Africa...Beads!!

Using our great salt dough recipe (remember the topology map of Africa?!) We made our own beads!!

Given that the kids had already done the mixing for the map, I prepared the dough so they were ready to make the beads.

They got the hang of it pretty quickly and were careful too with the stick to make the hole.

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

 We painted them with acrylic paint and also acrylic paint pens for the designs. It got really messy, but that's part of the process! I varnished them too for a shiny 'keep-forever' style. A few however broke shortly after...!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Finished result!

They LOVED this project so much and wore their beads around school all week!

Finished result!

Africa..other ideas.

So many possibilities come to light for each topic and some might be great ideas but just won't work within the timescale, or alternatively, some can be quick fillers for a spare afternoon activity.

In the case of Africa, there was the original idea of the necklaces - using a paper plate, which at the time, the kids loved, but they were much more excited about the next project of the 'real' bead making....











While I was away, my boss took over for a few days and work on some Egypt projects with the kids. They got really into the idea of how pyramids contain treasure and maps and they had the chance to make their own styles of them. And they also learnt something about Egyptian mythology too. Sadly, I don't have any of these pictures, but it is worth noting to remember.








I had been thinking of extending the project and making Egyptian style bangles upon my return, but the gold paint was far too strong for the class to have used. it would, however, have been a great project to do as they would have loved to decorate the bracelets, made simply from toilet rolls.

Africa!! Topology project!

 This was a great project to undertake with my class. Being of mixed ages, the interest levels always vary and some of the kids don't always want to do as much as the others even if they enjoy it. But, here was a great task we could do in stages and kids could help out as and when they wanted!

We made Africa out of Salt dough! It was easy...seriously!

Making salt dough was fun - the kids loved the feel of it and just playing with it was a morning activity in itself!

The mixture I used was
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water

This proved successful and able to dry by the time I returned from my holiday!

 

Adding the dough was great fun too  as we could take small or big chunks and push them on together! Even returning to the project a few days later, one of the older children helped me paint with water so we could add more dough.

We talked about mountains, hills, peaks, lakes and again, kids were able to listen according to their levels of interest.







One of my students already knew Kilimanjaro, while others were just happy to paint a big ocean!