The
purpose of this series of workshops was to create a fun
but thought provoking activity for children in the area
from many different cultural groups. Many of the groups
taking part were culture-specific and made collage trees,
with the idea in mind that although almost all cultures
around the world have trees, each cultural group creates
a different generic tree influenced by what is found near
to the base of particular cultures. For instance the Greek
group tree is based around a fig tree, the SASA group
around a mango tree etc.
To promote thinking about how cultures can link together
and have many crossovers, the children were asked to think
about what they had in common with individuals from any
culture – as human beings – and these thoughts
were displayed on the trees.
SASA (Showing Another Side of Africa)
The group was originally created to disseminate the
more positive aspects of Africa and they decided to
use this opportunity to take part in a fun activity
which also shows them as individuals who are proud of
their cultural heritage. The resulting tree shows hand
prints to represent the individuals and photographs
of both the children and related adults to show a little
more about who they are.
Newtown Adventure Playground
This was a group of children who visit the Adventure
Playground on a drop-in basis from various cultures.
They created a collage tree as one of several activities
on offer.
Punjabi Language Group.
This group have created a tree which also includes writing
in both English and Punjabi about what people across
the world have in common. The class also created hand
print leaves to represent themselves.
Greek Cultural Group
These two groups based their tree around the traditional
Greek fig tree and they also wrote about commonalties
among different cultures in both Greek and English using
hand prints for fig leaves.
Maytree School.
Children in Year 2 created network pictures about what
individuals have in common with their friends. The children
took Polaroid photographs of each other, stuck them
onto boards then linked the pictures with writing about
what they have in common with another classmate. This
was a very new concept for the children to consider.
Mount Pleasant Junior School Library Club.
Children from all years at the school attend this club
but those who participated were from years 3, 4 and
5. The children took photographs using Polaroid and
digital cameras and then stuck them onto trees with
linking statements about what they have in common with
each other, in the same way that Maytree School had
done. This was completed as a fun lunch hour activity.
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