Creative Classroom Ideas - Autumn
Developing Creativity in the Classroom
The Creative Classroom
Establishing the right mix of creativity along with everyday curriculum helps pupils to be innovative and also encourages them to learn new and interesting things.
All pupils can grow and develop as good communicators, in addition to improving their emotional and social skills.
Learning with fun in a Creative Classroom allows all pupils to be themselves, take necessary risks to achieve and embrace the culture of learning in a fun and practical way.
How do I implement a Creative approach?
Where possible, and when time allows, I am continually looking for ways to integrate the world outside our window and then develop these exciting ideas in the classroom setting.
Each week, I allow the children in my class to have a 45 minute Golden Time session, where the children get to choose what activities they would like to do.
The main premiss for the lesson is to be creative and make sure our learning is fun and interesting, which is slightly different from the requirements of the everyday school curriculum, which as we know can be rather mundane with similar subjects/lessons being repeated across the week.
At the start of the week
We carry out a short collaborative group work activity that allows the children to think freely, discuss ideas and then note down these ideas and add them to our growing list.
All of our ideas are meaningful, thought-provoking and wonderfully creative. These responses are then presented by the children through working together and sharing ideas in an open and collaborative approach.
Once our ideas have been established through either a game or discussion, this then determines a clear direction on what we want to learn and achieve in the 45 minutes session, on Friday afternoons.
Each time we do this, I am so proud of what we achieve, it is very productive. All of our ideas are incredibly innovative, and nearly always involve making something, developing our practical skills and satisfying inquisitive minds.
Almost always, our attention focuses on a world topic or global issue. The weather, climate change, plastic, conservation, animals, space and the changing seasons always remain high on the list of activities.
Autumn
With Autumn here this gave us the chance to get outside and observe some of the changes. The changes in the weather and how the clouds move across the sky.
The many varieties of leaves outside on show and why do particular trees take longer to change colour than others?
The possibilities are endless, and the questions keep coming. With that said, this week we focused our attention to the leaves and in particular the colour variations and patterns.
In working groups, we looked at a variety of different leaves. We made notes about their general appearance, took images using the ipads and began to manipulate the colours on the screen, into something new and perhaps something unique.
We developed this further and had a table completing leaf rubbings and then writing simple descriptive sentences about what we observed. Also, we integrated artwork, by sketching in pencil what we saw and then adapted our presentation skills by mixing watercolours to achieve a match.
To further develop our written and linguistic work, we wrote descriptive words on to paper and adapted them into expressive pieces of creative writing and thought-provoking poetry.
To summarise
It's not Rocket Science. It is not new or particularly unique. It is though something that is needed and the perfect way to maintain a cross-curricular approach.
It does create a creative classroom and a working environment my class thoroughly enjoy. It is calm, imaginative, inventive, and overarching it remains a lot of fun.
These important sessions allow the children to relax and unwind, follow their instincts and be willing, as a group or individually to take risks or fail.
There is no doubt, in these particular lessons, we are creating many valuable learning opportunities and providing children with a collective desire to achieve what they thought they couldn't.
On many occasions, we do not have time to complete but recognise that these are often tasks where key learning takes place combined with high levels of enjoyment.
Thank You
For reading this latest post and I hope it serves as inspiration for you to do something creative within your own setting. Whether that be in the classroom, workplace or outdoor environment.
Please feel free to like, dislike, comment and share. Any feedback is hugely appreciated and is used to develop future content.
