From Exploring the Lough:
Creative Activities for the Primary School Classroom
Compiled & Written by Molly Freeman, Edited by Adrian Rice
For
four years now, the Belfast Lough Sea and Shore (BLSS) initiative has reached
out an educational and creative hand to schoolchildren around Belfast
Lough. During that time, the BLSS board
has engaged myself, artist Phil O’Hanlon and dramatist Molly Freeman, to help
hundreds of enthusiastic school children to express their newfound knowledge of
the Lough shore using poetry, art and drama.
To date, the project has been hugely successful, resulting in three
marvellous anthologies of creative work.
However,
the BLSS board has refused to let the project rest on its laurels and has
consistently encouraged a yearly expansion of the project’s aims, objectives
and outreach potential. Regarding the
latter, this year the BLSS board has made it’s boldest step so far by
commissioning Molly Freeman and myself to write and edit this teaching booklet.
‘Exploring
the Lough: Creative Activities for the Primary School Classroom’ will be
circulated to every teacher and every classroom in the participating schools,
thus vastly increasing the overall numbers of school children who will benefit
from this year’s project – instead of hundreds, thousands of children will
hopefully be inspired to record their creative views of the Lough.
Molly
Freeman and I would like to thank John McCormick and the rest of the BLSS board
for their vision and support, and Don Hawthorn and David Anderson (Nicholson
& Bass Ltd.) for their help and expertise in the production of this
booklet.
Jordanstown
March
2003