Cut Out Activity Research

For the cut out activity, I am interested in doing a puppet of some sort related to the woodland theme but I realised that this is more suitable for children of a younger age (5-7 year olds) instead of that audience that I am aiming for which is the older audience (7-11 year olds). The older ages would want something more substantial like origami or something which takes a bit more skill as they have acquired it in this age group.

Below are some examples of the puppet idea to show how they are more suitable for a younger audience.

The last image is an example where the two age groups cross over, this is more for the older age group as there is more to it and it is definitely more complicated.

I decided to look at origami as an activity and found the following activity sheets on various different things you can make.

Cooking on a Fire Research

Below are the images that I found for inspiration and/or information for my double page spread on how to cook over a fire. As there is a lot of health and safety hazards with this particular task, there needs to be constant warnings and reminders for adults to be present at all times. I would like to include a few recipes on one of the pages of the double page spread as inspiration for the children as they are more likely to want to do the task if there is a specific example of what the outcome is going to be.

The aspect of cooking on a fire should be presented in a fun way but there should also be indications of how dangerous fire can be if you aren't supervised by an adult as it would be disastrous if a child was to see a fire/start a fire because they thought it was correct and not dangerous because of what it said in the book.

Bug Hotel Research

Below are various different examples of work related to the bug hotel. There are simplified instructions on how to create a bug hotel or a mini beast mansion which is what I plan on calling my bug hotel. The cartoon based images are photorealistic which means that the children would be able to look at them and know what they are in real life. These below images are all a starting point for the information that is going to go into my bug hotel/mini beast mansion page.

Outdoor Book Research

Below are examples that I found on Google Images of different examples of double page spreads of children's book in the information genre.

Columns and grids are used in every example and there is a specific background whether it is a shade of a colour or an image which relates to the topic in the double page spread. For a younger audience, the colour schemes usually are pastel colours or lighter, less harsh colours. For an older child audience, there are brighter and stronger colours such as oranges and greens. Blacks are also used for an older audience which aren't seen in the books for a younger child audience.

Pictures coming out of their boxes and overlapping is an important thing when it comes to book design as it gives the pages more depth to them.

In the mix of these images above, there are a mixture of double page spreads which are suitable for the younger audience which are 5-7 year olds and an older audience which is 7-11 year olds. I am going to take these examples and use them as inspiration and particularly use the grids and the columns in my work.

Ideas

Idea One:

Bug Hotel Page (Double Page Spread):

Page one:
How to/method, What you need, Interesting facts about bugs found in England

Page Two:
- Cartoon style/drawings/illustrations on one half of the page
- The other half of the page would have a section where there will be a black and white (so the children can colour it in)/outlined version/take on the bug hotel with the instructions of the children drawing in the bugs that they have found using the above box with bugs found in England as a reference.

Idea Two:

Front Page:
- The background could feature bugs of all different shapes and sizes and different animals found in UK woodlands (the style would be cartoony- there is an example on my research blog post of this style)
- There would be a section on the front cover which will give the children an opportunity to write their names on the dotted line- From primary research (My Mom working as a primary school teacher), I have learned that children feel more attached to things they can write their names on as it becomes there's and is more personal to them.
- Another idea I had would be to print a personalised activity book for each child but then the price of printing and labour charge for someone changing names would be too much money.
- Personalised pages could still exist though, there could be dotted lines with the instruction of the child writing their name on the line or "Please Write Your Name Here".

E.g.     "...................'s Bug Hotel"

Idea Three:

- On the pages with the bushcraft activities/on a page afterwards, there could be an option for the child to stick in a photograph of the task completed or them completing the task.
- This would make the activity book more personalised and would be something the child could keep forever as a kind of journal and souvenir

Idea Four:

- Lined paper, Handwritten Font
- Black type and white/off white paper
- Small/large hand drawn illustrations.

Life Cycle Poster Analysis

Below are the two life cycle posters that I found, I chose two different poster styles but the same subject so that the analysis is more interesting as I am able to see the similarities and the differences.

There is a solid structure which takes its appearance as a circular format which shows the whole life cycle of a butterfly. As it is literally a cycle of life, it takes the format of a circular shape as it is the best way to show that it starts as an egg and ends as a butterfly. The same typeface is used throughout as is used in the heading. All of the small images are in circle shapes which I feel is suitable for the audience which would probably be for children or someone looking at the diagram for quick and basic knowledge of the life cycle of a butterfly.The main colour in this diagram is different shades of blue, the light blues feature in the background of the small circles which is like a blue sky. The flow of information is in the arrows which link the different sections together in a neat circle image. 

This example of the life cycle of a butterfly features a lot more words and information which means that it is more suitable for adults and older children which are looking for more information than just images. Despite there being more information, there isn't that many words, as the images are photographs rather than cartoon images which means that it is more likely to be correct in its information. The circular theme still stands with this example as it goes with the idea of the cycle of life. There is a blue colour scheme with this example as well apart from this one has a texture added to it which, in my opinion, looks more childish than the other example.

Session Task- How To Read A Book

Below are some initial sketches of concepts that I did for this short brief:

I decided to go with my "How to read a bed time story" idea as I thought it was the strongest concept and was the best idea out of my sketches. Below is the A4 version of my concept: