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Organisation

During the session you will investigate pattern using special resources in the Gallery as well as items on permanent display in the Gallery. You will mainly be working in three groups; the Interpreter-Demonstrator will facilitate the session but adult helpers will lead each individual group. It’s helpful for the Interpreter-Demonstrator if pupils are wearing name stickers

Session objectives

To become familiar with different aspects of patterns including how they are made and where they are found through a range of activities including sorting, finding, describing and listening.

Session outline

Introduction

Welcome to the Allen Gallery, introduction to the gallery and the session.

Session

Brief discussion on patterns and motifs

Class divides into groups and rotates around activities:

1. Completing the Pattern – using fabric cubes to make a pattern (similar to a large Rubik’s Cube).
2. Sorting – sorting examples of patterns into manmade/natural and animal/plant/other.
3. Where in the World – discover where patterns come from and find the countries on a map.
4. Matching – match examples of patterns to their correct names .
5. Design a Pattern – create different patterns using a variety of coloured shapes.
6. Become a Pattern – try on our patterned tabards and discuss the patterns.

Conclusion Class comes back together to discuss what they’ve found out and then chooses a motif from the Gallery’s tile collection to sketch to take back to school to create patterns

We would be very grateful if you could complete and return the evaluation form you are given on arrival at your earliest convenience.

You will shortly be visiting the Allen Gallery in Alton for two hours to support the delivery of a session called Exploring Pattern. This session has been devised and developed especially for year 3, 4, 5 & 6 pupils.

You will be supporting and leading a small group of pupils as they try activities throughout the Gallery; an Interpreter-Demonstrator will oversee the session by moving from group to group to support you.

On arrival the Interpreter-Demonstrator will meet you and introduce you to the Allen Gallery and give you a brief introduction to the session. They will also take the whole class on a brief walk around the whole building – there are two floors.

The Interpreter-Demonstrator will introduce the session by discussing pattern and motifs. The class will then divide into groups to carry out a total of 6 activities. The activities are:

1. Completing the Pattern – using fabric cubes to make a pattern (similar to a large Rubik’s Cube).
2. Sorting – sorting examples of patterns into manmade/natural and animal/plant/other.
3. Where in the World – discover where patterns come from and find the countries on a map.
4. Matching – match examples of patterns to their correct names .
5. Design a Pattern – create different patterns using a variety of coloured shapes.
6. Become a Pattern – try on our patterned tabards and discuss the patterns.

At the end of the activities pupils will be invited to spend 5 mins sketching a motif from our tile collection to take back to school for follow-up work on patterns.

Please note: there are no public toilets at the Allen Gallery. However, the staff are happy for visiting pupils to use their toilet facilities during their visit. The Interpreter-Demonstrator will explain where they are during their introduction.

Pre-visit Activities

What is a gallery?

A discussion on what a gallery or a museum is, what they do, what you can see there, who goes to museums and why may be a useful starting point. The information below may help

• Museums and galleries are places that look after all kinds of things for the people who visit them.
• Sometimes the collections are of everyday things from the past – toys, clocks, chairs. Sometimes they are collections of decorative items – ornaments, decorative tiles, plates with pictures on them to hang on wall
• Ensure pupils understand what ceramics are; ceramic is the word used to describe artefacts formed using heat – pottery, bricks etc. A simpler description you can use is things like pottery and china. Our collection at the Allen Gallery has ornaments, tea cups and saucers, tea pots, tiles and plates.
• Often their collections are old, but not always; we often collect things from “now” to make sure we have an example of it in our collection for the future
• Some galleries and museums have lots of different types of objects that help tell the story of a town or place; some have one type of object that helps tell the story of one thing - animals, football, army tanks, hats, furniture
• Many objects and collections are displayed in a way that means visitors can’t touch them. This helps to keep them safe; safe from an accident but also safe from our skin! Everyone’s skin has natural oil on it to keep it healthy; we can’t see, smell or feel it but it’s there. Sometimes this oil can damage older materials, so we need to protect them. In museums, when we need to move these types of collections we wear special gloves so our skin doesn’t touch and damage anything
• Galleries and museums are for everyone! They’re places you can visit to see things, have fun and find out about something
• Some galleries and museums are free, others charge an admission fee

Exploring Pattern

It would be useful if pupils are familiar with some words and their meanings, like pattern and motif.

Invite pupils to bring in their favourite item of clothing and lay them all out to look at. Discuss how they are decorated – are they one colour? Striped? Spots? A repeated pattern? Is there a motif?

You might like to introduce the idea of “pattern” as something which doesn’t have to be seen. Listen to a piece of music which has a repeated phrase or create a piece of music as a class using different instruments.

Post-visit Activities

Exploring Pattern

Give each pupil a sheet of A4 or A3 paper which has been divided into a series of equally sized squares, so it’s a grid. Now give them lots of copies of the same shape – clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds, circles, triangles etc and invite them to create a pattern.

Go back to the idea of musical patterns and divide the class up into different groups of instruments, with each instrument having a different symbol e.g. triangles could be a triangle, tambourines could be circle, claves could be a square etc.

Create a piece of music with lots of repeated phrases and write the music down by sticking the symbols on the wall in the right order; you can do this on a large grid format. This will act as a sheet of music to read as well as be a visual pattern.