Senior Infants have been busy exploring and investigating different materials. We have looked at wood, plastic, fabric, cardboard and rubber and have learned that they all look and feel very different. Investigating and experimenting is something we like to try whenever we get the opportunity. After reading ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ by Julia Donaldson we decided it might be a good idea to try to design and make a coat for the Gruffalo’s Child to wear. We knew that the Gruffalo’s Child liked to explore the woods near his home but it seemed silly that he wasn’t wearing a coat out in the snow!
The Gruffalo’s Child looks cold without a coat!
Since we are really improving at working together in groups we decided to complete this task in our Aistear groups but before we started it was important to discuss why exactly we were choosing to design and make a coat and what type of coat would be best for the Gruffalo Child. There were lots of excellent suggestions from the class. Michael said that the coat should be ‘warm’ and Elif suggested that it should be ‘waterproof’ because the Gruffalo’s Child might be playing in the snow. The Orange group said that the coat should look nice, which the whole class agreed was very important.
After talking about what criteria we thought was most important we looked at some examples of coats. We talked about different materials, colours, shapes and details such as buttons and zips. Cian made an excellent point when he said that ‘some zips get stuck easily’ so maybe we could make our coats using buttons instead.
Some different examples of coats.
We then decided to design our coats using pencils and crayons. Each person in the group designed an individual coat and then presented their ideas to the rest of the group. The group then decided on one aspect of each design that should be used in the making of the group’s coat. For example the Yellow Group thought that Chloe’s pattern was really nice and the Red Group liked the way Lauren had designed a coat with different coloured buttons and decided to use this design for the project.
When designing the coats we used our Maths knowledge about patterns to help us! Some pupils used two colours to make patterns and others used three and four colours.
Some Senior Infant designers!
Presenting our designs.
Some colourful designs!
Each group then chose a variety of materials to work with to make their coat. A big thanks to Ms. Keating and Ms. Fry for lending us lots of different types of materials! Some boys and girls made hoods, others made sleeves and some were in charge of decorating the coat. Team work and cooperation was really important to make sure that the coat was completed properly and all teams did really well. We also practised our cutting and sticking skills which are very important.
We used lots of materials such as different textiles, paper, rubber gloves, crepe paper and buttons. Lots of the designs tried to ensure that at least some part of the coat was waterproof, such as the sleeves or the hood. We knew that materials like rubber and plastic are waterproof because we tested them during Aistear.
Making sure the design is finished properly. We used staples, glue and sellotape to make our coats.
The girls and boys then presented their designs to the rest of the class and talked about how they felt working as a team and how they decided on their designs.
Check out the finished products below!
The Blue Group explain their design to the class.
Well done to the Orange Group!
The Yellow Group worked really well together.
The Red Group added a warm hood and sleeves.
12:05 pm on April 22nd, 2016
Well done Senior Infants. Your coats and designs look amazing. Amber said she would love to design something with you all some day. Jamie wonders if he would be able to try one of your coats on! Brooke wanted to know if they kept the Gruffalo’s child warm in the snow?