PROJECT TITLE: Old Mac’s Farm Scarecrow

(Term 2 and Term 3, 2024)

School Name: Walpole Primary School

Teacher’s Name:  Annette Burrow

Year Group: PP/ K

Number of students: 15

Creative’s Name:  Nathan Vass Viney

Creative Practice(s):  Cartoonist and writer

Main Curriculum focus: Literacy

Cross-Curriculum links: Art, Science and HASS

Project overview

Creative Practitioner, Nathan Vass Viney and Early Childhood teacher, Annette Burrow ran educational and engaging activities over the course of 15 weeks to a class of students aged between 4 to 6 years old. With an aim to inspire learning in Literacy, Art, Science and HASS, sessions were designed to help students get creative and try new ways of thinking. Over two terms, students participated in activities relating to our main themes; nursery rhymes and scarecrows. These themes led us to our final outcome: Constructing a class scarecrow of Old Mac Donald with student participation.

The final goal was to have our wonderful class scarecrow participating in 2024’s Perth Royal Show School Scarecrow competition. The competition states, “ Ignite creativity and foster agricultural awareness among your students with the “Agriculture in Children’s Rhymes & Stories” Scarecrow Competition at the Perth Royal Show. Think Old MacDonald Farm, Little Bo Peep, This Little Piggy, Mary Had a Little Lamb and much more…”

The initial competition idea came from Principal, Stuart Klose, who thought it fit nicely alongside the URWalpole curriculum study word: DIRT. This programme focuses on Nature, Future and Culture and is run at Walpole Primary School every year.

“We looked at different nursery rhymes, acted them out, dressed up as different characters and created our own versions of nursery rhymes. We brainstormed different characters, ideas and settings that we could use to start to create our scarecrow. We made collages of scarecrows using different materials to help us imagine what our scarecrow could look like. We explored different areas of agriculture such as plants and gardens, insects and different types of weather/seasons throughout the year. We discussed why we need a scarecrow, what is its purpose and what materials or objects could we use to make our scarecrow. Through this process we had some fantastic conversations about farming and the students were able to make connections through their own experiences and add their previous knowledge to enhance the discussions and activities that we created.” - Annette Burrow

The greatest accomplishment over the course of the two terms, was the student's incorporation of 5 Habits of Learning in everyday learning. Over time, students grew better understandings of definitions and ways of thinking in relation to the Habits.

“They have learned how to identify which habit they have been in throughout their activity and can give their own explanation of why they are in that learning habit. Throughout this whole program the students have been engaged, motivated and eager to participate and learn through the many awesome activities that Nathan created.” - Annette Burrow

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How did we make the curriculum come alive?

We established early on that due to the Nursery Rhymes theme, Literacy was going to be an important focus. With regular warm-up sessions, Nathan gave the students activities that inspired creative thinking when it came to storytelling and rhyming words. Students were also asked to think of foods that began with the first letter of their name. Many of these activities natural led to students getting creative with Art. Getting hands-on with drawing and craft felt right for this age group.

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How did we make the 5 Habits of Learning come alive?

Our class made connections with the 5 habits of learning throughout all learning opportunities and discussed how we were being persistent or imaginative etc. We created games that included each habit, describing and using each one as we went. We linked the colours from the 5 habits to fun, engaging activities and we found that this helped the students to make more connections within them.

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How did we activate student voice and learner agency?

Every session began with a warm-up to get the creative minds whirring.

“Let’s start with something that interests you. This was an idea that if we start off with a spark that relates to each student, the mind will open up to learn, listen and engage. This is why many of my activities began with a student’s interests or a student’s name.
It’s sort of how I think, I search for ways that other subjects connect with my own interests, suddenly I’m ready to learn more. Of course, many warm-ups relied on fun first, learn second! Which also worked. We did one warm-up where we swapped ‘What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?’ to ‘What’s the Time, Mr. Scarecrow?’ They had a lot of fun with that one.” - Nathan Vass Viney

Students often worked in groups during sessions. This allowed students to bounce off ideas and relate by interests. During activities such as ‘Acting out Nursery Rhymes’, students were able to perform creative words to the rest of the class. These activities even inspired some of the more shy students to take to the stage.

“We encouraged students to give feedback to their peers and teachers regarding how they felt about what they have been participating in and this allowed them to have responsibility and ownership of their learning.” - Annette Burrow

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WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?

Student:

“The students thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Creative Schools Project and the hands-on creativity was great to see.” - Annette Burrow.

“On another table, student 1 was saddened that her art was covered by someone else’s. After a short discussion with the other student, student 1 decided it was not worth the battle and that she would much rather dive right back into the art. She chose to embrace the other students' creative decision. I rarely see this level of patience and understanding, even in adults, so a big congratulations to her!” - Nathan Vass Viney

“When asked about each Learning Habit’s definition, we were surprised to discover that most students now had a great understanding of most of the words. The only word that could not be fully described to me was Disciplined, which is understandable. The students are doing an incredible job and have come such a long way with the Learning Habits.” - Nathan Vass Viney

Creative:

“The students did so well learning the Habits. I was pleasantly surprised by this and loved seeing their ‘outside-the-box’ thinking develop.

I really enjoyed working with and watching Annette use her Teacher magic (classroom experience) to the benefit of student learning. I do think we worked quite well as a team as well.” - Nathan Vass Viney