Planning Displays July 24, 2007
Posted by Linda in : displays advice , 2comments
1. 3D Art Display, 2. Medusa, 3. sunflowerdisplay.jpg, 4. Sunflowers and Bees - detail, 5. seasidedisplay.jpg, 6. Asset Map - Detail, 7. School Project Asset Map, 8. Class 3H Pirate Day Display, 9. 1st Grade, 10. Women’s History Month, 11. Land Use, 12. The Romans, 13. DoReMiFaSoLaTiDo, 14. DoReMiFaSoLaTiDo, 15. DoReMiFaSoLaTiDo, 16. DoReMiFaSoLaTiDo
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Three years ago, when I started the Classroom Displays group on Flickr, I had a vision of great displays all over the world being torn down and vanishing for ever at this time of year. All that work and all those great learning ideas gone. Whilst in other classrooms, or even down the corridor, other people were tearing their hair out trying to think of new ideas. I wanted to find a way to change that.
There are well over 700 images in the group pool now and over 150 active members from all over the world. The group is growing faster now than ever before and there are some fantastic images of displays as you can see from this slideshow.
David over at Booruch describes in his podcast how he used the Classroom Displays Group on Flickr to help him plan next terms displays with his classroom assistant. They spent a Friday afternoon with the slideshow from the group up the interactive whiteboard and used the images as the basis of a discussion. This seems to me a really powerful way of working with the inspiration that the group provides, collaboratively analysing and reflecting on what they saw, seeing how it might fit or jar with their context.
I also think this is a great use of the whiteboard for staff development. This is a tool that the children are used to using for their learning but it can be just as powerful a learning tool for staff.
The Great Fire of London April 25, 2007
Posted by Linda in : history , 2comments
I like this display from Clare in the Sparklebox Displays Gallery. The use of a black background with the red mounting and border emphasises the dramatic nature of the subject. I think the flame shaped ‘fast facts’ work well too. I’d like to have seen the children’s work mounted onto red too and perhaps even shaped like the facts. It might be petty of me but I’d also like the work to be either lined up straight or deliberately skewed - just off square grates on my visual senses 
The Great Fire of London is an important topic for Year 2 history. The QCA guidelines give a good framework for dealing with what could be a difficult subject for Keystage 1 and seem to have the level about right.
With more TAs finding themselves teaching classes like History to cover PPA time I think we’ll see lessons sticking even closer to the QCA. It would be a shame though if they didn’t take the chance to explore some of the more interesting web based resources for the topic.
- The Museum of London has a Day by Day guide to the fire which is a bit like a blog.
- Samuel Pepys is an interesting site but it’s going to need a lot of interpreting for Year 2
- There are also some basic free downloads relating to the topic to use in displays available on the Sparklebox web site.
