On a street, not far from here...

"The story begins on Maple Street. A group children, no older than you, stumbled across somewhere new, a place they had never seen before".

The children watched as Miss Lettice drew a house. A strange looking house with square, circle and triangle windows and a long slim rectangular door. Its garden was a mess. Nuts, bolts, rubbish bags and old toys were strewn across the garden.

The children came and added the things they felt would fit into this messy garden. Over grown plants, cracks in the roof, spider webs and dead flowers. We wondered together, who possibly live in this house?

3 bears? Little Red? A poor family? We really didn't know! We decided to draw and write our ideas and stick them around the drawing of the house.

The Toymakers Rest.

Next to the front door of the cottage, we spotted a plaque. We squinted hard but couldn’t quite work out what it said, for it was covered in dust, cobwebs and ivy.

We paused. One of the children got into role as the plaque. We draped cobwebs and ivy over him to show how unkempt the plaque was. 
We then pressed play on our story again and decided to carefully remove the over growth to see what the plaque said. 
The ToyMakers rest…

The door.

We decided to knock on the door. A voice called out WHOSE THERE! We freeze framed our feelings at that time. Scared, nervous, worried, excited. We felt so many things. We slowly entered the cottage and saw the old man, sat on his chair. We asked him some questions and discovered his names Mr Maker and he made things for children with his hands in the 60s. We thought about the name of the cottage and what he had told us and decided it was possible he was a toymaker. Suddenly, around him, toys from the past began to appear.

Representing Mr Maker.

We decided to represent Mr Maker. The children decided his clothes should be grubby and dirty, so suggested we take them outside. They had a wonderful time stamping on and dirtying up the clothes. Together we dressed the mannequin. Mr Maker was ready to be part of our story…

Permission to explore the attic.

Mr Maker gave the team permission to explore the attic, but warned them, it had not been opened in a decade. We paused the story and discussed that a decade meant 10 years. We then created a timeline, stretching across the entire classroom and divided it up into decades from 1900 to 2020. 
Back in the story, we discussed how we would need to keep our hands free to explore, but would need light. We came up with the idea of making head torches! We quickly got to work. 
 

We used drama to carefully creep up the stairs and into the loft. We noticed it was full to the brim of boxes, old furniture, books and spiders. First, we used freeze frames to represent the various items. We then visually created this together, drawing, cutting and sticking various items onto the attic template.  

The journal.

We began to open some of the old boxes. On the top of one, we found an old, dusty, black, leather journal. We understood that this is usually where people write their memories. We opened it up to find it was empty. We decided that to understand more about Mr Makers history, we would create the journal together, using important events from 1960-2020. We then made sure we put the pages in order.

Toys, toys, toys…

We continued to explore the boxes before coming across a bundle of items wrapped in news paper. We decided to carefully open them, not knowing what could be inside. Each bundle was a toy with a year label. We decided Mr Maker must have made these toys. We looked at and compared the materials. Older toys were made of tin, wood and metal. The newer toys were made of plastic. Together we ordered the toys from oldest to newest using our knowledge of decades, and added them to our class timeline. We then decided to create special “past play logs” to record all of our findings. We drew the toys and labelled them with the material and the date they were made.

Restoring Memories.

Deep inside one of the boxes, we discovered an old camera. We turned it on, but discovered there was nothing there. Mr Maker explained that there should be images of key moments from his life…

1965 - Ivan Maker marries Julie.

1966 - Ivan opens his first Toy shop in Redditch.

1970 - Ivan and Julie have their first and only child, a son named. Nigel.

1996 - Ivan wins an award for best toys.

We decided to recreate the photographs for Mr Maker. We began by creating props we would need. A trophy, a baby blanket, a wedding veil and a set of keys. We then freeze framed the photos together.

The last designs…

The team went to present Mr Maker with the photographs, but found him sleeping in his chair. Sticking out of his pocket, they noticed some crumpled paper. They crept and carefully took them from his pocket. After they were unfolded, the team realised they were sketches of toys. A spinning top, a train, a yo-yo and a xylophone.
 

As Mr Maker awoke, he explained that these were the last toy designs he ever drew. He never got round to creating them as his hands are too shaky and his memory is damaged. The team felt sad for Mr Maker and knew this was important. They decided they would help and promised him they would learn the skills to create the toys for him. They sketched each design into their past play books.