watch a film of the children making with clay

Hi everyone, here is some film footage which shows how the children were making the fish and the alphabet letters for the mural. http://youtu.be/Up0_NVhE5fA click on the link to go directly to youtube and watch.

wednesday's fish

Wednesday's fish filled nine wooden boards. We also made a lot of letters and many jellyfish.

The children chose fish from a selection of photographs that we had sourced from the internet. The fish are those that are found in Port Phillip Bay and are eaten. The children had fun making, rock flathead, whiting, anchovies, snapper, whiting,pilchards, calimari, gummy shark, black bream and garfish.

more tuesday fish and letters

Its a colourful calamari! The children also made letters for our writing in the mural which will pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which the centre is built. We will need lots of beautiful letters for the words.

The letters are made in a plaster mould. The children press the clay into the mould and Debbie removes the letter with a fork. The children became very good at tidying the edges of the letters and painting them.

Tuesday's fish and letters

Today a class of four-year-olds made lots of beautiful fish. Above is a Black Bream.

Above : A Snapper!

Above and Below: The children also made many little anchovies. Some almost got eaten by the gummy shark before they made it to the kiln. There were some plastic templates that children could trace to make their own anchovies.

Purple group's fish

Here are some more fish being made by the three year old children at Altona North Early Childhood Centre. The children have made the fish out of white earthenware clay. The fish are decorated with liquid underglazes. Debbie will take them home to dry them out in her bungalow. Then they will be taken to Sunbury to be fired. After firing the first time. They will be coated with glaze and put into the kiln again. When they come out they will be bright and shiny!

Here, someone is making a rock flathead!

Monday's Purple Group's fish making

On Monday the three year old children from Purple group made their fish for the wave of fish wall. They rolled out some clay and then chose which fish they would like to make. Pictures of native fish from Port Phillip Bay were given to them, to choose from. The children are making ceramic native fish that will become a mosaic mural on one of the walls in the Childhood Centre's entrance. The Mosaic Mural has been designed to acknowledge and pay respect to the ancestors of the land on which the centre is built. The traditional owners of the Land were the Yulukit Wilum, of the Boonwarrung Language Group. The Boonwarrung People had rules about when to catch fish. They would not catch fish fish when they were spawning, in order to protect the species and to ensure food would be available in future. The mural will pay homage to these rules that existed to protect the environment and the food supply. It will also remind us of the continuing importance of having respect for the environment. The background of the mural will be a wave shape that reminds us of the great flooding of Port Phillip Bay which has been recorded in both Western History and through the Creation Stories of the Boonwarrung People.