What to do with left over drawing ink.

Blank Colour Wheel

Colour Wheel Poster

I often use drawing ink in my classroom to demonstrate Tie-Dye and put colour theory in to practice. As drawing ink is not permenent/washable on fabric I use paper napkins as these are also a cheap alternative which means students can experiment with more folds and patterns. Though this method would also work with fabric dyes.

Equipment:

4 Plastic cups, 

Red, Blue and Yellow Drawing ink

Paper Napkins

String

Latex Gloves

Aprons

Method

Fold the napkins in different ways to create patterns. All of the folding techniques I use are based on the basic accordion fold.

   

Fold Pattern 1

Fold Pattern 2

Fold Pattern 3

Once you have folded the napkin you tie it in one of 2 ways (the different ways will also create patterns). You can fold it into a cube and parcel tie it or fold it into a long rectangle and tie it length ways.

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Now you are ready to start dying. Put the primary colours in 3 separate beakers (You can use Red, Yellow and Blue OR Magenta, Yellow and Cyan)

Dip the bound parcel into the different colours one after the other to different depths making sure your final dip completely coats the parcel. (Make sure you have gloves on) The squeeze the excess off into the 4th beaker then unwrap carefully. This part really has the WOW factor as the brown looking bundle turns into a rainbow.

Fold Pattern 1

Fold Pattern 2

Fold Pattern 3

As you will see the primary colours naturally mix to create the other colours.

              

What a difference a year makes-Twitterversary

Yesterday was my 1st year Twitterversary and this has made me reflect on how using twitter has changed my life.

Now that sounds very dramatic but it has; especially when it comes to my professional life as a teacher.

In the past year using Twitter has:

• Informed me of TeachMeets, events and conferences that I never knew existed-I even helped organise a TeachMeet (#TMX) and presented at the first TeachMeet I attended (#tmmoodle). I am now a regular at TeachMeets and really enjoy learning from other teachers and sharing my own classroom experiences.
• Shared tools, learning opportunities and helped me develop teaching ideas for my classroom
• Given me a platform to discuss and reflect upon my own classroom practice and teaching /education as a profession
• Allowed me to take part in crowd-sourced projects that have given me reasons to develop my own Art and Illustration skills (for example #ukedchat and #pgcetips where I designed the illustrations for the book)
• Helped me connect with hundreds of inspiring and engaging individuals.

Of course it is not Twitter that has actually enabled all these things to happen, it is the individuals that I follow and follow me back and the dialogue between us. Twitter is only the platform - it is the people that matter.

I feel that 1 year on I am a better teacher, not only because of the opportunities to reflect and learn from others that have arisen, also because of the confidence I have developed to experiment and question the learning in my classroom.

The most important thing that I will take away from my first year of Twitter is how much goodwill there is still in the world and how supportive communities of people are.