4th to the 25th of May 2011 at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. For more information please speak to a member of staff.
Sightlines Initiative Website here
Skype Project Part 1
The Skype sessions between Clifton and Lambert were arranged to take place on a Wednesday afternoon. A group of six children who had shown an interest in using Skype in the earlier sessions were chosen from each setting to take part in the project. There were a couple of technical difficulties in the early stages. One was caused by an external USB microphone that was automatically changing the audio output settings as well as the input settings, and the other was caused by a problem with the Internet connection at Clifton, which meant that Lambert could hear Clifton but not see them.
Technical difficulties aside, when everything was working as it should be it was very interesting. The children brought paintings and things they had made to the sessions to show to the other children. They sang songs to each other and together, including a particularly memorable rendition of ‘Wind the bobbin up'. After a few weeks the practitioners introduced the idea of going to Pearson Park to meet each other in person and there was a lot of enthusiasm for this from the children. As with the Skype sessions, the children wanted to make things to take to the park. One of the children at Lambert had made a model of her house and she was asked if she wanted to make a model of the nursery to give to the children from Lambert.
At both settings we encouraged the children to take photos to show the other children what their nursery was like, and what they liked to play with, the idea being to make a display about each other's nursery after the visit. At Clifton some of these photographs were used to make a map of the nursery, with drawings added by the children and annotations from the practitioners.
On a crisp but thankfully sunny autumn afternoon the children, practitioners and parents met up midway between the settings in Pearson Park. All of the children had cameras and took photos around the park, collected conkers and leaves and then had snack time together. The Lambert children loved Clifton's ‘bus' and had a turn riding in it. The children gave each other the things they had made and then it was time to return to the nursery. The children and practitioners are currently involved with developing the displays and working with the photographs they took. Unfortunately due to a technical issue at Lambert they have been unable to use Skype since the visit so we have been unable to do the planned follow-up Skype sessions. Hopefully this will be resolved soon and we will be able to pick up where we left off. The results of these sessions and the displays will be looked at in Clifton and Lambert Skype Project Part 2.
The photographs taken buy the childen can be seen here
Clifton Exhibition
An exhibition of work by the children has been on display in a warehouse formerly occupied by one of Hull’s fruit traders. For 200 years Humber Street, near the marina, has been home to the city’s wholesale fruit market. The fruit market was recently moved to a new home on Priory Park to make way for massive redevelopment. When the £100million plan was abandoned due to the recession, the city’s economic development company, Hull Forward, offered some of the units on temporary leases, and invited proposals from the creative industry sector. Humber Street is now home to two art galleries, a jewellery workshop, artist studios and a performance space, with more development planned. Working with Clifton’s Creative Practitioner, the children went on visits to the area; each armed with a camera and a packed lunch, and were invited to take photographs of anything that interested them. A selection of these photographs, along with drawings and quotes from the children, were printed on to large boards and displayed in one of the old fruit warehouses.
The exhibition has been open as part of events taking place during the summer, including the Clipper launch and the Freedom Festival, with hundreds of visitors admiring the work and leaving very positive comments.
The photographs can be seen here