The completed mural

Here is the completed animal mural. Below are closeups of the animals. Thankyou to the children who worked with me to make parts of the mural, the leaves, the tree, rocks, grass etc. You did fabulous work. And thankyou for giving me encouragement and sitting and watching me and having wonderful conversations about the process. I enjoyed working with you.

Close-ups of animals in the finished mural

Here are some close-ups of the animals in the finished mural with their names. Their names are from the stories and songs of Murrindindi which the children often listen to on his CD.

putting it together

Here is the butterfly that Christian made for the mural. It is flying nearby.

Here is a view of how the mural is progressing.All the pieces are gradually being glued on and the mosaic pieces put in between to fill in the background.

Here is the tile slicer that Debbie brought to Kinder today, to cut up rectangles for the border. The children enjoyed watching the tiles being cut on this machine.

More hands playing with the fired clay pieces.

The animals arrive

Here is the black swan

here is the eagle

here is waang the crow

Here is a crocodile that Kristian has added to the scene.

leaves from the kiln

Here are some of he fired leaves. The children made them by rolling out clay and then rolling a leaf into the clay. The clay was then cut into leaf shapes and then painted them with various coloured underglazes.

Here are some rocks and a grub that the children also made.

The children have enjoyed picking up their fired leaves and tree branches to look at them.

Making symbols out of clay

Some of the children used clay to copy some of the symbols that Wurundjeri Elder, Murrundindi, drew for the children when he visited the kindergarten. The children enjoyed talking about the meanings of the symbols and painting the clay pieces that they had made.

The children played with clay again. The three year olds enjoyed mixing the two colours together. Debbie made a possum, a snake, koala and platypus. Some children made some of the Aboriginal symbols for waterhole, animal tracks and meetings out of clay.

creative children

more of the marvellous work that the kids have made.

making the tree

Today we worked on making the tree. Over the day, Debbie worked with two groups of four-year-olds to make tree trunks, branches and leaves. The children experimented with textures by pressing leaves, pips and bits of bark and wood into the clay. The children also made some letters, because some of the animals will have their Wurundjeri names written underneath them. Some children found some more interesting things to do with clay and leaves.

Debbie works on some animals

Here are some photos of Debbie making some animals. She is using some photos from the internet on her i-pad to make sure that she gets the details of the animals correct. Here she is making two black swans and a crow. You can see that around her there is a lot of creative action as the children are using rolling pins and tools to make their own things.

creative work from the children

Here are some of the creative pieces of claywork, made by the children as they work with Debbie. They have used different tools and two colours of clay.

the children make animals

While Debbie was making two swans and an eagle, the children were making animals too.