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Scaling upThis is your basic principal of scaling up and you can use it for any picture you might want a big version of on your playground.
A Tip for ease of line making at this scale: mark where the ends of the lines go on the outside of the grid, then with a willing helper stretch string that you've covered in chalk dust (or rubbed with chalk) tightly between the points touching the ground then one of you pull up the string (keeping it stretched) and PING it down where it will leave a nice straight mark on the surface.
A Word of Warning
"We had a local secondary school, keen to gain arts status, come and offer to design something lovely for the playground. We wanted nursery rhyme/ fantasy/underwater/ tropical island/space themes for our playgrounds. They came up with The Senses. It looked good in their sketchbook - the playground looked like we'd had graffiti all over it! The pictures were too abstract for the Yr1/2 playground and now we're hoping the 5 yr guarantee is invalid! They were supposed to come and do an evaluation with us at the end of the project (summer term 2003) and we're still waiting! It's probably fair to say that both sides were disappointed with the outcome." Please don't let this put you off – just beware of the pitfalls! Sundials
Human Sundial
Paint a large (approx. 8-10ft diameter circle) depicting the sun with its rays. Divide the circle into 12 by drawing lines from the centre point out to the circumference and beyond. Paint a very obvious centre point for your selected child to stand in. If you want to share the task of being the pole between more than one child, make sure you have something for them to stand on to get them to the same height as the tallest child! If the child stands on the centre point on a sunny day then playground chalk can be used to mark off the times on the circumference. Children can be taught the function of a sundial, position of the sun at 12 noon, what happens to shadows during the day, difference between summer and winter shadows. Curriculum - KS1 QCA Unit 1D, KS2 QCA Units 3F, 5E Circuit Training
Paint an electrical circuit like the one shown. Should be big enough for children to run around the lines. Aims to show children how electricity flows around a circuit, why a circuit needs to be complete, the function of switches etc. Game: Two children to be assigned positive and negative, perhaps they wear tabards/hold cards with + and -. These terminals stand in the battery space. 4 children to be assigned Switch 1, 2, 3 etc. Stand in designated spaces on the circuit lines. When a switch is on, children hold both hands in the air. When a switch is off, children hold both hands down. Two children to be assigned Bulb 1 and 2 (hold cards with bright light picture or make a bulb shape with their arms!?). All children with a role stand in their designated spaces on the circuit. The rest of the children queue up behind the positive terminal. On the blow of a whistle the children run around the circuit from positive to negative taking note of the original position of the switches. As the children run past Bulb 1 or 2 they hold their light picture up. The teacher blows a whistle and shouts e.g ‘Switch 2 off’ so Switch 2 puts her hands down and all children running towards that switch stop at the switch. Since children can run through the series and the parallel circuit sometimes the switch will make a difference and sometimes it will not. Also at the blow of the whistle the teacher could shout ‘Reverse the current’ at which point the positive and negative terminals can swap positions and all the children can run the other way around the circuits. As the game progresses children can be taken out of the game by failing to obey switches, occupying the wrong area of the circuit etc. If so they have to go back to the battery area and wait until the next instruction before they can join in again. The game can be used to show how power is distributed in series and parallel circuits, more bulbs can be added etc. Curriculum – KS1 QCA Unit 2F KS2 QCA Unit 4F, 6G Growing Schools ProgrammeGrowing Schools, launched in September 2001, is a government initiative funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Key aims are to:
Growing Schools is about curriculum delivery. It is not an ‘add-on’, nor is it about burdening teachers with additional work. On the contrary, it is about providing access to tried and tested methods that will enable and inspire teachers to use the outdoor classroom as an inherent part of everyday learning. Growing Schools is about raising awareness of the rural sector, of food and where it comes from, of farming and agriculture, of countryside issues and healthy lifestyles, and about increasing understanding and responsibility for the environment. It offers schools a starting point to explore sustainable development issues. The Outdoor Classroom at your fingertips new Growing Schools website launched in May 2004The new website will provide instant access for teachers (Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Special) to the huge information resource that exists relating to outdoor learning in the Education & NGO sectors. It will function as a one-stop directory and database and teachers will be able to find it as a micro will be a micro-site within teachernet resources at www.teachernet.gov.uk/growingschool. The website will provide access to Health and Safety guidance, funding streams, research into the ethos of outdoor and personalised learning. It will feature available training (ITT & CPD both regional and national) for both teachers and providers, lesson plans, teaching resources, suppliers of outdoor resources. As well as all this it will provide access to the myriad of places to visit which, to enable teachers to find farms (many accredited ones), and other field study centres, forest schools, heritage sites nationally, regionally and locally. For further information please contact Growing.Schools@dfes.gsi.gov.uk . If you would like to download a pdf full of useful information about playground painting from Growing schools, plus a couple of really good playground games, and more useful weblinks please click here.Pollination NationPollination Race(KS2 Green Plants 3.d) This game involves teamwork and a lot of running around. An insect like a bee, butterfly, or even a fly if it’s a stinky rainforest flower pollinates the flowers. But watch out a bird is trying to eat the insects! PaintingLarge flowers big enough for several children to stand in the middle of dotted about the playground. How to playDivide the children up into equal teams. Each team starts on the centre of a flower. The aim is to pollinate as many other flowers as possible with pollen (team members) from that team’s flower in the fastest time. One member is acting as pollen and the other as an insect. The insect must accompany the pollen to a new flower. The insect must then return to the original flower to get a new team member to pollinate another flower. No flower can be pollinated by the same team twice. i.e. only one member of a team can occupy the circle in the middle any flower. Ideally no flower should be pollinated twice, so there is only one person in the middle of any flower. But this will depend on how many flowers you have and how big the teams are. Introducing the Predator Someone gets nominated as the bird that eats the insects. They have to catch the insects as they ‘fly’ from flower to flower. If an insect gets caught that person is out of the game and the team nominates a new insect. If an insect gets caught while transferring pollen the person acting as the pollen is also out of the game. The person acting as the insect can change on each pollen run if the team wishes, so one person doesn’t have to do all the running. You can make the flower circles safe spaces for insects and their pollen if the insects are being caught too easily. |
This was sent by teacher Marjorie Crowder of Brampton Primary School, Bexleyheath, Kent, who had her fingers a bit burnt by the playground painting experience – the classic rule (keep it simple!) wasn't adhered to in this case, and it sounds like the brief wasn't listened to. It's your playground – make sure you get what you need and what you and the kids can actually USE, because it takes a long time to wear off if you don't!
Place a pole in the playground (if you have a suitable hole, if not perhaps in a big summer shade umbrella stand) and paint on the shadow every hour to make a shadow clock. (Perhaps use a different colour for each different day or month.) Mark on the playground where your stand or pole goes, as you want it to be in the exact same place each time you paint. Activities would involve measuring and checking time versus length throughout the term/week/year and to explain why there will be major differences during a term. Paint needs to be non weatherproof so that it disappears after 6-8 weeks. (Suggest very watered down interior emulsion, which you should be able to scrub off with hot water and a stiff brush – test on your surface first!)
