Arts education is vital to help foster creativity and innovation

By Susan Davis (Deputy Dean Research for the School of Education & the Arts at CQ University, Australia.)

I have a dream that this nation will achieve its full creative and economic potential and that Arts education will rightfully be seen as central to making this happen. It worries me that current thinking and policymaking around national innovation concentrates on increasing participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects while the teaching of the Arts (dance, drama, music, media arts and visual arts,) is rarely even on the innovation agenda.

It is not that I begrudge the attention STEM is getting, it is just that I believe if we want to be a truly innovative and creative nation we need to put the Arts, very firmly, back in the mix. We should be talking about STEAM in schools and universities with the Arts very much in the centre of it all.

There exists a popular narrative, used to drive the STEM education agenda in Australia (and elsewhere), that says there are significantly declining enrolments in the Sciences and other STEM disciplines. However I question this narrative as justification for major initiatives. I will come back to that later.

First up what are we talking about, when we talk about innovation and creativity?

Innovation and creativity

Creativity and innovation involves putting things together in new ways, it involves risk-taking, experimenting and refining, valuing the role of productive failure, it involves making and doing, and is often collaborative and co-creative. While creativity is about the capacity to putting things together in new, novel and different ways, innovation is often seen as putting them to work and out into the world so that they meet a need, want or interest.

However these capacities don’t get switched on when people hit the world of work, they need to be cultivated across the education lifespan in all subjects in as many ways as possible.

Norway’s First Youth-Only Library for kids ages 10 to 15. Adults not allowed!

Forget what you think about libraries! Biblo Tøyen, one of Oslo Public Library’s (Deichmanske bibliotek) newest additions, is breaking and changing all the library rules! This is a unique and innovative space, created for young people ages 10 to 15.

Why 10 to 15?

Christian Bermudez, a librarian at Biblo Tøyen explains, “Norwegian schools have an after school program called SFO (Skolefritidsordning) where children can stay at school until 5 pm. There they can play, do homework, or other activities. But this program is only available for kids from 1st to 4th grades so, Biblo Tøyen is a great option for older kids to come and enjoy staying here after school.”

Biblo Tøyen: new concept=great solution

The design team went directly to the source to begin their mission to rethink and redesign the library space. They held focus groups with young people to find out their wants and needs. The youth said they wanted a place to hang out, relax, and escape parents and siblings. In addition, they needed a safe place to socialize and said it should be a space where they can create and do things together. The library has achieved these goals by creating a cool and comfortable ‘third’ space between school and home where youth can learn, explore, and be themselves.

Animation brings 2500-year-old vase to life

Oxford academics have teamed-up with an animator to bring ancient Greek vase scenes to life.

The images on this 2,500-year-old vase have been animated to show what life was like in ancient Greece.

The Classics in Communities project, which is led by Mai Musié of Oxford University to encourage the teaching of ancient languages like Latin and Greek, has teamed up with the Panoply Vase Animation Project following an award from the Oxford University Knowledge Exchange Fund.

The animation is freely available to watch online, and its creators hope it is used by teachers and lecturers to support their teaching of topics related to ancient Greece.

'Our animation features a cup that would once have been used at ancient drinking parties 2,500 years ago,' says Dr Sonya Nevin, co-director of the Panoply Vase Animation Project.

Cucumber trees and courgette decorations: 4 ways to a green Christmas

It's not easy being eco-friendly at Christmas, but a tight budget is no excuse when you can make your own tree and decorations.

It’s not easy being green, sang Kermit, so to get everyone in the eco groove at this festive time, some creative inspiration may be needed. 

From courgette penguin decorations to microbead-free toiletry gifts, here are a few ways to help you keep it green this Christmas.

1. Deck the halls with boughs of holly

In fact, decorate anything you like with fresh greenery if you have access to it (no “borrowing” from the neighbours). This is miles better than garlands of synthetic tinsel that will eventually end up in landfill, potentially via an intrigued pet’s stomach. 

In the colder months, fruit and veg provide endless opportunities for sparkling up student digs. See if your local market has any citrus fruit past its best and going free. If so, orange and lemon decorations are easy to make and look amazing. Failing that, try fashioning some courgette and carrot penguin decorations – all you need is some carving skills.

Some think that covering their whole house with Christmas lights and setting them to flash in time to Gangnam style is the thing to do at Christmas. Think again. Instead, keep electricity requirements to a minimum and have a go at making a festive wreath that won’t cost the earth. 

According to sustainable fashion advocate and Nottingham Trent undergraduate Sophie Dumontroty, a student budget is no excuse for letting your green credentials drop:

“Most think being cash-strapped at Christmas limits their scope to act sustainably. Far from it! For example, this year I’m making my own sustainable stocking by upcycling unwanted clothing from my overflowing wardrobe.”

Amazing Ads That Promote Science

Science World has mastered the art of creative billboards that promote science by teaming up with Rethink Canada for their “We Can Explain” and “Now You Know” Campaigns. Science World is located at the TELUS World of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the signs not only promote their cause, but also communicate a scientific fact in a fun and original fashion.

Check out some of their clever ads below.

http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/clever-ads-promote-science

How to ... turn your classroom into a haunted house

Deck out your classroom for a spooktacular Halloween with pumpkin lanterns, scary sudoku and ghostly faces.

It’s Halloween again, the only time in the teaching calendar when it’s perfectly acceptable to come into school dressed as Dracula and plaster your classroom with spiders, ghosts and pumpkins. Creating your very own haunted classroom is an exciting, if ambitious, way to celebrate. For those willing to go the extra Halloween mile, here’s our crafty guide:

Draw your students in

A haunted pathway leading up to your classroom – refuse bags are really useful for this – will capture imaginations. You can hang spiders (see below for tips on making these), streamers and tape above it. Make a sign to direct students to your spooky setting or, for a novel twist, create a treasure hunt for students. Check out this example for inspiration.

Come up with a theme

Pirates, creatures of the night, or goblins and ghosts – there’s lots to choose from. If your theme is a haunted hospital, for example, create a section of the classroom with gruesome body parts, such as eyeballs (grapes) and brains (noodles). Or if you’re showcasing creepy creatures, put false spiders in jars filled with hand sanitiser – they’ll look eerily suspended. For more inspiration, check out these drawing exercises that explore the symmetry of black widow spiders and vampire bats.

Create an atmosphere

The sounds of your haunted setting (of which there are lots to choose from online) will have students on the edge of their seats. Involve them in creating a creepy atmosphere by getting them to record their own piece of spooky music ahead of the lesson. Or get everyone involved in a singalong with these spooky song lyrics from Musical Contexts, which can be sung with familiar tunes such as The Addams Family .

Create effective lighting by making a leaf from green card and cutting orange card into strips to make pumpkins. Put flameless tea lights at their centre for a safe but spooky mood setter.

A Hidden Estonian “Forest Library” for Listening to Nature

Around 50% of Estonia is covered in forest. This past August, in one of the most remote corners of untouched nature, interior architecture students from the Eesti Kunstiakadeemia (Estonian Academy of Arts) in Tallinn constructed three megaphone-shaped structures as a hidden forest library, where sounds of the surrounding woods are amplified into the spaces for reading, solitude, and even meditative music performances.

The project called “Ruup,” shared by Designboom, was revealed last month in the Pähni Nature Centre. As BLDGBLOG pointed out, the design by student Birgit Õigus is reminiscent of the acoustic mirrors of World War I, used by the United Kingdom to amplify the noise of incoming German zeppelin raids (one of these concrete mirrors had a restoration completed earlier this year). No audio is yet available online, but as architectural installations, the wooden cones appear as unobtrusive constructions among the trees, offering shelter while opening an oculus view to the surrounding forest.

Intergalactic lessons: five creative ways to teach about space

Create your own big bang in the classroom with our lesson ideas, including making edible meterorites and studying real lunar rocks.

When Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the dusty surface of the moon, Armstrong summed up the epochal event with the famous words “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.

The first moon landing will be remembered for centuries to come and this summer (Monday 20 July 2015) marks 46 years since it happened.

The anniversary is a great launching pad for teaching about outer space. We’ve gathered a few creative intergalactic lesson plans below – including edible meteorites and studying real lunar rocks. Our list isn’t exhaustive, however, so feel free to offer your own ideas in the comments thread below, or tweet us your favourites @GuardianTeach.

Borrow the moon

Get engagement levels soaring by bringing in real moon rock. The Science & Technology Facilities Council loans out moon rock, brought back to Earth by Nasa’s Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, free of charge.

Advice on the website says that teachers should reserve samples four months in advance, and each loan comes with a wide range of support materials including books and DVDs. For example, as part of the Earth science unit at key stages 2 and 3 you can use the rocks to hold a talk exploring what lunar idioms and expressions mean. Teach about the differences and similarities between the Earth and the moon, as well as whether humans could survive there. There are plenty of ideas here on how to use the samples with secondary students.

Edible meteorites

Explore chondrules and fusion crust by making edible meteorites from peanut brittle and chocolate brownies. This resource, designed by Nasa, is aimed at 10- and 14-year-olds (fifth to eighth grades) in the US to help teaching the exploring meteorite mysteries unit. It can easily be adapted for other curriculums, however, including the Earth science unit in the UK.

How space for creativity opens up young people’s minds

Creative experiences can engage the demotivated, irrigate parched minds and illuminate serious socio-economic problems. And yet the current UK coalition government has launched a sustained attack on creativity in education.

Last November, Nicky Morgan, secretary of state for education, said at a launch for a maths and physics education campaign that “the arts and humanities” were for students who “didn’t know” what they “wanted to do”. She said that while these subjects used to be thought of as “useful for all kinds of job”, now “this couldn’t be further from the truth”.

But the powerful impact of giving young people the space to be creative has been endorsed by many others – from Labour leader Ed Miliband to educationalist Ken Robinson, and it has opened some clear blue water between the parties in this election campaign.

Reaching for vocabulary

At Goldsmiths, my colleagues Jim Anderson and Vicky Macleroy have highlighted the power of giving young people creative space through Critical Connections, a multilingual digital storytelling project funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

In this project, young language-learners in mainstream and complementary schools in the UK and beyond worked together to create “digital stories”. One learner created a PowerPoint presentation with a voice-over in Arabic about his uncle’s wedding in Algeria. A Year 8 class in a Catholic school in London created an animation about a fairy house in French. And a group of Palestinian teenagers created a short documentary in English about talented young local jugglers, musicians and poets.

The idea was that in creating their films, learners would work on narratives important to them – and in doing so would reach for the words and grammar they needed. This stretches learners to think beyond the dry vocabulary lists related to “my pet” or “buying a train ticket” which were standard fare in my childhood French class.

BiebBus, The Expanding Mobile Library

BiebBus is a truck-container that travels from school to school, offering 7,000 books and a reading room.

Mobile libraries date back to 1905, when in Washington County, Maryland the first bookmobile offered its service to those American readers who would otherwise have no access to books, mostly the young and the elderly. The Netherlands also knows this tradition and has a wide network of regionally organized mobile libraries. On a personal note: I grew up in the rural northern part of the country and I remember feeling excitement for Tuesday afternoons when the 'bibliobus' would be in the village. It was the pre-internet era and the bus was a place of discovery.

The Zaan region is part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area and consists of a series of smaller villages. On their own they can't finance a full-time library but the 'bibliobus' is a viable alternative. Contrary to the more rural areas in the Netherlands, this region is densely populated and has narrow streets. As such the conventional mobile library with a trailer providing for 50 m2 of library surface was not an option; the vehicle would simply take too much parking space. Architect Jord den Hollander designed a smart solution. Possibly inspired by his youth memory of Gerry Anderson's TV series Thunderbirds he developed the 'Uitschuif Biebbus' or the expanding mobile library. 

Play isn’t just for primary school kids – it’s got an image problem

Why does a four-year-old play when a 14-year-old creates? It’s often argued that play is central to the lives of young children. Yet the play of older children and adults is often seen as leisure, escapism or even deviance. As psychologist Erik Erikson puts it: “The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” But there should not be such a binary division between what is educational and what is frivolous.

In my work in theatre education I’ve found playing to be a vital part of teaching young people of all ages, whether playing warm-up games, improvising scenes or exploring new ideas. Yet teachers are often held back by the belief that it’s only young children who are allowed to play.

Ruth Churchill Dower, director of Earlyarts, a network of people working in creative early years professionals, has highlighted the change in language from “play” to “creativity” as we talk of older children’s education. She points out that “play” is often seen as open-ended and egalitarian, while “creativity” is more associated with particular skills and “seems to sit higher in the unspoken hierarchy”.

Who’s being playful?

I wanted to find out whether we lose something when we stop talking about play in the education of older children. It was this question which prompted my current and ongoing, doctoral research, carrying out case studies of school classes taking part in Shakespeare Schools’ Festival. I followed six groups through rehearsal to the final performance looking at whether they play as they work together and if it’s relevant.

This ‘smart’ self-cleaning keyboard is powered by you

The bonus: It works for its owner and no one else.

 

A new keyboard can tell if you’re its owner. It locks out anyone else, even if that person knows your password. What’s more, this device needs no batteries. It harvests all the energy it needs from the action of your typing.

All in all, “This will hugely improve the security of a computer,” predicts Zhong Lin Wang. He’s a materials scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and a co-designer of the new keyboard.
“Our fingertips have electrostatic charges,” explains Wang. That means there’s an imbalance of electrons. Your fingertips generally have a slight positive charge. So they have somewhat fewer electrons than the area around them. And that principle makes it possible for typing to induce an electric current in the keyboard, Wang points out.

To understand how this works, consider a magnet. At one end is a positive charge. At the other is a negative charge. Opposite poles attract. So if you put the positive end of one magnet next to the negative one of another, they will latch onto each other. A similar idea applies to electrostatic charges. Positive charges attract negative ones.

Wang’s group put two layers of metal electrodes under the keyboard’s plastic surface. When a finger approaches a key, it attracts free electrons to the top electrode. The bottom electrode supplies them. As soon as the finger lifts off of the key, the electrons flow back to the lower electrode. Any flow of electrons creates an electric current.

And this induced electric current can power the keyboard — but only if the current is strong enough. To achieve that, the Georgia Tech team focused on nanotechnology. (“Nano-“ refers to things measured on the scale of 100 billionths of a meter or less.)

Inside the schools that dare to break with traditional teaching

From Quest to Learn in New York to the Liger Learning Center in Cambodia, Matthew Jenkin explores schools that use innovative teaching methods and curriculums.

On 21 October 2015, we will finally arrive at the point in time that Marty McFly travels to in the 1989 sci-fi sequel, Back to the Future II. But if a teenager today were to drive Doc Brown’s DeLorean back to Hill Valley High, the film hero’s fictional school, would he or she notice any difference?

Just as we are still waiting for someone to market hoverboards and self-tying shoelaces, we have yet to see a radical shift in teaching models, despite the ebb and flow of education reforms. There are schools, however, that are breaking the mould and daring to free teachers from the shackles of curriculum dictates. They are giving students and educators the power to become masters of their own learning.

The Quest to Learn school in New York was founded in 2009 with a mission to make schools fit for the 21st century, an era when advances in technology have created an increasingly global society. Teachers at the school, which is a collaboration between non-profit organisation the Institute of Play and New York’s department of education, believe using games to teach the curriculum increases pupil engagement and better prepares young people to navigate the complexities of the modern world.

But we’re not talking Twister or Super Mario. In Quest to Learn lessons, play involves imaginative inquiry by students, ranging from group storytelling activities that explain literary structures in English to an exercise imagining a microscopic doctor journeying through his patient’s body to teach biology.

Co-director of the school, Arana Shapiro, says the best games are those that can be used in multiple classrooms at all grade levels. The curriculum is taught using the principles of a game, with the teacher starting a new school year by presenting an initial challenge. They then design lessons and activities that give students the knowledge and tools to meet the challenge.

UK science teacher reaches shortlist for 'Nobel prize of teaching'

Richard Spencer uses techniques such as experiments, videos, models, role-play, games, poems, songs and dance to make lessons interesting.

 

 A British science teacher is among the final 10 candidates for a million-dollar Nobel prize-style award for teaching. Richard Spencer, of Middlesbrough College, Teesside, is in line to win the first ever Varkey Foundation Global Teacher prize, which recognises an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

The winner is due to be revealed at a ceremony held at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai next month. The biology teacher said he was honoured to have been shortlisted.

It was announced at the end of last year that Spencer was one of two UK teachers to make the longlist of 50 potential winners. The other was Tom Bennett, of Jo Richardson community school in east London.

“I read all 50 profiles and with each one I thought, ‘That’s amazing,’” said Spencer. “I really don’t know how they got it down from 50 to 10.”

Spencer learned that he had made the final 10 during a visit with two other finalists to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican last week. The three had been invited to meet the Pope to tell him about their experiences in teaching.

30 Techniques to Quiet a Noisy Class

One day, in front 36 riotous sophomores, I clutched my chest and dropped to my knees like Sergeant Elias at the end of Platoon. Instantly, dead silence and open mouths replaced classroom Armageddon. Standing up like nothing had happened, I said, "Thanks for your attention -- let's talk about love poems."

I never used that stunt again. After all, should a real emergency occur, it would be better if students call 911 rather than post my motionless body on YouTube. I've thought this through.

Most teachers use silencing methods, such as flicking the lights, ringing a call bell (see Teacher Tipster's charming video on the subject), raising two fingers, saying "Attention, class," or using Harry Wong's Give Me 5 -- a command for students to:

• Focus their eyes on the speaker
• Be quiet
• Be still
• Empty their hands
• Listen.

There is also the "three fingers" version, which stands for stop, look, and listen. Fortunately, none of these involve medical hoaxes.

Lesser known techniques are described below and categorized by grade bands:

How to Quiet Kindergarten and Early Elementary School Children

Novelty successfully captures young students' attention, such as the sound of a wind chime or rain stick. Beth O., in Cornerstone for Teachers, tells her students, "Pop a marshmallow in." Next she puffs up her cheeks, and the kids follow suit. It's hard to speak with an imaginary marshmallow filling your mouth.

An equally imaginative approach involves filling an empty Windex bottle with lavender mineral oil, then relabeling the bottle "Quiet Spray." Or you can blow magic "hush-bubbles" for a similar impact.

'Enchanted objects' will kill the internet of things in 2015

Smart objects that blend fashion and our everyday lives will kill off the internet of things in 2015, according to Cedric Hutchings, CEO of Withings. The French company, best known for its smart scales and sensor-packed watches, is now targeting fashion over traditional tech in a bid to expand its business.

Speaking at Le Web 2014 in Paris, Hutchings said the smart devices of the future would be integrated into "dumb" objects we already take for granted: "Wearables need not to be 'dropables'. We have to fix the shortcomings of these devices to appeal to more people," he said.

Examples of such un-droppable, useful objects were given by David Rose, a researcher at MIT's media labs and CEO of Ditto Labs. Rose said that umbrellas that flash a light when rain is forecast and doorbells that ring differently when it is someone you know as opposed to a stranger were examples of what he called "enchanted objects".

Teachers launch weather balloons, and a passion for science

A weather-balloon kit helped two teachers inspire their students with custom experiments.

 
Making science, technology, engineering and math into hands-on endeavors can spark interest in these fields and cement concepts learned in the classroom. As science coordinator and a physics teacher at Harrisonburg (Va.) High School, Andy Jackson* was looking for a good, complex hands-on project for sophomores and juniors in the school’s Governor’s STEM Academy. Jackson and the so-director of the STEM academy, Myron Blosser*, came across a hands-on project in May when they visited the National Science Teachers Association STEM Forum and Expo in New Orleans, La.

They ran across a company that offers high altitude weather balloon kits. Made by Stratostar, the kits come with boxes to hold a payload of experiments. Transmitters will send data from the experiments and information about the balloon’s location back to the ground. Jackson and Blosser purchased a package, and two other teachers in the science department, Christina Welsh and Kasey Hovermale headed up the project with their students.

After more than seven weeks of preparation, their students launched their first balloon flight last week. It lofted a 2.7 kilogram (6 pound) payload to 25,908 meters (85,000 feet) and carried it 78 miles west of their launch site. The project gave the students a chance to decide what experiments to send, and to place the cameras and sensors in the payload themselves. The data will be used to design and carry out future flight experiments based on the temperature, sound and humidity data they obtained.

“When we saw this weather balloon idea, we thought ‘This is it,’” Jackson says. “We needed something that would integrate different disciplines. This tied in atmospheric science, chemistry and engineering.”

What they do…

These weather balloons — between 0.7 and 2.4 meters (2.5 to 8 feet) in diameter — work on a fairly simple principle. The balloon is attached to a small payload (less than 5.4 kilograms), filled with helium and released. In short order, it rises into near space, an altitude of between 19,812 and 99,974 meters. As the balloon rises, the atmospheric pressure falls. This causes the helium in the balloon to expand. When the balloon gets high enough, the expanding gas makes it pop. The science payload now falls back to Earth, aided by a small parachute. Meanwhile, the sensors send data on the payload’s location back to the ground, so that teachers can send out search parties to pick it up.

From electric ink to aromapoetry – the physical book is not dead, it’s about to be reborn

"Analogue” and “digital” are the two polar opposites of our modern world. The word “analogue” has become our catch-all term for what we see as slow, one-way and limited in functional possibilities; while “digital” is our synonym for the dynamic, interactive and fluid.

Analogue is old; digital new. Paper has always been the epitome of the analogue: a physical medium which can receive, present and preserve information but otherwise remains static and fixed.

It’s our entrenched understanding of these polarities that are to blame for the well-worn idea that the physical book is dying. This is simply not the case – “analogue” technologies such as ink and paper are now being developed in ways that can and in all likelihood will revolutionise the material, printed book.

Sketching circuits

Conductive inks such as those produced by the British firm Bare Conductive mean that pen and ink can be used to make circuits – and a piece of paper could feasibly become a circuit board, much like that in a computer but infinitely more flexible and versatile.

 

 

This particular company makes a touch board which allows users to create a keyboard using pen, paper and conductive ink. And Tom Metcalfe and Michael Shorter at the University of Dundee have used similar materials to create a pair of paper headphones.

Artists in particular are using conductive inks to create artworks which offer new forms of interactivity. In his Lagoglyphic Sound System, the Brazilian-American artist Eduardo Kac showed how conductive ink could be used for silk-screen printing. As the viewer touches different parts of Kac’s print, different musical sounds are heard.

A cane that can ‘see’

A nifty device clipped onto a blind person’s cane can detect objects in a person’s path,to help navigate trip hazards.

 

Safely navigating from point A to point B can be a particularly difficult challenge for people who are blind. Even when sweeping a long cane back and forth across their path as they’re walking, blind people easily can miss objects that might trigger a tumble. Now, a young inventor has designed an electronic device to notify people of such obstacles.

Among the biggest trip hazards for blind people: objects between 50 centimeters (about 20 inches) to 1 meter (about 39 inches) above the floor. Such knee-high to waist-high objects include coffee tables, bed frames and other such furniture with overhanging edges, notes Raghav Ganesh. A 12-year-old from San Jose, Calif., he attends Joaquin Miller Middle School.

To prevent falls, bruises and maybe worse, Raghav decided to add electronic “eyes” to the red-and-white cane that many blind people use. To identify what’s ahead, cane users typically tap the ground and sweep their stick back and forth. But Raghav’s cane lets people sense objects well beyond a walking stick’s reach. A small computer acts as the device’s brain. It processes information gathered by sensors. Then, it relays signals to a small motor on the cane. The motor vibrates as soon as the cane’s electronic eyes detect a potential obstacle.

One sensor scans the path ahead in infrared wavelengths. These are the same wavelengths used by many TV remote controls. The other sensor uses ultrasonic wavelengths, the frequencies of sound that dogs can hear but people cannot.

Each sensor is about half the size of a postage stamp. Together, the cane’s electronic eyes and brain weigh about 200 grams (7 ounces). They fit in a small box about twice the size of a deck of cards. The small motor that vibrates is about the size of a coin and the weight of a similar-sized kitchen magnet. It fits on the cane’s handle, right where the user grips the cane.

How to teach … Halloween crafts

Ever used pumpkin carving designs to teach reflective symmetry? Use art to trick your students into an educational treat.

Halloween has become a major event in many school calendars, with fun days and fancy dress parades galore.

This week the Guardian Teacher Network is getting into the spirit of All Hallows’ eve with a goody bag of themed arts and crafts lesson ideas – perfect for tricking students into an educational treat.

Classroom decorations are the first port of call. Students can make their own skeletons by cutting out the pieces of this template by Teaching Ideas and attaching them together with brass paper fasteners. They might also enjoy making a 3D witch puppet. This idea from Sing Up involves decorating a wooden spoon with materials including wool, felt and foam. As a follow-up activity, students could work in groups to perform – and even write the script for – a short Halloween play.

Dressing up is at the heart of Halloween, but rather than relying on extravagant shop-bought ensembles, why not encourage pupils to make their own? A good starting place might be these masks for a maned wolf, dyeing poison frog or green anaconda. Before students get sticky with the masks, teach them about the animals of Brazil which the templates represent, using this lesson plan and presentation created by the conservation charity ARKive.

Carving a pumpkin is too tricky (and potentially dangerous) to attempt in class, even with this step-by-step beginner’s guide. An easier (and much safer) alternative is to carve a bell pepper. Orange and yellow ones are best as they look just like mini pumpkins. Ask pupils to bring in a pepper or two from home. Craft knives should be sharp enough for carving. If that sounds too risky still, students could stick on cut-out shapes instead. There are plenty of ideas here.