In this weeks blog we take a trip into the Art Studio, the wooden building behind the yurt, where our Pre-School children go twice daily in groups of 8 to explore child-led learning through the use of all expressive arts. Our current project is all about the human body, this stemmed from the children’s interest in role playing Doctors and Nurses in January. The project evolved week by week, with support from Nathalie and Sarah facilitating the children’s interest, curiosities and discoveries.

To find out exactly what the children were interested in we started by creating a body map. This helped us understand what the children knew, and what they wondered. It became clear at this point that this project had the potential to lead us into so many directions.

‘Do our bones sing?’

‘Is anyone poorly, i’m the doctor’

‘Skeletons are scary.’

‘The brain- it thinks what you think. It’s where the thinking comes from. It helps us see in the dark, helps us talk, and like go through the door and walk. It controls us.’

‘I made a mummy and daddy head bone.’

‘The brain passes messages.’

‘My dog has a brain in her head too, and a skull’

‘Can you hear my brain?’

We then used loose parts to create a body map of our bones, and used clay to explore the different softer parts of our body, such as the brain supported by research books, videos, songs, drawings and models.

After a few weeks of focusing on different parts of our body the children started to build a picture of how their own bodies were made and how they work, so we did a photography project where the children made shapes with their bodies and traced over the top to map how our bones move. We explored the questions ‘How do our bodies move’? and ‘What is the best part of me’.

What is the best part of me?

‘The best part of me is my foot, cos they move me’

‘The best part of me is my brain, it makes me think’

‘My eyes can look.’ ‘My blood washes things away’. ‘My tummy because daddy blows raspberries on them’ ‘My lungs do breath- Grandad used to blow loads of air to blow balloons and let it go’ ‘My nose, without that i wouldn’t smell’ ‘My brain, but sometimes when i eat cold things i get brain freeze.’

‘The best part of me is my Mummy and Daddy’

The Child’s Voice

‘The rib cage is protecting the heart. If we accidentally peeled off our skin and bones the rib cage protects it so the heart doesn’t go out. Maybe the brain holds our hair?’

‘Bodies have little messages. Maybe the printer message goes under ground so we don’t see it.’

‘Can we get new bones? My nanna is getting a knee replacement.’

‘Is there a beard bone? Is there hair in your brain? We are made if skulls, heels bones and blood’

‘There’s 300 bones in the fuman body, actually 306 I think.’

‘I can hear my ear drum’

‘The brain is the boss of the body. We catch a cough but we don’t catch a yawn.’

‘The white blood cells are the superheroes, yeh cos they save the day.’

They project seems to be going down a self identity route currently, this week we  made some abstract art by drawing around everyone on the same piece of paper that we call ‘The Shape of Us’.

Throughout this 3 month project the children have provided so many wonderful theories, when creativity is combined with curiosity amazing results happen and the Art studio gives them the time and space to explore the answers together.

Parents of our Pre-School children we welcome you to come up to the Art studio to see some of the children’s project in person on Tuesday 20th May from 6pm.