Nim's Island Paper Mache

Last term we completed our work on our paper mache islands.


The students had already created their topographic islands but still needed to mache and paint them.


We decided to use PVA glue mixed with water as the adhesive in the mache stage. I was initially apprehensive about how well it would work as I hadn't used this before and we had a rather watery mixture but once the glue had dried it gave a good result.


Some of the students struggled with the idea of only using small pieces of paper, and some didn't smooth their paper down quite enough so ended up with a rough texture for painting.


Then in the last week we painted our models. This was a great activity and the students were only provided with the primary colours and white. It took a bit of conversation for the students to understand why I had chosen those particular colours - not just because they would be good island colours.


The pupils really enjoyed getting to mix the colours and discover what they would make. They painted their islands and all looked fantastic once they had finished. We had a mixture of ideas in the islands but the whole point of this project was that they were to use their imagination so all ideas were accepted.


I would definitely do this activity again with another class, or with a different design.