Pop-up Workshops

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Training up the next generation of paper engineers in Our Lady Queen of Heaven Primary School in Wandsworth last Monday.

It’s amazing how far a little knowledge can go. I also like to think I’m providing a back door (and a pop-up one at that!) to books, reading and writing, as well as helping the fight against graphophobia.

Training up the next generation of paper engineers in Our Lady Queen of Heaven Primary School in Wandsworth last Monday.

It’s amazing how far a little knowledge can go. I also like to think I’m providing a back door (and a pop-up one at that!) to books, reading and writing, as well as helping the fight against graphophobia.

World Book Day

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A big thanks to the children of Mount Carmel in Ealing for letting me spend World Book Day with them.   JOHN

And thanks to the children in Reception for joining in so enthusiastically
– 1, 2, 3, WATCH OUT IN THE JUNGLE!!!

Giant Cardboard Pop-ups 2

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I spent two days last week in Cunningham Hill Infants School in St Albans where I worked with 5 classes of Y1s and Y2s as a visiting paper engineer. I brought along collapsible cardboard frameworks for the children to use to create giant pop-up structures.

As well as working on small-scale individual pop-ups, they worked as a team on the larger pieces. Each class used a story they’d been studying and, in the case of year 2, the challenge was to connect Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Twelfth Night, and paper engineering.

The solution was to produce stage-like structures representing the setting for each play which, believe or not, still folded flat by the end.

I left each class to continue working as I moved on to the next, but nothing prepared me for what I was shown at the end of day 2 (see the bottom photos).

It has to be said that none of this would have been possible without the input of a very enthusiastic head and a group of brilliant teachers.

             Y  e  a  r    1             

Claws United v Rover City Rematch

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Great news! – well for me anyway.  Claws United and Rover City are scheduled for a rematch next year when The Big Match is re-launched.

Everything will stay the same apart from a possible re-design of the cover and a change to the super static-electriciy game at the back which will now become a super blow-football game. The book was conceived as a type of football handbook, using natural enemies (or are they?), cats and dogs, on the opposing sides. It covers areas such as the fans, souvenirs, football skills and rules, and takes much of it’s inspiration North London where I live.

Look out for the book in April 2012.
And to see more background material, go to my facebook page here.

Grahams war box

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What better way to mark N4 Junior’s new life in Portsmouth than to recollect how he came by his first high-end computer in those pre-blog days.

‘You could try this,’ he said at the time, waving a copy of PC Gamer magazine in my face. ‘You’re good at art!’

It was a competition with a chance to win a big prize – all you had to do was design a DIY war kit, no bigger than a shoebox, for Graham, the games reviewer, to coincide with the release of Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway.

I don’t condone war in any shape or form, but there was a computer to be won, and we were out to win it. I got my shoebox and began. Spurred on by the support and encouragement of the rest of my family who said things like, ‘Shouldn’t you be working?’ and ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do?’ I soldiered on to the bitter end.

As an afterthought, I decided to include a photo of Grahams girlfriend in the box. This soon became a picture of his mum brought to life by combining Grahams photo, from the PC Gamer site, with a random photo of a granny from the web, using the magic of photoshop.

I have a feeling that it was this that clinched the deal.