Ficino Preschool’s small class roll and high teacher-child ratios allows us to provide individual attention and development for our students.
Oliver, one of our four-year-olds embarked on an epic adventure earlier this year to build his own dragon! His project began after he excitedly recounted watching the movie ‘How to train your dragon’. 6 months in the making, it is with great excitement that we can report that George the Dragon is finally complete.
Ably assisted by the Head Teacher (Miss Callen), other staff, students and his family, Oliver’s dragon has been a labor of love for all from day one!
Stage One involved the making of the dragon’s tail. Oliver threaded corks on to some curly wire, with a colored bead placed between each cork. He and Miss Callen visited the caretakers workshop to drill holes in the corks and learnt some valuable lessons in operating a drill.
Stage Two involved the making of the dragon’s body. Oliver used a glue gun to glue foam pieces together, then covered them in brown paper which was cello taped on.
An exploration of the Art Room at Ficino School led to the discovery of some cool pieces of material with Japanese writing for the dragon. Oliver also found some material that he decided another Preschool teacher would like.
Stage Three involve making the dragon’s spine! Oliver and Miss Callen measured the dragon’s body (one metre, 100cm or 1000mm) to calculate how many painted egg cartons they would need. 4 lengths did the trick!
Some teeth for the head were collected and some black wool as Oliver wanted to make a beard for the dragon – “Only grown up dragons have beards, not mother dragons”.
Stage Four saw Oliver undertaking an outing to Bunnings with his family to get some bamboo sticks for the dragon. These were turned into a cross structure, which is used to suspend the dragon and make it move.
Oliver’s friends were instrumental throughout the journey. From making papier mache to all elements of the dragon’s body (head, claws, tail) to helping with the painting, it was lovely to see the children working so well together.
It was rewarding for us to see the characters of Oliver and his friends develop through this process – caring, thinking of others, the importance of sharing and the joy of working together.
The dragon in all its glory was displayed at the Preschool’s one year anniversary recently. It made a very impressive display with all the children excited about the parts they’d assisted with! As George was raised into position, the children spontaneously started singing “Puff the Magic Dragon”. The perfect party atmosphere for the dragon!
