Toys, toys, toys!

In Year 1, all we seem to have talked about is toys. We have been exploring popular toys, dream toys, old toys and new toys. We have been talking to adults in school about their favourite toys and how long ago they were born. We have been looking at toys in school and talking about where the best toys are! We have explored toys for inside, outside and those that can be played alone or with friends. 
 

Did you know that the material toys are made from has developed over the years, and that many modern toys are now made of plastic? We have been exploring this in our writing and know that many old fashioned toys were made from wood, metal and cloth. 

 

What a lovely experience!
 

Look at us all enjoying our picnic with all our teddy bears. We took out a blanket and biscuits and shared a picnic with all of our friends. It was really exciting. 

After our lovely picnic experience, we looked  at all these bear books. Can you spot anything you like about these books? Miss Sleem loved the books where both words started with /b/. This was very helpful, because it helped us understand alliteration. 
 

In our writing, alliteration is when two or more words start with the same letter or sound. We explored creating word banks of words that begin with /b/ to help us build the heading for our work…

Beautiful, baby bear. Big, blue bear. Brilliant, biscuit bear. 
 

Can you think of anymore?

What is technology?

We have also been looking at other ways of playing. Playing doesn’t always mean playing with toys. Some of us enjoy playing games on our tablets or games consoles. 
 

Technoloy often needs power and as we learn more about technology and how it works, technology creators and inventors create even better pieces of technology. But, we all agreed that sometimes, too much time on technology can make you feel grumpy or overtired. 
 

We pieced together these puzzles to discover some children using technology…

What do you think is happening in the image?

We have been exploring how we can use drama to bring an image to life. Look at how seriously we took our work, adopting the role of parent and child, concentrating on our facial expressions and understanding the feelings they may be experiencing. 
 

We were able to activate the images and hear the words that were shared as the image was taken. 
 

When is it a good time to use technology?

We looked at how much time experts say we should use technology and screen time. Lots of us have clear rules at home for screen time and many of us preferred playing outside over tablet time. 
 

We worked together to look at what time of day was best for screen time. We agreed that before school was a rush, during school we might use it for learning and then, after school we had some more time. Before bedtime didn’t seem a good time, because it meant we were actually waking up our brains and making them too busy for sleep. The best time, we think, is after school, but before dinner! 

What did we notice?

Gabriel is very talented, he can create the most beautiful toys. He uses wood that is going to be burnt, and gets it cut to help it last longer. He uses lots of different tool. He works everyday. His worship seems untidy, with lots of things spread out. There are old books on the shelf, which we think may be instructions for toy making. We noticed an energy drink, which makes us think he might be tired. We noticed his nails have some dirt in them, so we think this means he’s been working hard. We think he is an older man. We heard him talk about his wife. 
 

WC 23/09/24

Gabriel as a Sculptor…

Did you know that sculpture is when art is created in3D form? We have been exploring this kind of work and it made us wonder, if Gabriel uses wood, cuts it then creates something, is this the same?

First we looked at the work of artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett and their “Interactive Clouds” sculpture, Nicole Dyer and her “Food Sculptures” work and finally “Floating Piers” by Christo and Jeanne-Claud. These are all artists that represent sculpture in very different ways. We looked closely at them, and used out drawing skills to explore “show me what you see” which is a method of noticing the greater details of art. 

 

After looking closely at the art, we noticed how creative the artists had been. The Interactive Cloud had raindrop, beaded strings hanging from the cloud, this linked to each individual bulb. In the video, we saw the lights turn on and off as people pulled the string. In the Floating Piers, we saw each individual panel of fabric sewn together. The Food Sculptures had many details that we recognised, like craft eyes, beads and clay. We felt that we’d all had some experience in sculpture. Some of us could manipulate play dough to make sculptures, one of us had used a stick and string to create a sculpture and lots of us had experience in using recycling to create sculptures. 

We decided to explore sculpture in a really unusual way. Instead of making lots of plans, we used “Design through Making”. This is an important skill that allows us to respond to and work with materials intuitively. 

We also had a number of prompts, including:

• Something you can hold in your palm
• Something that balances
• Something someone would steal if they saw it  
• Something that comes in a pair 

The Workshop

We explored using masking tape to create a drama space and discussed how we would work respectfully with this space. Together, we built up the image including tools, wood and a box. The box was heavy. We had many ideas of what it might be, including a delivery, energy drinks, food, toys and books. We agreed how we would handle theses things and were excited to explore. 

Once we had opened all of the carefully wrapped items, we could see they were all toys made by Gabriel. One if the team felt these were baby toys, another group of us had got some of these toys at home. We wanted to look closely at them, but we had to handle them gently. 

To develop our art skills that we’ve been working on this week, we continued our work with careful observations and drawing. We decided where we wanted to start, picking a toy and looking closely at the details. 

We all worked so hard and created exceptionally detailed drawings, so we decided to create sculptures again, but this time we had a predetermined outcome. We were going to represent Gabriel’s work. This time, working differently as we had began a design process by drawing and looking at the original work. 
 

Using similar resources and selecting those specifically for our outcomes, we began creating sculptures of Gabriel’s toys. 

WC 30/9/24

Representing Gabriel 

Using drama conventions, we were able to overhear a conversation between Gabriel and his wife. Gabriel came home from work, hair filled with dust, hands covered in paint and his body exhausted. His wife had been waiting for him to come home, sitting at the dinner table for dinner. He was so tired. Gabriel’s wife suggested asking for help, but Gabriel wasn’t sure. 
Together, we worked on representing Gabriel exactly as he was in this moment.

Gabriel decides to ask for help

After his conversation with his wife, Gabriel begins to create a poster, asking for help. As he creates it, he shows how reluctant he is. He’s not sure if he can share his workshop or work with other people. Although he is sad, he finished the advert and puts it up, hoping the right kind of makers will see it….

Who could help?

Immediately, several of us wanted to help, but how? We talked about what had happened so far, and how whilst we had been finding out about Gabriel we had also been look at, making and playing with toys. We already had so many skills, we felt we could help. We became a team. We are The Toymakers!
 

At the bottom of the poster, there was an email address. We all decided to send an email back, asking if we could help. To be extra professional, we tried to use our new skill from our Literacy learning, and include ‘because’ in our sentence. 

Working in our office

Whilst we were waiting for our reply from Gabriel, we got some work done in our office. We had lots of shelves, but they were empty. In Maths, we had been working on ‘Place Value’. One of the important parts of this learning is what is called one-to-one correspondence or sometimes called ‘grouping by matching’. To fill the shelves, it was simple, one toy on each shelf. Each row had to have the same type of toy, or it would be disorganised. 

Unfortunately, the shelves weren’t full and the toys were in a muddle. Together, we sorted this out. Some were simple, one car on each shelf, but some needed a bit more thought. For example, the xylophones didn’t have beaters, the buckets didn’t have spades and the carriages didn’t have horses, so we had to add in the other parts and make sure each had what was missing!

Exploring toys with wheels

In the office, we sorted through some toys with wheels. We really enjoyed playing with them first, then we had a go at drawing some. Although this was an important part of our work as Toymakers, it also will help us with our writing, as next in our work we will be writing about wheeled toys! 
 

We put the wheeled toys together on a shelf, in our office.