Waves and Wonder

“Waves and Wonders” was a collaborative Teacher-Artist Partnership (TAP+) project between visual artist Rebecca Maguire and Senior Infants teacher Oonagh Gilsenan at Navan Educate Together that ran from from October to December 2025. Supported by the Navan Education Support Centre and funded by Credit Union Plus, the project brought together 22 Senior Infants, a Special Needs Assistant, and a Transition Year student.
The impetus for the project was to bridge tactile, natural materials with early childhood imagination. We chose the theme ‘Under the Sea Exploration’ to tap into the children’s natural curiosity about the ocean. We began by introducing tactile raw materials specifically small, natural pebbles and challenging the children to look past their simplicity to see them as characters, landscapes, and storytelling mediums.

Watch video from Waves and Wonders Pebble Art Project below.

Tell us the story of your project – What was the impetus? What was it about? Who was involved? How did you begin?

Rebecca, Artist

The journey of “Waves and Wonders” began with a simple but powerful idea: bridging tactile, natural materials with early childhood imagination. Going into my first meeting with Senior Infants teacher Oonagh Gilsenan, my goal was to align the project closely with what the children were already exploring in their daily curriculum.

When Oonagh mentioned they were learning about the ocean, sealife, and the sea environment, it felt like a perfect match. I suggested an “Under the Sea Exploration” theme, which blended seamlessly with my own artistic practice and expertise in pebble art. The core prompt I wanted to explore with the children was simple yet profound: Is this just
a pebble, or what else could it be? We wanted to challenge the children to look past the simplicity of raw materials and see them as characters, landscapes, and storytelling mediums.

Oonagh, Teacher

My mum grew up on the Béara Peninsula in West Cork, right beside a beautiful stoney beach. I spent all my childhood summers there, exploring the shoreline, collecting pebbles and shells, and painting the treasures we found. Those memories are some of the most joyful and formative of my life. When I learned that I would be partnered with Rebecca, a pebble artist, I was really excited. I knew immediately that I wanted to give the children in my class a similar experience, the chance to feel the magic of a pebble beach and to see the creative possibilities in the natural world.

Every year, while delving in to the topic of The Sea with my Senior Infants classes, I’m struck by the children’s natural curiosity, the way they light up at shells, sea creatures, waves, boats, and anything connected to the ocean. It’s a topic that invites imagination, questioning, and wonder, which makes it a perfect fit for playful, inquiry-based learning. So when Rebecca suggested going with an underwater theme for our TAP+ project, I was delighted. An introductory circle time activity during which the children were invited to begin an ocean themed question with “I wonder….” led to some thoughtful, funny, curious,
and beautifully child-centred questions and contributed to the collaborative decision to name our project “Waves and Wonders”.

How were the ideas developed and how did the young people, artist and teacher work
together?

Rebecca

The Waves and Wonders project developed through a beautiful synergy between classroom learning, artistic practice, and genuine child-led agency. It began when Oonagh’s lessons on sea life inspired a collaboration with me, blending early childhood expertise with the unique medium of pebble art. To give the Senior Infants firsthand experience of the ocean, Oonagh secured full funding from Credit Union Plus in Trim for a field trip to Killiney Beach, a location I chose specifically for its safe facilities and abundance of smooth pebbles. Back in the classroom, decision making was handed entirely over to the children through a
dedicated Waves and Wonders journal. They used this space to brainstorm, trace pebble shapes, design collages, and play under-the-sea bingo using pebbles as counters. Ultimately, the project was completely child-led, as each student independently chose their own sea creatures, colors, patterns, and layouts, using premium canvases and acrylic paint pens to bring their individual artistic voices to life.By stepping back and letting the children lead, their journals became a vibrant map of their independence, imagination, and artistic voice.

Oonagh 

The ideas for Waves and Wonders grew from early collaborative planning between Rebecca and myself.

From the outset, Rebecca and I shared a vision of grounding the project in real experience. We wanted the children to connect with the materials in their natural environment, not just in the classroom. So we began with a visit to Killiney beach, suggested by Rebecca for it’s beautiful pebbles and decent public toilets – an essential element of a Senior Infants field trip! For some children, it was their very first time seeing the sea. They loved exploring the shoreline, collecting pebbles, and listening to the sound of the pebbles rolling in the waves. They noticed shapes and textures with excitement and curiosity and made their own discoveries about the natural world. Watching them explore the stones, water, and shoreline with such wonder was incredibly moving and set the tone for everything that followed.

Back at school, the project unfolded through a blend of artistic exploration, storytelling, and hands-on creativity. Rebecca introduced the children to pebble art techniques, showing them how simple natural objects could become characters, creatures, and scenes. She brought pebble art to life for the children during her first classroom visit when she created a
pebble character for each of them and presented them with their ‘Pebble Pets’ while telling a very funny story about them. The children were mesmerised and immediately hooked! I supported the children in expressing their ideas, building vocabulary, and making connections across the curriculum. We looked at the illustrations in lots of our favourite ocean themed picture books and retold some of the stories using our pebble characters. We introduced the idea of a simple Waves and Wonders journal into which the children recorded ideas, patterns, drawing, collages, photographs etc. Throughout the project the artist and teacher roles blended naturally, and the children sawus working side by side as partners in their learning.

Waves and Wonders became a celebration of nature, creativity, and collaboration. It grew from a shared love of the natural world and affinity with the Irish coastline, was shaped by Rebecca’s artistic expertise, and was brought to life by the children’s imagination and enthusiasm. Beginning with that shared experience on the beach gave the project a sense of authenticity and joy that carried throughout every stage of the project.

What was your personal experience of the project in terms of successes and challenges?

Rebecca’s Successes

On my introductory day, I brought in samples of my work to show the children what could be achieved with pebbles. To make it truly special, I surprised them with personalised pebble characters glued onto wooden discs, matching each child’s name (e.g., King Kian, Robot Rian, Harriet Hedgehog). Gathering into a circle, I improvised a silly story using these “Pebble Pets.” The reaction was incredible, it was a total lightbulb moment where the children instantly saw the creative potential of a simple stone.

Following this, our trip to Killiney Beach was a major successes. Moving from the classroom to an expansive, sensory environment completely unlocked the Senior Infants’ imaginations. Touching, sorting, and observing the stones in their natural habitat profoundly changed how they interacted with the materials back in the classroom. Blending Oonagh’s community
fundraising with my coastal site knowledge created a safe, seamless, and fully funded learning experience the children will never forget.

Oonagh’s  Successes

My personal experience of Waves and Wonders was overwhelmingly positive, with many moments of joy, pride, and genuine connection. One of the greatest successes was witnessing the children’s sense of ownership and confidence grow throughout the project. They were deeply engaged from the very beginning, and by the end they were able to speak proudly and articulately about their artwork, their ideas, and the creative process.

A particular highlight was our classroom exhibition for the school community. Families, staff, and students were invited in to view the children’s collaborative and individual pebble artworks, listen to their sea-themed songs, and explore their Waves and Wonders reflective journals. Watching the children present their work with such excitement and self-assurance
was incredibly rewarding. They were immensely proud of themselves, spoke more confidently, and clearly felt valued as young artists. For me, this was a powerful reminder of the impact that authentic creative experiences can have on children’s wellbeing and sense of identity.

Rebecca’s Challenges

For me, the greatest challenge can be summed up in three words: timing, timing, timing! When I first began working in the classroom with the Senior Infants, I hadn’t fully anticipated the logistics of a junior primary setting. The sheer amount of time required just to set up materials, coupled with the beautifully slow, deliberate pace at which five-year-
olds naturally work, caught me off guard.

Having children of my own who are now in their mid-20s, I had honestly forgotten just how much time little hands need to process and create! It was Oonagh who stepped in with invaluable guidance, gently reminding me that we needed to scale back our expectations and essentially half the planned workload to match the developmental pace of five-year-olds. Readjusting my internal clock and learning to embrace this slower, child-led rhythm was a massive learning curve for me, but it ultimately taught me how to structure the sessions so the children never felt rushed.

Oonagh’s Challenges

There were also challenges, as with any project. Managing materials such as pebbles, shells, canvases, paint, aprons, brushes, printing objects, acrylic markers etc required careful organisation, especially in a busy Senior Infant classroom. Rebecca’s amazing organisational skills and forward planning in relation to the resources that we needed and the help of our wonderful SNA and transition year student meant that the sessions ran as smoothly as possible. Ensuring that every child had enough space to work and enough time to explore freely sometimes required flexibility in the timetable. A small number of children initially found the open-ended nature of the tasks challenging, and we needed to support them in taking creative risks and trusting their own ideas. However, these challenges ultimately became part of the learning process for the children and for me.

Overall, the project was a deeply enriching experience. The successes far outweighed the challenges, and the sense of joy, pride, and community that emerged from the children’s work made Waves and Wonders a truly memorable and meaningful partnership.

What was significant for you about the project that is worth sharing?

Rebecca

What made “Waves and Wonders” truly significant for me was witnessing how a rigid, ordinary object like a pebble could become a completely fluid tool for storytelling in early years education. It proved that complex artistic concepts such as minimalism, negative space, form, and texture can be grasped beautifully by Senior Infants when linked to active, play based learning. The children started talking and thinking like pebble artists actually looking at the pebbles and really describing the textues, patterns and chosing to pick or not to pick pebbles to work with based on their size shape texture etc, it was incredible to witness this and I was thinking to myself ‘Yes, they totally get it’.

The magic really happened when the children began bringing their characters to life; the pebbles ceased to be just stones and genuinely became their ‘Pebble Pets’. Watching five and six-year-olds independently negotiate how to represent the movement of a jellyfish or a crab using weight and shape showed me that young children are capable of immense creative depth.

Oonagh 

One of the most significant aspects of Waves and Wonders for me was the opportunity it gave the children to experience the natural world in a meaningful and memorable way. Some of the children in my class have very limited experiences of spending time in natural environments. Bringing them to the beach at the start of the project was incredibly powerful. Watching them explore the sand, water, pebbles, and seaweed with such awe reminded me how important it is to create these opportunities, especially for children who may not otherwise have access to them.

The project highlighted just how transformative naturebased learning can be. The beach visit didn’t just introduce the theme, it opened up a sense of wonder that carried through the entire project. The children’s creativity was richer because they had touched, collected, and observed the materials in their natural environment. Their artwork was more personal and imaginative because it was rooted in real experience.

Another significant element was the collaboration with Rebecca. Her artistic expertise and her deep appreciation for natural materials showed me and the children that creativity can come from the simplest of objects, a pebble, a piece of driftwood, a shell. She modelled a way of seeing beauty in the ordinary, and this had a profound impact on us all. We began to look more closely, notice more, and value the small details in the materials that we worked
with.

For me, the project reinforced the importance of giving children authentic, handson experiences and of working alongside an artist who brings a different lens to the classroom. It reminded me that creativity thrives when children are given time, space, and real materials to explore and when adults collaborate to make those experiences possible.

On a practical level, Rebecca sourced all of the materials for the project and I was pleasantly surprised that the materials didn’t cost as much as I had thought they would. Acrylic pens, pebbles and shells are now used daily in my classroom during child-led play sessions and a significant number of children in my class received birthday/Christmas gifts of acrylic pens throughout the project!

Has anything changed in your work as a result of the project?

Rebecca

It has shifted my focus entirely toward prioritising the process of exploration rather than worrying about a perfectly uniform end product.

Seeing the massive impact the beach excursion had on the children has also inspired me to weave more direct sensory and outdoor experiences into my future workshop planning.

Oonagh

This project has had a meaningful impact on my practice. One of the biggest shifts for me has been a deeper appreciation of the process rather than the product in art. Throughout Waves and Wonders, I saw how valuable it was to give the children time to
explore, experiment, and make their own decisions without rushing towards a finished piece. Their creativity flourished when the focus was on discovery rather than outcome. The project also encouraged me to build more flexibility into my timetable. Allowing sessions to unfold naturally meant we could delve much more deeply into the topic. This opened up opportunities to integrate many areas of the curriculum, language, science, geography, music, wellbeing, and even early maths through sorting and classifying materials. I realised how powerful it is when learning is connected, meaningful, and child-led. Working alongside Rebecca reinforced the importance of slowing down, observing, and trusting the children’s ideas. I now feel more confident in creating space for open-ended exploration and in using natural materials as a catalyst for creativity. The project has reminded me that when we give children time, freedom, and rich experiences, their learning becomes more joyful, authentic, and memorable.