The University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre's Eco-Cubby has now been completed. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work for all involved: Children, Architect, teachers and builder!
We are so excited and are very proud of their achievement, as are they!
The cubby will be officially opened in September and we look forward to hearing about how the children are interacting with their new play space.
Check it out!!!
Things have been busy in the University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre playground lately - Eco-Cubby is GO and it looks fantastic!
The construction of the cubby has been the focus of curriculum planning throughout the centre and the children have been totally immersed in the building as it emerges within their play space.
Building the cubby has now changed the dynamic of the playground and it's existing structures and landscaping. The centre is now prompted to reconsider the whole outside space within the context of what they have learnt about sustainable design. This in turn will provide the children with further opportunities to investigate design through authentic, hands-on learning in a rich and creative environment.
Well done everyone - this is inspirational!
We are very excited to announce that construction begins this week on the mud brick and recycled timber Eco-Cubby at the University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre!
After much fundraising and dedication from the team of teachers at the centre, work is finally starting in the playground! The build will be the focus of the children's learning over the next few weeks and teachers have developed an intensive centre-wide program that will lead children through the building process.
What a fantastic follow through learning opportunity for the children! We can't wait to see what eventuates, and will post some photos when we get a sneak peek of the build.
Congratulations everyone!
Teacher Rachel, and a parent doing some hard yakka - shoveling clay for the making of last years mudbricks!
Ann Ferguson and Rachel Giansiracusa from the University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre are presenting their Eco-Cubby project outcomes at the Environmental Education in Early Childhood Victoria (EEEC) Conference.
Their presentation will showcase the project as undertaken by a group of three year old children and their families, and will demonstrate the rich and diverse learning processes they developed through the centre's emergent curriculum and Visual language program.
The children have been very busy of late and I have visited twice in the past week. Firstly I visited their mud-brick making day and secondly to see the children create a floor plan of the cubby on their site. With much effort on behalf of parents and staff, the centre made their own mud-bricks (about 150 bricks in total) and the playground is now all things Eco-Cubby. Numerous satellite structures have popped up around the space – an Eco-Cubby village! The children are gaining a lot from these structures as they provide lovely intimate places to play in and explore.
This week during their visual literacy session, the Waratah group were led by Anne and architect Mat Foley through a series of design decisions to create a floor plan. Using collected plastic milk bottles and twine, they explored various shapes: a triangle, a square, a circle. Mapping the space by placing milk bottles side by side along the string line to create one large oblong shape, the children observed:
“It looks like a whale…”
“How does the sun get inside?”
“How will we get in? We need a door…”
“The sun goes in the window”
The children then created observational drawings of the floor plan and spoke about the design features they had included.
Waratah’s you are doing such a fantastic job!
heave-ho! mixing the clay and straw
The finished bricks laying out to dry
collection of milk bottles used to map out the cubby floor plan
a triangle
one more bottle to make a square
filling in the shape
we need a door
the finished shape - "it looks like a whale....!"
drawing the plan
a finished plan drawing
"I drew the cubby house. The sun shines through the door..."
other cubbies in the playground
experimenting with cane and natural materials
what a lovely space!
Things have been busy at the University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre and the children’s latest activities have included making different types of twig structures. The children are having glorious sensory experiences as they investigate clay in its many different forms. Most recently, the children have used clay in slip (liquid) form to paint over their twig structures.
Paperbark for the roof and a carpet of golden leaves!
The finished structures
On Thursday 14th May I visited the Uni Melbourne ELC, located in Abbotsford near the fantastic Abbotsford Convent and the Collingwood Children’s Farm.
I joined the Waratah Group to adventure into the big wide world outside the centre to make a cubby near the river bank. The children had been investigating designs and housing shapes through clay modelling and engaging in building walls on a small scale using clay bricks.
We ventured off with our lunch cart and two hand-pulled trailers to collect materials to build the structure. The day before, another group of children had developed a cubby structure, and the Waratah's added to this. After a visit to the cubby, we talked about the materials that were used (long branches and palm fronds) as well as which parts of the structure needed to be added to. The children investigated the way the structure utilised the site and how two small trees provided a frame for the cubby.
On our way down to the river we spoke about the structure of a large bridge we walked under and we kept our eyes peeled in search of large sticks and palm fronds to collect. We were very excited to find two huge palm trees near the path that had so kindly given us a pile of fronds to use. We had to be careful when handling them, as they were a bit spiky at the base. We loaded up the trailers with the fronds as well as some autumn leaves (to make a carpet in our cubby) and pushed and heaved everything back up the hill.
We had to have a rest when we got to the top! One by one we helped to carefully place each frond onto the cubby structure. We had to make decisions about where to put them so we didn’t cover up our door! Once all of the walls were filled in with fronds, we made a lovely russet carpet using our collected leaves. By this time we were all exhausted and famished, so we enjoyed our morning tea inside the cubby. Great achievement Waratah’s!
Continuing with their investigations into materials, the centre will be having a working bee later in June to make mud-bricks for their cubby.
We talked about how strong the bridge must be to hold up the road
Collecting the fronds
Fronds and leaves
The fronds felt rough and knobbly
Up the hill with our big load
Spreading out our carpet of leaves
Well earned morning tea inside the cubby!
