Glamorous Fashion Show of SK Students
by John Alan Grigg, SK Teacher -
Senior Kindergarten students put on an amazing fashion show as an end of unit learning celebration recently. The purpose of organising a fashion show was to explore different materials, their unique features and combine them to create clothes. The more students learnt about the properties of the materials, the more knowledgeable and creative they became in using these materials as clothes and accessories.
From the moment we introduced the idea of doing a fashion show, a journey of questioning, observing and gathering information began - in an enthusiastic and collaborative way.
As a class, we searched actual runway fashion shows and watched selected clips. The children then began to explore different materials and do some scientific experiments. We experimented floating vs. sinking; states of matter; magnetic and non-magnetic; heavy and light, etc.
The big question that each student needed to answer was: “Which materials would they use to make their own clothes to wear at the fashion show?” The materials chosen were paper, plastic, wood, metal, natural materials (leaves, stones, twigs and cotton) and polystyrene. Children formed groups based on their choice of materials.
Next, the creative process started: Students began sketching the human body form in their art books. They spent about 2 weeks sketching bodies and adding clothing designs to these sketches. I then advertised for parents to come in to support the children and help make these sketches come to life. The parents were amazing in supporting and encouraging their kids during the whole learning journey. They came in, and took the time to listen to what the children envisioned and helped them explore materials and combine them into some amazing fashion pieces. After the clothes were made, it was time for the most fun part: The children got to practice being models on a catwalk. They had a lot of fun moving up and down the runway in different ways.
In the last few weeks before the assembly, I asked the children what they would like to tell people about their clothes and which materials worked well and which did not work so well. They all had many great ideas and I had to do very little prompting... they could all discuss many properties of their chosen material. Before we knew it, the big day arrived. SK4 made us so proud. They were super confident and did a great job strutting their stuff in their unique fashion clothes!
SK Fashion Show
