When Frodingham Infant School called us to tell us they had Red Riding Hood on her way to see their school garden, we thought we better help them out with decorating it.
Over two days the school's year one classes came into 20-21 Visual Arts Centre to visit our one week special exhibition Flowers In The Gallery. The exhibition is a selection of flower arrangers' artworks that respond to various pieces of artwork in David Hancock's Cosplay exhibition.
We were a very lucky group this week, as one of the flower arrangers was spending some time in the gallery, ensuring the exhibitions were tidy and well watered. Caroline Jackson is a member of NAFAS which is the National Association of Flower Arranging Societies.
Caroline answered lots and lots of questions about Flowers In The Gallery:
"Why do flowers need water?"
"How many types of flowers are there?"
"Why do we need flowers and plants?"
"Where is Red Riding Hood?"
All very important and interesting questions, we thought.
When we were finished grilling Caroline on biology and the wonders of life, children were set the challenge of becoming Red Riding Hood and finding themselves a creature made out of wire that had been hidden amongst the exhibitions. These wire creatures had been made prior to the visit, for children to decorate into beautiful butterflies. The children had excellent observational skills and displayed exceptional team work to help each other find their bugs.
Using the wire frames, we covered tissue paper strips in glue and wrapped the softened paper around the frame, making solid wings.
We thought a lot about symmetry, repetition and colours to make sure our butterflies looked just right.
We decorated the wings with sparkly bits, so the bugs and butterflies shine in the sunshine.
Children were extremely creative and loved learning new words and methods of crafting.
Below is a very happy young man who worked tirelessly all day to smile and ask lots of questions about the gallery.
Some more shining examples of boys enjoying making butterflies and bugs for their school garden.
Below is the drying line that we hung our creations on to dry, while we got started on the next part of our project.
While our bugs were drying, we started creating some HUGE flowers that we could carry around with us in the classroom. We used tissue paper and basic craft techniques to create fans that cleverly turned into flowers.
Lots of careful and quiet thinking time.
Here we with all our bugs, crafts and flowers. Let us know what you think! Scroll down for some of our thoughts on the day.
"10/10 I likt it when we did flowers." - Alice aged five
"10/10 I love all of it." - Megan aged six and a half
"10/10 it was fantastic! I liked the extabishun" - Jaydan aged six years old.