Beechcroft Workshop 2 - Painting masks, Tentacles and Latex Experimentation

Because of the speed that the students completed the last session in, I learnt from this and made sure there was plenty to do this session as I have a full day with them... Again I had so many materials to carry into the school, however, there was no way around this so just something I have to get used to! I had 120 Thin plasterzote tentacles, 31 Green plasterzote masks, a Huge bottle of latex and the bits and bobs to experiment with. 


The reception I have received from the children so far is great! They were even more enthused about this session knowing that there would be a lot of creative work to get messy with and that many of the parts of the costume would be finished by the end of this session. There have been numerous questions before they had even sat down on the carpet.. "Kirsty what part are we doing today?" "Are we making the tentacles?" "When will it all be finished??" showing their keeness to the project that they are itching to get started. 


I had been warned prior to this lesson that whatever coloured paints you give to children, they will always want different ones, (one child said "why do we have to be green? cant I be red?") or mix all the colours they have and make one lovely grey/brown sludge of a colour!! However, some masks did turn out really really well and some of the children were neat, careful and really took care of the presentation, this just shows the difference in artistic ability in the class, but however able they       are, everyone seemed to enjoy painting the masks, so I guess that is what matters. I am no way near a perfectionist, but working with children who have a short attention and concentration span has made me quite a fusspot about my work, and find myself trying to help them more than necessary. The teacher of the class also told me that you just need to let them get on with it as they have their own idea of what is perfect to them. To the left are some examples of the variety of masks that they have created....


The next stage in the costume making process was to paint the tentacles. This was not a difficult task (or so i thought) however, got extremely messy and didn't help when a number of children decided to rip off their aprons. I'm sure their mums weren't best pleased with green children arrived home! But having 120 painted tentacles lying on the table was very satisfying indeed!!

The experimentation was the last part of the session and I thought I made a good choice in taking this session in two parts with half the class at a time




Now that I have completed two workshops sessions I think my confidence in teaching has really improved. I feel like I really get on with children now and think that they are learning to respect me and my teaching. I have learnt that when I am demonstrating the next step, I need to be extremely clear about EXACTLY what I want to be done, as this will grab those who lack concentration's attention and benefit me from explaining myself numerous times.