Roll up! Roll up!

The children at Akrotiri Pre-school love to create their own resources and their simple idea for home-made paint rollers led to some exciting exploration of pattern and design.

One of the classroom supervisors, Joan Thorpe, recently helped the children to make their own printing rollers and these turned out to be very effective, says Allison Clarke.

The children made the rollers from the cardboard tubes found inside rolls of kitchen towel, which they decorated by gluing string along them to create patterns. Pieces of thick dowelling were then carefully cut and slotted through the cardboard tubes.

The children discovered that it was important to remember to cut the dowelling so that it extended beyond the length of their tubes to form handles, which they could hold as they were rolling. (A wooden broom handle would be an ideal alternative to dowelling.) Once the rollers were completed, some children painted them with a paintbrush, while others rolled them in trays of paint to ensure they were fully coated. They then pushed their rollers along a length of paper to print their designs. The back of an old roll of wallpaper is ideal for this activity as it can be spread right across the table to give the children plenty of room to create patterns and designs.