Learning

Next week is half term and that means there will be lots going on at the T? Gwyrdd at St Fagans. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday next week, 30^th and 31^st of October, we will be celebrating Halloween by dedicating two days of activities to some of our favourite residents of the museum. We have many species of bat living at St Fagans and there will be a chance to find out much more about these fascinating creatures! What facts do you know about bats? How many of these are true and how many are myths?? 

With the help of our team of volunteers, including Anne-mie who's an artist, we will also be creating a batty art installation in the T? Gwyrdd. We are hoping to create a large willow bat which we can hang in the house and surround with many, many baby bats! We need your help so that we can make as many of these baby bats as possible! As you can see from the picture, these will all be made from recycled newspaper, elastic bands and pipe cleaners! 

Next week also sees St Fagans’ Halloween Nights events. The museum will be open after dark with many activities taking place. Again, we will be championing the bat with some crafty activities taking place each night. Halloween Nights take place between Tuesday the 30^th of October and Thursday the 1^st of November. Tickets MUST be purchased in advance. Click here for more info  

Towards the end of next week we will be leaving Halloween behind and taking a look at some of the brilliant foodstuffs that are in season at this time of year! On Friday and Saturday (2^nd & 3^rd of November) I will be cooking up a treat in the T? Gwyrdd kitchen using some traditional recipes and ingredients grown in the T? Gwyrdd garden! Come along to taste some chutneys, soup and maybe even some cakes! There will also be recipe sheets that you can take home to try out some of the recipes for yourself! 

All in all, next week promises to be very busy but lots of fun with plenty going on, so why not pop over to the T? Gwyrdd to see us!

Four and a half thousand school scientists across England and Wales planted bulbs for a climate investigation being run by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales.

Each pupil planted their bulbs and followed simple methodology to ensure a fair test. Before planting, they learned how to care for bulbs and completed adoption certificates as a promise to care for their bulbs.

This is just the beggining for this years participants who will be recording flowering times and weather conditions every week until the end of March.

I visited St Joseph's school in Penarth to see how they were getting along and was amazed by how excited and involved in the project they were. Mrs Dunstan has done a great job working with the class to create a great display about the project. On questioning, it was clear that the class knew they were helping with a larger experiment and what it was about.

I was delighted to hear a Yr.3 pupil question "Is it a fair-test if all Scottish schools are planting a week later?" It showed that she was really thinking about the logistics of this large scale study. I explained that the Scottish schools had to plant on another date because their holiday dates are quite different to those in England and Wales and that we would look at the Scottish data separately as a result.  After our discussion we went outside to do the planting - see my pictures.

Meanwhile in West Wales, Stepaside School were also busy planting. Here are pictures of the Yr.3 pupils involved this year.

If any other schools have any images they would like to share please send them to me.

Good luck with the planting this week in Scotland - I hope it stays dry!

Many Thanks

Professor Plant 

Teachers descended on the National Museum Cardiff last weekend to take part in workshops and talks aimed at engaging pupils with numeracy in a fun and creative way.

Prof Chris Budd, BathUniversity, and Rob Eastaway, Maths Inspiration, gave extremely interesting and lively talks covering maths in the modern world, including how google works, and ways of being creative with maths.

The workshops featured teachers programming their own computer games (Technocamps), becoming maths detectives to solve a crime (Techniquest), finding out how technology works (CardiffMetropolitanUniversity), exploring maths in nature (Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales), and discovering ideas for fun and stimulating games (TES Science).

This year’s conference is a partnership between The Association for Science Education Cymru and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. It has been running for the past 4 years and draws in teachers from Wales and England (and even Australia this year!).

Keep your eyes peeled for next year’s conference – we hope to see you then!

Thank you to everyone who made this year’s a success!

This week, six and a half thousand young scientists across the UK are getting ready for the big bulb planting day.

Twelve thousand bulbs will be planted and monitored as part of this long term climate investigation being co-ordinated at Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. If there was a world record for the most people planting bulbs simultaneously, (in several locations) we could smash it! I may suggest a new category to the Guiness book of records...

All the bulbs have been counted up and are steadily being delivered to the 120 schools across the country. I'd like to welcome each an every pupil and teacher who will be working on this project! If you haven't already recieved my letter please follow this link

Before each bulb is planted, each pupil must also adopt their bulb and promise to care for it. If you want to know how see this link 

The children of St. Joseph's School in Penarth were very excited to read my letter and are very keen to help. They have written me some replies on leaf paper and have promised to plant the bulbs and look after them. Thanks so much St.Joseph's I love these, great idea!

Before you adopt your bulb you may also wish to know where it's come from. My friend Baby Bulb is going to explain:

'My bulb buddies and I come from a nursery plantation in Manorbier, near Tenby in Wales, it's called 'Springfields'.  We didn't spring from the fields, but we were picked and loaded onto a van ready to go to our new homes. At first I was a little afraid, but then when I met Professor Plant at the Museum I understood that I would be cared for by a nice young person and that I have an important job to do. We have all been selected to help us understand how the weather can affect when my friends and I make flowers. My parents before me grew here too, Springfields have been growing us 'Tenby Daffodils' for about 25 years, we are one of the two daffodils that are native to the British Isles".

Just one week until planting now! I can't wait!

Professor Plant 

How was your summer? it was pretty busy for me!

As usual we ran the art cart in Oriel 1 everyday throughout August and our focus this year was weaving. We mainly did paper plate weaving (or circular weaving) which proved to be really popular with all ages and looks really effective too - I am thinking of doing more of it for Halloween...but in black and orange of course.

Quite a few of the museum attendants helped run the art cart this year too and they also brought different ideas and skills along with them so that there was quite a variety of activities. Elen did some drop spinning with visitors and even showed them how to make their own drop spindle, and Elle showed everyone how to make amazing woven friendship bracelets using a circular piece of card.

In July Ian and I got together to plan and run a two day art activity in the Celtic Village. We decided to make Iron Age shields out of cardboard and to get the visiting children to decorate them with typical iron age patterns using stencils or their own designs.

The activity went really well and we were lucky that it fell on two beautiful sunny days (we were outside). It's definitely an activity we'll be running again

Come September and it was back to running sessions for visiting schools, I've written about my art session called 'Looking at Buildings' so won't go on about it again... just show you some pictures of wonderful drawings instead.

Then I took two weeks off work and went on holiday to San Francisco! and now I'm back and all inspired for more arts and crafts and workshops and everything! There are a few things coming up - the big draw this saturday and next (6+13 oct 2012), a couple of craftivist things (one this sunday 7th in gwdi hw which isn't directly linked with St Fagans, and one on the 20th of October as part of the Made in Roath festival whic is), and then it will be half term and time for Halloween!

phew, happy making!