A blob of blue plasticine

For some reason last night I decided to log on to myspace. This is something I've not done for about 4 years and was surprised it still let me. Originally I did it with the thought of closing my account down; what it did was brought back lots of memories about projects I was involved in before I was, and just as I became, a teacher and all the cool stuff we did and I thought I would blog some of it here just because :)

Several years ago I was very lucky to be involved in a Lottery funded project known as the Arts Meets Environment Festival (or AMEF for short).

This project was set up for young people in my local area to provide all sorts of fabulous things to do: filming workshops, music workshops, drama, clay and pottery, and even organising our own music festival. It was fab and I got a lot of experiences I wouldn't have if it had not existed. 

On one of the days we went out filming/photographing we were given a blob of blue plasticine. The premise was that the vibrant blue was not a colour naturally found in the environment and you had to make something, photograph it and send it back to the artist. We got a little bit carried away with our blue blobs and here is the resulting video I made last night from just some of the photos I found:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lkx4UDOZ4I?wmode=transparent]

It got me thinking what would happen if we did the same with children, or what other things we could do it with and how it could be turned into a greater learning opportunity.

We had many fabulous days out learning new things with AMEF; sadly it no longer runs as it didn't get any further funding beyond it's first three years which is a great shame as young people need projects like this.