Endangered Animals: Kirkheaton Primary School Project

We visited Kirkheaton primary school in May 2021, the year 4 classes wanted to learn about endangered creatures and to explore textile techniques. Having a textile background, I was very eager to help this school learn some new skills, using a variety of materials that they may not have come across before.

Around the time that we were planning this project, Kirklees were starting to advertise their biannual community project: WOVEN in Kirklees. We decided that we would showcase the final piece in our Create Space, here at Globe Arts, as part of this festival, alongside our Howard Asher Garden gallery exhibition.

The school wanted us in for a full day, split into two x 2 hour sessions, with their year 4 pupils, 54 children in total. I decided on having a similar scheme running throughout the entire day, but with a few different tasks for each of the sessions. 
In the week running up to my visit, each of the classes learnt a few simple textiles techniques, and I set them the task to do some wet felting, which I’d need for the finished product after the school visit. They projected up onto the screens in their classrooms, and followed my YouTube video, learning together as a class - ‘how to wet felt’ (Watch it on our YouTube channel here)
Myself and one of the teachers emailed back and forth to come up with the project that would suit the learning needs of both the students, and teachers.

“It was terrific CPD for myself and the other teacher in the room and we can’t wait for Globe Arts to visit again for our next year group project.“ - Katie Field, Year 3 Teacher

We did little bit of research, and found some endangered creatures from across the globe, that they might not learn about in school. Images of these animals would then be that transformed into our special custom made vinyl stickers!

Thinking about where these animals live on the globe, the children added fantastical colours and patterns reminiscent of their habitats, using fabric pastels on to heavy cotton. Children from both sessions added to these pieces of art, using a mixture of pastels and markers, making it a truly collaborative piece!

Next, the slightly tricky, but fun task, was natural stick weaving. Each child had a coloured ball of yarn, which they wrapped around two twigs tied in a cross. The results were great! No 2 were alike, each child had their own way of twisting and turning the sticks to get the yarn wrapped around. I demonstrated these smaller technique on the visualisers in the classroom, which was a great way for them to see what I was doing in real time, so they could make at the same time as me. These can be seen on the outer edge of the piece.

The final piece, hung in Create Space, Globe Arts Studio

Once the school workshops were over, the construction began for myself and the Globees back in our studio. We had to assemble all of the individual pieces into the final creation above.

Jackie and Becca used some simple appliqué methods to patchwork everything together.

“I also really liked the weaving because it was tricky at the start but then I got it and I can see it on the final piece. Thank you Globe Arts! Can you come again please?” - Year 4 child 

We absolutely love getting out into the community, visiting schools, and delivering fun, bespoke projects! If you’d like to arrange for us to come to your School or place of work for a one off workshop, click the links and have a read of our general workshop form here