Our intrepid space explorers ventured through three creative activities, reliant on their limited oxygen supplies to complete their tasks (each task took 20 minutes).

Children split into three groups, and each group took turns cycling through the activities. In the first activity, children created an image of what their planet looks like from space, using coloured pencils. Is it a diamond planet? Is it a candy floss planet, or one populated entirely by bunnies?

Next, children used building blocks to create a three-dimensional view of how their planet looks on the surface. Is it a rocky outcrop like Mars, a sub-tropical jungle or an urban civilisation?

In the final activity, children imagined what plants and animals might live on their planet. They used colourful dough to bring their ideas to life, creating three-dimensional models. 

At the end of their space activities, children reported their planetary findings back to mission control. 

The ootiboo team have shared standout creations from the students in the gallery, and below there are some behind the scenes photos from participating schools.

Martello was our first participating school for World Builder after a delay of almost eight months due to COVID. The kids jumped into the activities with enthusiasm and plenty of noise. Dough was voted the favourite activity at the end of the session. Allowing this was our first set of workshops, they went really well. Of course, we had plenty of ideas to fine tune our approach.

Our second school was Hillcross in Morden with a 6am start from Folkestone for the team. This was the first of three London schools in a row. Like with most of the schools, we ran a ninety-minute morning and afternoon session to involve as many students as possible.  Each session began with a fun, short animation produced by our creatives to inform and engage the kids.

Our third school was Fairlawn in Honor Oak with the largest school participation of over 200 students in the two sessions. The kids loved the activities and the little gift they all received at the end from our partner Egmont Magazines of a Lego magazine and mini moon lander kit. As we left, the after-school club began and several of the children started on their Lego lander models.

School number four was Bishop Gilpin. By now we were finding a good rhythm delivering the workshop.  Each time the session started the kids were a little unsure what to expect but after the intro, the kids jumped into their first activity and the noise levels rocketed! We had a countdown clock and when they were reminded of the time left the noise increased. The loudest though was when the kids counted down the final ten seconds to end the activity!

School number five saw the ootiboo team staying slightly closer to home in sun-kissed Kent. Sellindge Primary School booked us for just the morning, so we lost no time by jumping straight in and the kids quickly understood their mission! We saw a ton of creativity here, and the teachers were fantastically hands-on, chatting with the kids about their creations and really getting involved.

The ootiboo team turned up at our sixth school, Brook Community Primary School, in the afternoon. As it was mid-heatwave, we decided to have the world-creating and the creature-creating activities inside the school hall, and the city-creating activity outside in the shade, and the kids loved it! Once again, we saw a heap of fantastic creations from the kids, and as usual, the dough activity was the favourite overall.

Our final school workshop was at Morehall Primary back in Folkestone. All the year groups participated, as well as the teachers who really enjoyed being creative (as proven by the collection of creatures they produced in the image below). 

World Builder was dreamt up nearly a year ago and now we have finally - and successfully! - delivered all our workshops, even with COVID trying to spoil our plans.