Term 4 2008 Gallery

Croydon West Primary School




Learnscaping our school

For some years now at Croydon West Primary School we have been redeveloping our school grounds to provide fantastic learning spaces for our children. Not only does it provide authentic learning opportunities for our students but it has had a positive impact on the culture of our school and behaviour and attitudes of our students. We have also been fortunate to win various State Schools garden awards and recently were finalists in the Sustainable Cities Proud Schools award. We began some years ago working with our students to redesign various garden areas using their ideas and often with them constructing, planting and maintaining them. We now have chooks, veggies, an orchard; our Peace Garden, The Bush Tucker Garden, a Frog habitat, a Sensory garden and more recently our students have designed a Discovery Garden. We found that as our children became more involved in our gardens, it was there that they chose to play, constructing play environments from found natural materials. (Cubbies, mini worlds, etc.)

During the holidays we dug up a large area of asphalt and landscapers, working on elements of the children’s designs, created a wonderful garden using only natural materials. The students’ design brief was to create a play space which would be inclusive for all ages and abilities, was safe, used natural materials, provided a space for discovery and was fun. They created drawings of their concepts and included elements of water, rocks, grassy hills, tunnels, caves, sand, seating, plants, an arch, a path etc. While not every element of their design was possible, when they returned very excitedly after the holidays, they all could see something they each had envisioned.

We were blessed with an amazingly perfect week of sunshine when the students returned which allowed me as the Art Teacher/Sustainable Futures Teacher to begin using this wonderful space for my art sessions and Sustainable Futures lessons.

Some of the activities included:

  • Discussions about texture, shape, line, form.
  • Finding and matching colours from small colour samples in our Discovery Garden.
  • Mixing colours to match our colours in the garden using Ocaldo Blocks (great for outdoor art sessions!).
  • Using a small viewing frame to focus in on a texture in our garden. Students drew one they loved using a 4B grey lead. They then used Ocaldo Paints to add colour. As they had already explored this, they were very confident.
  • Observational drawing of seed pods found in our school yard. Link to botanic art. We used magnifying glasses to focus in on texture and form.
  • Drawing eucalyptus leaves in Artline Liquid Crayons on long narrow pieces of paper. Students then sprayed a little water on to their drawing to allow the colours to blend. They added texture and markings on their leaf.
  • Students used viewing frames and Portfolio Pastels to create artworks of the amazing bark on some of our many trees. This blew away the preconceived concept of using brown and green for trees as some students discovered that greys and white was needed instead. Smudging and blending techniques created amazing results. Students then chose a tree to draw using Portfolio Pastels.

In the past we have used our gardens to inspire us to paint (Springtime in our Flower Garden), create sculptures (Clay circles of friends and Peace doves in our Peace garden), creating signage for different gardens, chook drawings, soft chook sculptures, environmental art, insect and cocoon sculptures etc. etc. Our students have learned to love their environment, observe and record changes and notice interesting textures, colours and forms. It is wonderful to work in such an environment!


Copyright 2008 Zart Art & Zart Education