Trails and Workshops for Key Stage One and the Foundation Stage

Can Buildings Speak?

KS1: Art and Design 1a 1b 2b 2c 4a 4b 4c 5d

KS1: RE 1d 3h 3l 3o

The Cathedral is alive with shapes, patterns and textures. The pupils explore these throughout the building recording their observations through sketches and rubbings, using a variety of drawing materials. These ideas are then used as the stimulus for a clay tile workshop. This enables the pupils to draw on their first hand observations and to interpret the shapes and patterns they have found around the building.

The designs the children produce could be used as the basis for a longer project back at school including discussions about how this particular building 'speaks' to its visitors.

'Can Buildings Speak?' works very well when combined with a 'Signs and Symbols' trail. This involves the children becoming detectives, tracking down Christian Symbols around the building and considering their significance and meaning.

Five Senses

FS: Knowledge and Understanding of the World, Personal and Social Development

KS1: Sc1 2b 2f    Sc3 1a 1b 1c 1d 2b

KS1: RE 1a 1b 1d 1e

The children investigate the Cathedral using all their senses. Sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste are all used to explore the building and its use as a Christian place of worship. The children are encouraged to use simple scientific vocabulary and to identify which of their senses are most appropriate for the objects they are investigating. Searching for symbols, smelling herbs and flowers, listening for music and bells, making rubbings of surfaces and tasting Easter Eggs are just a few examples of how we help the children to make sense of the place they have come to visit.

Shape and Pattern

FS: Mathematical Development, Creative Development

Join the hunt for shapes and patterns around the Cathedral. This building is full of interesting shapes and patterns waiting to be discovered by our visitors. We will begin by uncovering the shape of the Cathedral and then creating the same shape with our own bodies. Then we will become shape and pattern detectives locating and naming familiar shapes around the building, discovering and making repeating patterns and recording some of them by making rubbings to take back home as a reminder of the day.

Materials

KS1: Sc1 2b 2f   Sc3 1a 1b 1c 1d 2b

Children explore the Cathedral using their sense of touch, investigating the materials used in and around the building. Handling and locating the Roman brick, flint and limestone used to build the Cathedral are important elements along with considering the use of wood and glass throughout the building. The children will identify properties of all of these materials e.g. rough, smooth, hard, shiny, transparent and think about why certain materials would have been chosen for different jobs. For example was it because they were strong, transparent, easy to find or a regular shape? As part of the trail each child is given a badge to wear with a piece of key vocabulary or a question on and as we work our way around the building we encourage them to use these words to describe the materials and to answer questions about them. This is an excellent opportunity to experience and handle a variety of materials and to consider them in a real and practical context.