Children Heard and Seen Residential Workshop
We were delighted to join the amazing charity Children Heard and Seen at their Summer Residential with a free workshop based on sound and listening.
Children Heard and Seen pride themselves on delivering child-centred specialised care to families with a parent in prison.
If you’d like to take up the sound and listening challenge at home you can download our musical maker challenge and discover more here!
Children Heard and Seen are a UK charity who support children, young people, and their families that are impacted by parental imprisonment. For the children, they utilise peer support groups, online activities, and activity days at no cost to the families.
Our partnership has fostered the Growing Together Challenge, in which we asked kids to think about the ways in which we grow emotionally despite challenges and setbacks and how we can help others to grow too, via a series of twelve workshops.
In July of 2022, we were invited to hold a free workshop at the charity's annual Summer Residential, an activity weekend for the children to have fun, try new things, and receive support from the organisation and each other. These kind of events give families a break from their daily routine and gives them an opportunity to connect with other families who may be going through similar experiences. They also work to promote self-esteem and resilience in the children by celebrating their skills and achievements.
We were delighted to be part of this fantastic weekend and decided to present a drum-clanging, rattle-shaking, sound and listening workshop.
We set up shop in one of the on site spaces, in which families could drop in whenever they liked over the course of the workshop. We provided the children with a ream of existing musical inventions that had been submitted to us by children from all over the world so they could gain some inspiration. Whether it was All In One Geyums, an instrument that combines a guitar, keyboard, and drums all in one, or the Shoe Horn, a shoe that plays saxophone sounds as you walk, they saw how spectacular new creations can be made from what we already know about sound.
Ellie, our Design Lead at Little Inventors, hosted the workshop and she sourced all kinds of materials that could be adapted and combined to make sounds. From glass bottles, to containers of rice, cardboard rolls and boxes, the children had a wealth of resources to begin prototyping and crafting their invention.
We had a great turnout and the children got super busy and resourceful drawing and designing their instrument devices. We were soon inundated with toe-tapping, horn-tooting invention ideas that we featured for all visitors to see. The excitement from the children and the encouragement from their families was truly music to our ears.
The little inventors took their creations along to a bear-hunt picnic and played them around the campfire later that evening.
Well done to all of the children who displayed such vigour and creativity when it came to inventing! Thank you to Children Heard and Seen for their outstanding ethos and for allowing us to be part of such a special event.
If you would like to stay up to date with all of our projects and adventures, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Be sure to follow Children Heard and Seen too for more on their invaluable work.