Wall Quotes

So here is quote number 4 finished. A little wonky due to the brick wall, but fine.

The banners.....

We took a very long and sore afternoon spray painting more words on. My back is giving me issues at the moment, and this certainly made me suffer!


We then had to get wooden poles on the top and bottom of the banner, we tried using plastic tag ties to begin with (I stabbed my finger with scissors in the process) but in the end used a staple gun - much quicker and easier.


Next came the issue of actually getting fishing wire up on the girders. Our method was a blob of blu-tac and a strong throwing arm - not mine I have to add, my attempt was laughable. We did manage to get two threads up there, which then had washing line attached to it, to make some sort of pulley system.
We then had the grand pulling up of the banner. Hours and hours of thought and process all went to this moment.
Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the best moment. As we pulled it up to the top, it was apparent that the banner didn't even leave the floor. We had completely over estimated the length needed (despite much discussion and estimation). I laughed so hard I had tears down my face.


In the end we cut it half, which produced two banners of the correct length.
Tragically, we hated it. The creases and wrinkles look like an old bedsheet, and only having three words isn't effective. We had a moment of depression, but then focused on solutions. I will update next week with the solution we came up with.

Wall Quotes 4

We have now started a smaller quote on a pillar. The pillar is brick and so it is impossible to get straight lines, but we are hoping it will just have 'character'!

It says, 'I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library'. Jorge Luis Borges

Painting the banner - day 1 and 2

So the first step was priming the material with emulsion paint.
Then we tested the stencil and spray paint. Attempt one gave lots of blurring and spreading. Not good.

Attempt two we used pins to pin the stencil down, so that they were more secure and 'tighter' to the material. I also sprayed a lot finer. It was much improved.

This was the first word (chosen appropriately) and it took a while to pin. You can see the pins if you look closely.
We had a few mishaps. Spray paint seems to travel a whole lot further than you could ever imagine, and we had to repaint the material white in quite a few places.

I will take some pictures of the almost finished banner next week.

Getting lost in reading

The library isn't technically open, but a few of my student librarians asked to come up, and as they had done me a favour the day before I agreed.

A year 8 boy came up, browsed the shelves for 5 minutes, chose one and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. He passed up my beanbags and sofas, and even the normal working chairs, but I can understand that need to just sit with the book, where you discovered it.

He stayed there all lunch, I even forgot he was there.

It's so wonderful seeing students get lost in a book like that.

Wall Quote 3

I read because one life isn't enough and in the pages of a book I can be anybody.

Richard Peck.

Starting the banners

So, I have plans for massive banners to hang from my very high ceilings. They will have words on them, spray painted using stencils.

We got some students to rank a selection of words, from the best/strongest words to the weakest or 'most rubbish'.


These were their top words:
This was the bottom of their list:
We then got the students to have a go at laying out some potential stencils, just to get a more visual idea of what the banners would look like when finished. We just used purple paper, but the final product will be white material with shades of blue spray paint.
This idea was inspired by Skerricks and these photos here.