‘What’s in a Building’ Art and ICT Primary Year 5

Pupils from Colbourne Primary School in the West Midlands exploring the theme ‘Can Buildings Speak’ at the Black Country Museum in Dudley West Midlands . The project was co-ordinated by Park View City Learning Centre Alum Rock Birmingham using their mobile ICT suite on site at the museum.
On arrival at the Museum the pupils were given a guided tour of the site by two assistants in Victorian costume. The pupils used the opportunity to ask questions about the buildings they were interested in before choosing one to investigate more thoroughly.
They then proceeded to make drawings, rubbings and notes about their chosen building as well as recording particular architectural features using a digital camera.

During the lunch break the pupils digital photographs were downloaded on to the mobile suite of laptops that had been set up in one of the museums education rooms.

The afternoon session focused on developing a digital collage in Adobe Photoshop using elements from the digital photographs each pupil had taken. Each pupil was challenged to think about what they had experienced during the morning and to use parts of the digital photographs that represented their thoughts and feelings about the building they had investigated.

Completing the work
Two days later the pupils spent half a day at the Park View City Learning Centre in Alum Rock in Birmingham to complete their designs.

After reviewing the images they created on site at the museum the pupils used either a camera or scanner to digitise their sketches and rubbings made during the visit. They then incorporated elements of their drawings and rubbings in to the digital collages and used the layers option in Photoshop to merge the fragments together their images together.
Finally the pupils were asked to use text to incorporate some of their own thoughts or quotes they had recorded during the visit in to their designs.