Foundation Years
Mini Miners!
Our specially designed outreach activities - including our Big Book, Basil and Scraggs Go Underground at Geevor - introduce mining themes to children’s imaginations and sets them up for a great day out.
Aims of this programme
- To provide age-specific resources that promote a positive and memorable experience of Geevor’s unfamiliar, industrial environment.
- To understand that miners work underground, in rock, and that rocks can be varied and useful.
- To introduce the concept of change over time and compare old and modern miners.
- To be stimulated and inspired by the sights, sounds, smells and activities at Geevor.
What happens on the day?
Focusing on learning through play, we strongly recommend that before your class visit to Geevor, you start your ‘Mini-miners!’ adventure with a ‘Basil and Scraggs’ Outreach session at school.
The Outreach session sets up students for their visit and introduces them to words, objects, sights and staff that they will see on their visit. The activities can be reinforced in class afterwards by using our ‘Basil and Scraggs’ Loans box, which includes a copy of Geevor’s storybook, dressing up clothes and other relevant resources.
The timings of the site visit can be tailored to your own particular travel and students’ needs but usually lasts between 10am – 2pm.
The day for Mini-miners! starts with a fruit break, before walking through the impressive Mill building to the underground, where they will be taken through in large groups along with accompanying adults.
We recommend that the students bring torches with them as this gives them more confidence underground and heightens their experience.
The mosel bags decorated at the outreach session can be brought along to carry the torches, and even a snack to eat when underground, whilst the song learned in the outreach session can be sung in its underground context. The morning is then finished up with some panning for gems or colouring-in, and there are small waterproof aprons and steps provided if needed.
In the afternoon, the students are treated to some hand-drilling, barrowing and sieving, followed by a play on a loco and look down a mine shaft. The interactive Hard Rock Museum provides an Early Years trail, lead by Basil & Scraggs, to encourage exploration of the gallery and its objects.
It is recommended that the number of students for the Mini-Miners! Visit is limited to a maximum of 30, so as to guarantee optimum experience.
ACCOMPANYING RESOURCES
Outreach
For this workshop, the Mini-Miners! Outreach for 3-5yrs is a strongly recommended accompaniment to prepare your students for their site visit. We strongly feel that this outreach session is important for such young visitors. Please discuss your options with a member of the Learning Team.
Loans Box
To complement this workshop, the Basil and Scraggs Loan Box contains similar activities as is done during the outreach to enable reinforcement of concepts, as it contains a copy of our storybook, dressing up clothes and learning through play activities.