Today was Workshop II at Coldean Primary School; it was such fun

April 19, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

Despite the heat, or maybe because of it, everyone was in a happy mood today. I arrived late because my satnav took me to the wrong entrance, but I don’t seem to be able to find the school by my own navigation either; I have got lost each time!

Stef giving a short recap on a few points of information on scabies

So today was:

mite decorating
mat making and
creating information sheets about scabies

Time was a little short to complete all the tasks, so the children will be completing their wonderfully creative information sheets tomorrow. I hope to be able to share some of these with you next week when we get them from the school.

One of the completed information sheets

Mite decorating

Making the mat, four children opted to sew on the mites, others stuck them down

The games mats came on in leaps and bounds, with children both glueing and sewing the mites down.

It was so exciting that the children wanted to sew

The workshop required considerable concentration

One of the completed mites

Wow – bright or what?

Mites on the modular games mat – decorated with glitter glues

More glitter decorated mites

A selection of mites

A few more of the mites

There will be an opportunity to finish off decorating the mites during the next session, but so far they are stunning – colourful and beautifully decorated.

The team

I would sew an example scabies mite onto the mat, but …

April 18, 2018April 19, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

This was me preparing for the workshop on the 19th April, I had everything laid out on the floor, but someone liked orange…

‘Do I really have to move?’

… and has adopted my workspace as sleep-space.

A tired cocker spaniel likes a dash of orange as a background

So I gave up for a while, cut yarn into bundles, watched ‘Keeping Faith and enjoyed a cup of tea and a smidgen of chocolate.

Glue and more glue

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

When you start looking at fabric glue, you realise how many types of glue there are and the number of brands available. Tacky and fast setting were my main priorities, but of course the glues must also be suitable for use by children; non toxic and not likely to stick their hands to their foreheads! My favourite Copydex type was also not really on the agenda as it can be a bit difficult to work with. I wanted one that came in small sized bottles with a fine applicator nozzle, not one that needs spreaders.

PVA seemed the best solution, but most ‘school’ types are quite runny. Hi-tac type, thicker PVA seemed the best solution, and I chose two types; one is a specific fabric glue (Trimits Fabric Glue) that is tacky and fast drying, and another (Hi Tack Fast Tack) which is labelled as more general purpose, but with the same properties. Both seem to do the job OK, they hold almost immediately, but do take up to 12 hours to dry completely. So we will just have to be gentle when packing up the workshop.

Then we have the cool melt glue guns as well. I’ve not used a cool melt gun before, and having burned my fingers on my hot melt gun I was dubious, but these cool melt ones aren’t bad. I chose ‘Stick It’ ones, as they were cheap and the sticks are readily available. They are not really ‘cool’, but not burning hot – more uncomfortable than painful if the glue gets on your fingers (and of course it does), but still not suitable for children to use alone. I hate to think of the mess that would ensue! This glue really does set fast, and the bond is strong, but the gun will only be used by an adult, and must situated near to an electric plug. Children can bring things that they are having trouble sticking down with the PVA to the adult with the gun to stick for them. We must make sure the mat-making is put close to plug as the vinyl one will rely on the glue gun.

Lovely bright felt for cutting up into ‘mites’

Testing techniques and methods for mite-making

April 12, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

Today we are testing the sewing and making methods in preparation for next week’s workshop when the children will be making mites and the game mat.

Each small (larvae) mite will have 6 legs, whilst the nymph, adult and pregnant female all have 8. Pipecleaners sewn on with yarn work well, and beads make great texture on their backs. yarn pulled through with a machine needle or run hook makes the fine ‘feelers’.

Hooked yarn ‘feelers’

Attaching the pipe cleaner legs

An example mite

Testing out cool-melt glue-gun on vinyl tiles

April 6, 2018April 6, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

Yes this seems to work. So I have taken the plunge and ordered two and a load of glue sticks for the workshop in two weeks time. I don’t think they get hot enough to hurt anyone, and the glue adheres really well, (and to me unfortunately). Whilst the fabric mat can be stuck with fabric glue, the glue guns will make the vinyl mat far easier to manage.

Trial mat

I will post a link to the instructions for making the legs once I have written them up.

Designing the games mats

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 Vikki Haffenden

Its been great fun designing the mats.

The format for making the mats is as follows; there are two classes of 26 children each and they will swap half way throught the workshop. So each class will work for approximately 40 minutes on the mats. To make it easier for everyone to contribute, I have decided two mats will be necessary, although thats still 13 making each mat. Each group will have an adult helper.

When they swap, the new class will take over and complete the mats.

There are 53 children who will eventually play the games, albeit in shifts as there is also a free-standing bean bag game to play. When I started to think a bit more about how the mats will be used, I thought 4 mats would be ideal, but I can’t see that we would get 4 mats made in the time, and material costs are an issue here, so its going to be 2!

My son Ben came up with the suggestion that a person shape would be great, so that the bean bags score highest when thrown where it is most likely to find scabies on an elderly person’s body. We thought about just using colours, but felt this might be to complex to play with a large group, so have opted for colours and numbers.

The ‘person’ shaped mat

The square mat

The square mat is based on vinyl samples donated by Tapis, a local carpet shop. The 6 squares will be decorated (and transported) separately and put together so that the green, high scores are in the middle.

I just hope PVA glue works on vinyl – must test this out!