Inspired by the imaginations of children in Year3, we are excited to be setting up a brand new Make do and mend club as part of our Threads of Tooting project. Children will be investigating what happened to clothes during the war. How did people make do and mend? What tips or tricks did people find to dress up for special occasions still?

Over the course of the year they will work with a range of artists to repair old clothes for an exhibition. They will explore what we can learn from the time period and how we apply it to the climate emergency.

Artists worked with children in Year 2-6 for one academic year to explore what heritage meant to them. Children make recipes, poetry and stories about their personal and communal heritage. This was part of Sugar & Spice.

Interested in teaching resources?

Resources from the project include writing/devising from photos, poetry, collage art and how to throw your own heritage trashion show. For information about workshop plans, resources and how to join in please email: louise@bouncetheatre.com

Threads of Tooting weaves together the story of the tailors, makers, and textile businesses housed in Tooting since the 1920s.

Using interviews, research, and site visits, local people will create and curate a series of events to celebrate Tooting’s relationship with tailoring and textiles.

Opportunities to join in include:

Bounce Youth Theatre (Tooting) – Explore oral histories and making verbatim theatre.

Draw, Paint, and Make – Join local visual artists, Meet and Make Spaces, to turn your hand to drawing and painting a community mural.

Heritage Club – Fancy participating from home over winter? Join our weekly heritage club to share research, stories, and news over Zoom.

Threads of Tooting will also be part of our Creative Learning Programme. Read more about Fircroft Primary Schools local history project here.

To receive regular news, updates, and information about the project direct to your inbox please email lauren@bouncetheatre.com to join the mailing list.

Speech Bubbles is for children aged 5-7 who find it difficult to develop the speech, language and communication skills they need for life: for socialising, for learning, for well-being and good mental health.

Speech Bubbles is a weekly drama programme taking place in school time, designed to give young children an opportunity to have fun telling stories and acting them out. The programme has a particular emphasis on supporting children to gain confidence and develop their physical and verbal communication skills.

You can find out more about the research, theory and evaluation of Speech Bubbles here: https://www.speechbubbles.org.uk

Are you a Primary teacher interested in the programme?

Bounce will be delivering Speech Bubbles in Wandsworth & Kingston from September 2022.

If you would like to find out more about the programme, please email: louise@bouncetheatre.com

Children in Year 5 to become part of Bounce Theatre this year to design and curate a pop up museum.

The classes will work with our team to unravel the importance of asking questions. Why are questions important? How can questions help us unravel decades of untold stories to celebrate tailors and textiles over decades? How can questions help us understand how Tooting is connected to the world?

Children will develop lines of enquiry into local history. They will be given freedom to create their own unique, artistic response to the material. They will share it with the school and tour it across Tooting as part of the wider project.

If you are a local school and would like to get involved please email harriet@bouncetheatre.com for more details.