Egyptian discovery

This post describes a demonstration 'mantle' lesson at a school that I have supported through outreach work. The class was unknown to me.

Today, the Egyptologists at Cambridge University had a big dilemma. Do they drop everything to visit a new tomb that had been unearthed, or ignore this news?

Well the Egyptologists decided they had better go, in case the experts from Harvard got there first. They were glad they did. The paintings in the tomb showed aspects of Egyptian life that they had not seen before.

This mantle activity started with me in role as a disgruntled Egyptologist, who felt that she was too busy to be bullied into going to Cairo. Decision alley was used and the majority decided that the team should go. Some of the children were a little apprehensive (and maybe confused!) at this point.

They showed me through thought tracking how the archaelogist was feeling. Armed with 'security passes' and special cameras (clipboard and paper with a pencil attached) they travelled to Egypt and took photos in the tomb (pictures around the walls of the school hall). The children were engaged and nearly all settled quickly into the task of recording their findings.

Other strategies during this session included thought tracking the emotions of a new Egyptologist's first impressions of the tomb and creating a tableaux of the paintings. They then created a soundscape to bring the paintings to life.

Back at the University, the team started the task of making the world aware of their findings, via a news report. Preparation for filming began in earnest. That's where I left, for another job.

A few of the children's views of the session (no negative opinions):

• I really liked it when the professor came in. ( A repeated opinion. I was loud and cross when I entered the classroom in role!)



• I liked working in the big space in the 'tomb'



• I liked it because even though we weren't learning from books, we were still learning



• I liked sharing my ideas when we were preparing for the film reports



• It was really fun (this was a repeated view)
  

The teacher reported that even children who would not usually speak in class had amazed her by participating and voicing their opinions. An enjoyable experience for me!

Alien sighting!

Click on the photographs to listen to some of the strange sightings.

Today we heard from Rory that there was a strong possiblity that an alien had been sighted in the school grounds. He asked us if we could fill in one of the alien identification sheets for him so that he could tell which planet it had come from. The children went straight in to role when Honey saw movement outside the window, so we went to investigate, taking our 'cameras' (clipboards with paper and a pencil) with us. We found lots of clues that something strange was going on.

The children took 'photographs' of what they saw. They found lots of clues, like the petals had been knocked off the sunflower. They decided something must have scurried past. There was also a red eye seen in the shed and tentacles over the top.
They found slime, odd footprints and other clues. These were all totally from their imagination, though clues could be planted. Clearly this class have fab imaginations and do not really need concrete clues.

Back in the TARDIS, the trainee time lords reported back their sightings. This was just a different take on 'thought tracking' where someone was invited to be the alien, whilst the other children were the 'mirrors', telling the alien what he was like.



This coupled with other drama activities supported the children's story writing, which you can see on their class blog http://roydon21classes.blogspot.com/search/label/stories

Trainee time lords part 2

Other ways of getting characters into your classroom can be created using vokis or films like xtranormal. The two shown on this page were for two different writing purposes: descriptive writing and instructions. Of course the trainee time lords will have to make decisions and choices about how they are going to do the work and what they will need to help them. As usual, I won't know a lot and won't be very helpful. After all, they need to solve their own problems if they are going to be successful time lords!

Trainee time lords

So, the beginning of a new school year and my second as a year 2/1 teacher. The mission: to train all year and become time lords. This has initially involved a TARDIS on the door and a message from DR Who. I anticipate that we will be put through our paces this year, travelling to many different places, backwards and forwards in time. I would imagine we will get messages from aliens and from Amy Pond too.

Please excuse the terrible voice (courtesy of audacity). No male presence in the house when I created the message!

So the trainee timelords have thought about their 'Smart' areas and know what they could help the Doctor with. Some would be good at running after aliens, some would be great at making new equipment. Others could take pictures of events.

Now he's invited them to explore the TARDIS. Well they need to know where things are kept don't they?

Time travel logs.

This proved to be a useful way to get the children to write weekly news! They shared some really creative ideas about their weekend during our 'talk time' too! Some of them had actually been to Apalapachia and seen some funny goings on!

The Fairytale Travel Company

Oh dear, the FTC are in a spot of bother this week. They have promised that whoever you are, wherever you want to go, they will get you there. It's a bit of a nuisance that a gnome called Wilf has asked to go to St Lucia. They don't usually go there ...

Well luckily, the employees at the travel company were up for a big challenge. They have been researching the country, but then decided they ought to fly over it to see what it was like. At a first glance, this is what they could see.

Meanwhile, we have had another message from Wilf. He wants us to write him an itinerary. I think we can do that and put it as an example in the travel brochure. He also wants us to tell him what to pack. I'm not sure that's our job! But maybe the other employees will decide that we can.

We have been checking the weather for Wilf though and comparing it to the UK. It's a bit warmer there! We've got to make sure we don't send him in hurricane season. He might not like that.




The manager is very pleased with our work so far, but he's a little grumpy because we forgot to take photos the last time we went and we need some good ones for the brochure. He said we could have a balloon ride for our hard work. It would be better as it's slower and we could get a better look. We could then add to the notice board.


Lucy has been hard at work in St Lucia creating travel videos to play in the shop. The voiceover doesn't work on one of them though. Someone's going to have to do that again.

Mystery solvers - year 2/1

A very old looking suitcase was found in the corridor this week. The 2/1 children thought it might have belonged to Mr Parris (the headteacher) but were sure it couldn't possibly belong to Miss Bailey (she wouldn't carry a bag like that!)

The class reasoned who else it could belong to and why it was there. Jess took it down to the office, but Mr Parris said it wasn't his. Everyone decided that they need to become 'Mystery Solvers' and find out more about it.

We weren't sure whether to open the suitcase or not. There were so many good reasons for and against. We decided by using 'decision alley' ...

and opened the suitcase.

At first we thought it belonged to a maid, because there was a hat in there and an apron. Then we found a sash with the word Scutari on it, and an old looking letter from someone called Florence.

Jess read out the letter, which gave us some clues. We thought it was a good idea to do some research to find out more about who it could have belonged to.

Especially since Mr Parris had sent us a video message.

We found out the that contents belonged to Florence Nightingale. We wondered what to do with it. Some of us thought that we should put it back where we found it, others said no, because it might get stolen. Somebody suggested that it should go in the cupboard safely, but then someone else said no, people should be able to see it because it's interesting. The final thoughts were that it should go to the British museum, but Henry had found out that there is a Florence Nightingale museum, so he thought it should go there. The mystery solvers voted, then decided to send a letter to the Florence Nightingale museum, to tell them about the suitcase and to see if they wanted it.

Children in role as 'letters'.

The next day some 'letters' arrived at the museum and read themselves out to a very grumpy curator. She received so many letters each day that she was fed up with them and would only read interesting ones that made sense. She was so grumpy that she threw some in the bin! Then, some of the letters that day started to interest her ...

Teacher in role as a museum 'grumpy curator', listening to the letters. This is how a teaching point can be put across. No introduction to the letter, 'I don't know what this letter is about! I can't be bothered to read it! In the bin!' etc. This is done with care to individual children's feelings and by knowing how they will respond.

The museum curator decided she would dearly love to see the suitcase described in some of the letters.

The hospital in Scutari

The Mystery Solvers were hooked by what they had learned about Florence Nightingale and wanted to find out more about her. They uncovered a tableaux of Scutari hospital where she went to work and found out that conditions there were not very good.

Children had time for role play, then tried freeze frames and finally created a tableaux of Scutari hospital.

Nurses were trying really hard to look after soldiers in cramped, dirty conditions. Listen to the soldier's thought bubbles.

Thought tracking - a great way to assess children's understanding.

'Interview with a nurse'
Did you see that programme on tv last week? The chat show? There were some nurses/soldiers from Scutari on there! This introduced a new type of role for the children. After asking 'Do we have any Scutari nurses here now?' I selected three children to be the interviewees. I then initially took on the role as the compere, to model how it could be done. I welcomed the audience and the nurses in a game show style, hooking the children. The films are not staged at all, but I did have to stop and start them again sometimes when my filming wasn't perfect. That was the only role I had - filming. All ideas, responses are the children's.

Interview with a soldier

Children show their learning.

After the interviews, we thought about the letters that the soldiers and nurses might have written home to their families. I wanted them to all write in role but before they did so, I asked if there were any 'letters' in the room. The short film clips that follow are some of the children's spontaneous responses to this. Believe it or not, they are all struggling writers! Amazing!

KORC - Kinabatangan Orang-utan Rescue Centre

Animal mantles have proved very popular. Becoming a rescue centre lends itself well to creating tensions and dilemmas.

Collaborative work, planning where to put the new feeding platforms without disturbing the existing habitats and avoiding the pygmy elephant routes.

During one spring term, my 5/4 class became K.O.R.C. This was a registered charity based in Malaysian Borneo on the Kinabatangan River, which specialises in the rescue and rehabilitation of sick and injured orang-utans. K.O.R.C had been founded by Anna Caley six years previously and she had gathered many voluntary workers since. A team of newly qualified scientists arrived*, to conduct some research on the rehabilitation of the orang-utans. This has been an exciting event for KORC, drawing a lot of positive attention to the charity, including from the National Geographic Society, who filmed part of a documentary at the centre.

After being alerted by one of their voluntary workers, who was on holiday in Thailand, that 48 orang-utans were being kept illegally in a theme park in Bangkok, KORC got straight on the case to rectify this terrible situation. The poor creatures were being subjected to cruel conditions and trained to participate in kick-boxing shows. After a peaceful protest and the completition of many petitions, the Thai government invited K*O*R*C to present their case.

When K*O*R*C members presentations reminded them that it was against one of their own laws to keep endangered animals, the government had no choice but to intervene. K*O*R*C further persuaded them to donate money and help transport the orang-utans back to Borneo, to the rescue centre.

It was a tough job persuading the government to help - they were quite picky!

But the persuasive members of KORC manged to get the theme park shut down and the orang-utans taken to safety, ready for transportation to Borneo.

Once the orang-utans were safely at the rescue centre, we realised what a tough job it would be. There were not enough feeding platforms and many were too small, like this one. The team had to design and create new ones. Thorough health checks showed the poor condition of some of the orang-utans and tradgedy struck when one of the orang-utans died. An autopsy showed the terrible effects left from his kick-boxing days. The orang-utans needed a lot of medical care and love to help them become healthy and happy again.

Interview with an orang-utan
After the health checks showed how sick some of the orang-utans were, the volunteers at KORC got together to come up with a nutritious food supplement to make sure that the orang-utans got a balanced diet.

It seemed that a soon as one problem was
resolved, another one happened! Everyone
was shocked when a letter came from the bank
saying that the charity had no money left. The
quick thinking workers and volunteers came up
with a range of fund raising ideas, which soon
got the rescue centre back on its feet.

* The children had completed an enquiry, inspired by an assembly on the raft spiders at a local fen. They wrote reports as a 'degree' assignment, then attended their graduation ceremonies when they passed. As newly qualified scientists, they were nearly all happy to join KORC ... apart from one scientist. Professor Rusted decided he would rather go to the North Pole. His reasons? "It's colder there and I don't want to be too far away from my wife and family.' The other scientists were so disappointed to lose a team member, that they did everything in their power to get him to change his mind. Luckily, they were so persuasive that he did!