Wall Gives Life To Old Toys 

There's a wall in Eltham where toys go to stay.

Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Bart Simpson are all there. It's a place to be seen if you are a toy.

This wall is unique. There may not be another wall like it and there definitely isn't one the same.

This wall was well worth a story.

Rewind

This week's story begins in the 1990s and that's not so long ago. Did these things really happen in this decade? You decide.

1. People celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

2. For the first time the Governor-General of New Zealand is a woman.

3. Phone cards are very popular and people collect them.

4. New Zealand wins the America's Cup.

5. Everyone is looking forward to celebrating the new millennium.

Top toys

Look here for a great timeline of 20th century toys. Sort them into these lists.

1. Toys you've played with.

2. Toys you've never heard of.

3. Toys you would like to try.

4. Toys that will always be popular.

5. Your own top three toys.

(Some toys will be on more than one list.)

Stone wall championships!

Today's story is all about a stone wall. Stone walls are pretty impressive and people have made them for hundreds of years. They last much longer than the people that build them.

In Britain there are competitions for building stone walls. Instead of netball or soccer on a Saturday morning people go and build a stone wall. It's true! Look here for the venue and rules and find out if you have to take your own stones.

What if you organised a stone wall building competition at your school? Where would you build the wall? How would you organise it so you didn't end up with a whole lot of little walls? Talk it over with a classmate.

What if you and your mate were the chief organisers of the Taranaki Schools Stone Wall  Building Championships? What's the biggest problem you would have to solve and how would you solve it?

Word wise

All the words and phrases below are in this week's story. Decide whether the best meaning is (a) or (b) and then check your answers when you read the story.

1. animated  (a) cartoon like or (b) lively
 
 
2. teeters (a) balances or (b) topples
 
 
3. negotiated (a) discussed and worked out or (b) ordered
 
4. charitable trust (a) a fund set up to help people or (b) when one group member depends on everyone else

5. icons (a) company designs like Coke (b) important symbols
 
 
6. smashed to smithereens (a)smashed and then burnt or (b) broken into little bits
 
 
7. hesitant (a) slow to act or (b) reluctant
 
 
8. memorial (a) a special plaque or (b) something that helps us remember
 
 
9. awe (a) terror or (b) amazement
 
 
10. the flicks (a )cartoons or (b) the movies
 

New art from old things

The start of this week's story mentions Taranaki artist Dale Copeland. That's because the giant wall that you will read about looks a bit like one of her works of art. Look here to see some of Dale's art and read what she has to say. Just click into the rooms to see how she uses her different treasures to create the very clever assemblages.

The wall begins

Read the first part of this week's story down to "Ashes to ashes."  Find out who started the Toy Wall and where the toys came from to keep it going.

Fay once said that every toy tells a story and each toy is well loved. Write a picture cinquain about a toy of your own that you think would look good in this wall. These poems are quite easy to write. Here's one about Bart from the photo above.

Bart's stuck!

Look at Bart

Balanced, wide-eyed, worried, daring

Cemented on a wall of stone

Firmly, calmly, curiously, stubbornly

Watch out Eltham - he moves at night.

Line one introduces the subject. Line two describes the subject with four adjectives.

Line three is a sentence saying what is happening and line four has four adverbs to describe the action. Line five is another sentence to round off the poem.

It's good if you can add a twist to your poem in this last line.

Honour him?

Fay Young gave so much to Eltham during her life and she kept on giving after she died.

"Ashes to ashes" and "A generous soul" tells you all about this. Read on and find out why Fay's Toy Wall looks as though it is here to stay.

Fay was nominated for a citizen's award twice but turned them down. She thought that living above the park was reward enough.

All sorts of people in the community volunteer their time to help others and we never hear about them. Some, like Fay work on community projects while others work for organisations like Meals On Wheels or the Blind Foundation.

An "Honours list" appears in the newspaper each Queen's Birthday Weekend and that's when some really big honours are handed out. Some people have even been knighted and now have the word Sir or Dame in front of their names. The Government decided to do away with these old British honours a few years ago but we still honour people.

Sometimes a really big honour will go to a business person or a politician, but unlike Fay they got paid for what they did.

Think, pair and then share your thoughts with others. Should people that get paid for their work, ever be honoured?

Who are these Lions?

Lions appear in this week's story and you see their signs as you drive into towns like Eltham. Who are the Lions and what do they do? Look here and then work out what decisions the Eltham Lions Club had to come to when they were asked to care for Fay's house and her wall.

Attack of the vandals

The original Vandals were warriors from a part of Germany. They attacked and plundered their way through Europe long before people had arrived in New Zealand. They even set up a base in Africa so they could head off on raiding missions like the Vikings did.

Today's vandals have the same name but that's about all. They sneak around in the dark and break things that people like and then run away and hide.

If they were living in the real Vandal days they would probably end up polishing the warriors' sandals or picking up the horse dung. Real Vandals didn't do much sneaking and hiding so these people wouldn't be much use.

Read about Eltham's vandals in the section, "Vandals attack wall."

Here then is a real problem that needs to be solved. This wall is quite special already. If it wasn't for the vandals it could be amazing.

Form a group of three or four and rule up four columns on a piece of cartridge paper.

Head up column one THE GROUPS:

Head up column two, SHOULD TAKE
ACTION BY:

Column three should have the heading, FOR THE PURPOSE OF:

And column four should have the heading, LIKELY SUCCESS RATING OUT OF 10:

Begin with these groups and discuss and list your ideas in the columns next to each group.

The Police, School Students, The Council, The Lions.

When you've worked on these groups try adding one or two of your own.

A timeline of toys?

Finish the story now and decide if you have a toy from the "early 2000s" that would look good on this wall.

What if you had to date all the toys already there? Try using the internet to help you.

Remember some of those toys might be timeless. They may have been around forever!

For Fay

The little stone church is a memorial to Fay but so too is the whole park.

What if you were the park's curator? That's the person who looks after the park for the Council. What would you like to see done to help more people get to, see and enjoy this park?

Eltham people for example know all about this park and the wall but do visitors from out of town? Share your ideas with a classmate.

Fast forward

Tomorrow's toys

Blocks, beads and puzzles are being taken over! Scientists are now making educational toys from motors, computer chips and software. These toys help kids learn about communication, behaviour, design and invention.

Professor Mitch Resnick works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. The first programmable bricks were made in his lab when scientists inserted tiny computers, motors, and sensors into large LEGO blocks.

Now kids could build creatures that moved and responded to stimuli like light and sound. These blocks are sold as LEGO Mindstorms.

The new bricks or "crickets," are smaller - about the size of a nine-volt battery. They can be used to collect data, interact with each other, or build new creatures.

Mitch says that a child who sees a moth flitting around a light bulb could use cricket bricks to create a robot that behaves in the same way. Simple commands would instruct the robot to move toward light. When kids do this they learn that sensors provide input that leads to behaviours.

Mitch Resnick says that people have some of their best learning experiences when they're creating, inventing and designing things. "We want to extend the range of ways people can do that."

His lab has also created programmable beads that children can string together to make visual light patterns. Beatbugs is another toy. Kids can create and trade their own musical rhythms using handheld percussion instruments.

Design a vandal buster

Imagine using some of Mitch's technology to create a vandal buster. It could patrol up and down the Eltham wall. Draw the toy you would make and label its special features that would help in the fight against vandals and the protection of all other toys.