Creative Sparks - Autumn 2024
We have had a wonderful start to the winter with Creative Sparks now in full swing each week across four different sites: St Ann’s, Strelley road, Burrows Court and Meadows! We have seen some regular faces return and lots of new faces in each location. Our staff team has also grown, we now have two regular freelance Creative Sparks Workshop Leaders - Ruth Lewis-Jones and Claire Finn, who have joined the team, bringing new skills in arts and drama and will help to deliver Creative Sparks sessions.
Our theme for the Autumn term was food and digestion, together we learned all about our favourite foods by making collages and 3D models of different meals on paper plates. This led to us having an imaginary dinner party at St Ann’s where we ‘ate’ burgers, pizza’s, curly fries, salad, ice cream, spaghetti, vegetables and doughnuts.
We created diagrams of the human body and made our own models of the digestive system using tubing and different liquids to learn about how food travels around the body. We looked at different healthy ingredients and learned about their properties when we made no-bake energy balls that the children could take home for healthy snacks.
We also had special guests from Catalent Pharma Solutions (a Strelley-based Pharmaceutical company who fund our programme at Strelley Road Library) Who came to lead a session at Strelley Road library, experimenting with food colouring and a model diagram to look at the way food travels through the body and making oobleck to think about health diets.
After the half term break we returned with a new theme of colour, colour mixing and light! To learn about the full colour spectrum and how colours work we made colour wheels and spinners that play tricks with your eyes and turn white when they spin!
‘ I really enjoyed learning about colours and making a colour spinner’ …. ‘ I liked blending colours, I like that we always do creative stuff’
We experimented with different drawing techniques - drawing to music, drawing with a pencil on the end of a stick, drawing with opposite hands, with one eye closed, both eyes closed, drawing in a few seconds… This was great fun for the children and taught them that it is ok when making artworks not to have to perfect everything but instead concentrate on mark making and expression. They made each other laugh by showing each other their drawings, which developed confidence and allowed them to explain their ideas and abstract marks that they had made.
‘I really enjoyed today, I like it when we get to make stuff and show each other’
In the final sessions we made lots of paintings learning how to mix colours and filling canvases with as many colours as possible making 'rainbow' paintings and collages. We also made coloured lanterns using paints, glass jars, cards and coloured acetate… This led to discussions around different ways that the children celebrate in the winter holidays. They made some fantastic designs and enjoyed decorating their lanterns to change the ways that light and shadows changed.
With the addition of new members of our team we have been able to adapt some activities to the children's needs in different ways. In St Ann’s many of the children come with high energy and love to perform to each other, we have started to begin sessions here with drama activities that give them the chance to make some noise, play games and listen to each other before they sit down to start making.
This has helped them in different ways, for the more expressive ones it is a chance for them to use their energy and for the quieter children a chance to be heard and express themselves in the group. One parent told us about the changes that she had seen in her son in recent weeks; "He is more eager to interact with other kids, I would like him to develop his confidence speaking in public " Another parent told us "They organise their work better and are more able to follow certain steps before starting their crafts"
We are looking forward to getting started in the new year with a new theme of water and environment and we hope to see familiar and new faces join us at all four sites!
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