Trash to Fashion - Initial lesson

We gained an understanding of what Trash to Fashion involves: the rules, expectations, time frames, and the themes to choose from.

All day the children have been working in small groups that constantly changed with each activity. This was done so everyone gets to know each other and for the chance to work with people outside their circle of friends. Next week the children will have to choose groups to work in, to design and create their costume. By working with many children in the class they may have found a like minded person never before considered for their group.

We discussed trash and recycling and looked at past Trash to Fashion winning costumes.

To get they creative juices flowing I included two fun activities. The first was an old favourite: draw a head, fold paper to hide it, pass to next person who draws shoulders to middle body, cover, pass on, next person draws mid body to thigh, cover, pass to last person who draws to the feet. The theme was: looking through a telescope into outer space a creature is looking back at you. What does it look like?

This got many of the children thinking outside the square in a low risk environment.

The second activity was to dress a model in some materials I found in a cupboard at school. The theme: The kings party. They were given 10 minutes to dress the model, working in groups of three. It was amazing to see how they solved the problem of attaching the materials. (no glue, tape, pins, staples were allowed).

The discussion with the children after showed that they had considered the use of colour in the decision making. This was interesting because we had not discussed colour at all.