My first Lesson

The first lesson was a wearl wind really. A defiant learning curve that was full with 60 existed children.   My first lesson was paper mashaing the balloons and as I got to the school I meat the year 6 teachers who I had not meat before I was shown to the class rooms and started to set up my sections giving each child a ballon making sure there was enough news paper on each table and making a OPVA mix for the children to use.

as the children filled in from lunch all existed and asking lots of questions I was introduced as Miss Ellen. With both classes assembled sat cross legged in front of me I put my powerpoint on that I had prepared to show the children of selected pages out of my sketch book that had influenced and helped shap the design. And then I reveled the costume. this went down extremely well they were all asking to try it on and perad around the room in it. I was so relieved that the costume had gone down well the the children and the colour was not a problem I thought maybe some of the boys might have more of a problem with that but everything seemed fine.

As I demonstrated how big to blow up the ballon and what was the best way to paper masha them it all seemed less intimidating and I felt my self ease more into the teaching role. As they all went and sat down at there seats and started to blow up the balloons I was unprepared for the calling on my name that seemed to escalate to see if the ballon they were blowing up was the right size after more demonstrating and a lot of tying of the balloons we had 60 fairly similar sized balloons to start the papper mashaing.

As I was going round the first class checking on them helping them out to make sure everyone was happy with what they were doing I realised that there was another 30 children working in the other classroom for me to check on as well. As I was finishing checking on this classroom I had children form the other coming in saying they were finished. This shocked me as it was only about 2.30 so hurried back into see how this child was doing. On closer inspection more layers were needed but once one person had said they were finished they all thought they were finished (when they hadn't they just didn't want to be left behind)

At 3.00pm in one classroom I had children finishing off there balloons and in the other I had children where you could still see they majority of there balloons it was very stressfull. So the children didn't get bored as some had now moved on to helping there friends and were also coming to the end of that, I asked the teacher to pack away with them and if they had any other work or reading they could do for the last 10minis of the class wile I was next door franticly trying to get atlees two layers of papper masha done on some of there balloons.

When 3.15 came and the children had packed away and the cleaners were coming in to clean away the debery of my class I could breath. I had defiantly not been prepared for the rush, excitement, adrenalin and a little bit of stress thrown in for good mesher that had come from that lesson. I put all the balloons on the window sills to dry and thanked the teachers for there help on the afternoon.

The hole day had been so fun but also one massive learning curve. Even though the blown up balloons would have been more hassle to carry in I do think that I would have got more even sized eyes to work with. How ever many times you show some of the boys how to paper masha a strip at a time using a paint brush they will always be one who will try and put a hole sheet of news paper onto there ballon in one go and refuse to use nothing but there hands as a paint brush.

Over all I was pleased with the out come and I think we did achieve 60 useable paper masha eyes, which was the aim of the day. It's such a shame that I have to weeks to wait for my next lesson as its on the 23rd May

Lessons Changing

I have sent my lesson plans off to the teachers with no problems Karen was confident that this would work.

Hindleys have messed up the order for my plastizote however and I have only had 13 sheets of plasterzote arrive and am still waiting for the rest of this delivery to arive. As this was my first lesson I have had to more two of my lessons around so this mistake can fit in. My first lesson will now be paper masha, second lesson staying the same with rapping wire and centercane and tie die and third with be the second tie die and decorating the plasterzote leggs. fourth lesson will be painting eyes and trying on the finished costumes.

I have let my teacher know and this is all fine and will hopefully go to plan!

Prototyping

As I had made a mini prototype so I know what  I was already doing how I would make the prototype already. But I want to sure on the size and how big I should be for the children to manage and dance properly in. I also needed to address the issue that Karen my teacher has put forward about the hight of the legs on the children's backs.

After drawing a template and seeing how best I could get as many legs out of the plasterzote as possible. I figured out that I could get 8 legs out of one peace of plasterzote. This was good as It gave me more plasterzote for the dance leaders so I could do what the leaders of moving tides had suggested for the dance leaders but just making the backpacks bigger.

I decided to to the antlers 1m long but when I came to modelling them properly they would not stand up straight so these were cut shorter to about 70cm instead. I had used willow to hold up my eyes in the mini prototype but I thought it would be easier to use 3 peaces of centercane rapt in wire but unfortunately when it came to showing Adele our prototypes this did not hold up the pappermashe eyes so I had to go back to using willow which I had not budgeted for.

Apart from this I was pleased with how my prototype went down there didn't really seem to be any other problems and really. After fixing the eyes we went and had photos taken of everyones prototypes.

I am still not happy with the eyes as you can make them face the front all the time and I am worred that in the procession they will turn around in the back pack and not look as effective as I want them to. So I still think I need I find an alternative for this.

Scrap store

Today I had a trip to the scrap store to the collect my last bits in preparation for my first lesson. This place was a grate discovery for this place and I think one of the mane reason that I have come in under budget for my costumes.

https://www.facebook.com/DorsetScrapstore

Lesson Plans

Planning the lessons was really tricky for me as I figured out that to create the back packs there is a certain order to do them in and I would have to do the actual cable tying of all the peaces to the corx for the children.

My first attempt of the lesson order: Lesson 1 - paper masha
                                                        Lesson 2 - Rap all the wire
                                                        Lesson 3 - Cut and stick yellow peaces onto the leggs. Paint eyes
                                                        Lesson 4 - Tie dey

I was not sure how to attach the back packs all together. If I could drill holes and then take it into the school and the children can put it together them selfs using the cable ties but it could be very fidally and I haven't budgeted for any spare cable ties and they all need to be done tight and really securely and with the two classes of 30 Im not sure if I would be able to monitor everything they do.  So I will have to bring everything back to bournemouth and put the back packs together my self and travel them back to weymouth finished for the children.

After having a meeting with Adele to figure out my problems with the lessons we came up with a better  plan of my lessons.

Date:	Procession section: shrimp	Lesson no: 1
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	Plasterzote Little random shapes Yellow Paint
Objective:	Introduction to what I am doing and what there costumes will look like To decorate the shrimp legs front and back.
Introduction:	Sow my sketchbook, Introduce what I am doing there and how I am Really show pacifically what and were the yellow spots go on the legs.
Main:	Children will paint the little random scraps yellow Then they will be stuck onto the legs not too randomly keeping to the top of the legs. Add glitter
Plenary:	Talk about the final out come and how each time I come in it will lead up to the finished product.
Outcome:	Have finished legs that can be attached to the back pack.

Date:	Procession section: Shrimp	Lesson no: 2
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	String Things to tie into the tie-die T-shirts Die Wire and Center cane Masking tape Purple scraps
Objective:	To tie-die 33 T-shirts Rap the antennas and eye poles in purple scraps
Introduction:	Explain what tie die is. Explain how to complete the process most effectively. Show an example Show how to rap the center cane and wire safely and cearfully
Main:	Get the children to tie the T-shirts as they wish with string as tightly as they can. Then put them into a cold water die solution. Tie all six lenths of wire and center cane to gether and rap with purple, remembering that the eye stems have 3 centercane and 1 wire.
Plenary:	We have learnt how to tie die T-shirts Rape wire carefully
Outcome:	One batch of the first colour die for the tie die T-shirts All the wire and center cane rapped

Date:	Procession section:	Lesson no: 3.
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	P.V.A glue Newspaper Balloons Balloon holders Rope Things to tie in the tied die
Objective:	For each child to papier-mâché two balloons each. Tie die the second colour on to the T-shirts
Introduction:	Demonstrate papier-mâché  to them
Main:	Show them how best to tear the newspaper make sure there not layering the balloons up to much as they will become heavy. Make sure they do the bottoms of the balloons as they are stood in a holder. Take some of the string off the T-shirts to reveal some tie die and then tie more up and redie them in the second colour
Plenary:	How to papier-mâché balloons How to tie die a second colour onto the T-shirts
Outcome:	Two papier-mâché balloons that can be left to dry at the school ready for painting. And T-shirts that I can take home and wash ready to revile them in lesson 4

Date: 30th May	Procession section: (e.g. Punch and Judy, jellyfish)	Lesson no: 4
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	Paint PVA Glue
Objective:	Paint the eyes Make sure everything is finished
Introduction:	Show them how to paint the eyes onto the paper mashie eyes Make sure every thing is done and covered
Main:	Paint the eyes Then have a trying on session so the children can see what they have made and what they are going to look like on the day.
Plenary:	Hope they have all enjoyed the lessons and are pleased with what they have produced Talk about what they have done.
Outcome:	30 finished costumes that are ready to go into the prosetion.

I think these are much better lesson plans even though I will have a lot to carry to and from the school this is the only way I can see it working.

Budgets

Budgeting was more complex than I had originally thought because you have to think of everything you need to make the 30 costumes pulse the 3 dance leaders. Even though I had made my mini prototype it was still hard to figure out how much of things I would need like plasterzote as this was going to be cut up into legs and this is very hard to judge how best to cut them out what shape to go for ect. It was even hard to calculate how much wire I would need I had to do more of an educated guess.

I have £10 for each child's costume and then £15 for the dance leaders so my total for the hole project is £345

I found it easier to create a list of what I need then find out where to get it from and how much I need.

I had a real problem trying to find plasterzote in purple as the two websites the Uni use do not stock it especially not in the 12mm thick plasterzote.
I tryed the Trylon website: http://www.trylon.co.uk/products/plastazote.htm
and the Kewell Coverters website: http://www.kewell-converters.co.uk/index.htm
Neither one of these had purple plasterzote at 12mm thickness so I started to look ells where and found this website: http://www.hindleys.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=7_57_60_91

Hindleys turned out to be the cheapest one out of all the plasterzote suppliers. I also got the coex plastic from hear as well. Just shows that you do have to look around and find other solutions.

To get the dies for the tiye-dye I need to use proceum dyes with soda ash as this is cold walter dyes.

This is my final Budget sheet:

Moving Tides: School Workshops Materials List

Student Artists Name	Ellen McQuaid
School Name	Radipole
Project Name and basic Description	Moving Tides
Number of costumes to be made	33
Material	Proposed Supplier	Quantity	Cost per item/ sheet	Total per item	Purchased by Moving Tides (MT) by Student Artist (SA) (to be completed by Sarah)
Galvanised Wire	B&Q	2	£3.98	£12.96	I will purchase
Centre Cain	AUCB	2	£10.11	£20.22	I will purchase
Plasterzote	Hindleys	30	£5.59	£168.57	Group purchase
Procion Dye	Alison	15 teaspoons	£1.20	£18.00	I will purchase
Soda Ash	Alison	6 teaspoons	£0.20	£1.20	I will purchase
Cotton	Haberdashery	2 meters	£3.00	£6.00	I will purchase
Cable ties	Wilkinson’s	7	£1.18	£8.26	I will purchase
KOBRA Aerosol spray Paint	Amazon	2	£2.80	£12.24	I will purchase
Corex	Hindleys	1 pack of 10	£26.07	£26.07	Group purchase
Scrap store bag	Scrap store	2	£6.00	£12.00	I will purchase
Cotton Tape	Haberdashery	2 roles	£3.65	£7.30	I will purchase
T-shirts	Polo-shirts.co.uk	33	£0.95 £1.79	£34.77	Group purchase
TOTAL				327.59

Items required to be supplied by the School (e.g. PVA glue, pencils, felt tips etc.)

PVA Paint

I found budgeting a little hard to get my head round but after going through it several times I think I finally got there as I had to remember to include VAT and delivery costs even if we have group purchased them these still need to be split between the amount of people buying the items.

I hope I have remembered everything and got the right amount of products to complete the costumes.

My final designs

Taking everything on board at the Moving Tides meeting I have redrawn my final designs thinking more in detail how the children can make sertan parts and and really understanding my design more. I feel not really doing to much design work before this was really a learning curve because its really easy to design something but then thinking of how to make it what miterers to use and how to constructed was really a different thought process that I am not that use to. And to on top of that think how the children are going to make it. I found I quite hard to do. But overall I am really pleased with my design and the feed back I got from the schools were posotive. There was only really one concern which was that the leges might be slightly to far down the children's backs and make it harder to move. When I make and wear my prototype I will test out wether this would be a problem and how to fix it as I feel it is only something to sort out when you have a prototype.