Can You Make A Home For Me?

We decided to make a collaborative art piece, sparked from one of our interests and local residents the frogs. It’s been neat having the tadpoles here at Uxbridge so we can explore the lifecycle, habitat and features of tadpoles and frogs. Art is a great way of expressing oneself but we can also gain an understanding of the children's prior knowledge (what they know about a topic) from a simple drawing, in this case a habitat. The kaiako were interested to use this piece of art to collectively gain what the children already knew about frog habitats, then we will compare this with another art colab, after we learn more about our froggy friends.

Set out was a large piece of white paper, some paints and frogs with the question “Can you build a home for me?” , they set to work.

“I have a little swamp over here.”- Leo G

“I have made mine like a spa. It has a hot part and one part is cold.”-Cam

“That is a pond I do.”- Chloe

“I’m mixing yellow, brown and green to make swampy water.”- Elle

“This colour is two. Mix paint.” - Harrison

As you can see from the narration of the children, they are not only talking about the habitats of the frogs but gaining art theory, through practical exploration of colour-mixing. Ka Pai Tamariki!

Now as we watch and wonder...What is happening to our tadpoles? Have a look in our tank...I spy with my little eye something that begins with L and rhymes with pegs….”