Merry merry christmas

With only a few days left we have frantically finished off paper mâché models and I've opened the last kiln load for the year.

It's been as usual a busy year with lots of creativity!

I have sent home the kids visual diaries with suggestions for drawing activities to keep their drawing eye in over the holidays. 

Wishing you all a lovely relaxing fun filled summer holiday!

This yellow bird looks like how I feel - with my eyes spinning as I try to clean up our school art studio! ;)

Aurora Borialis

One of my year 7classes get a little extra time to allow their classroom teacher time to do extra duties with ICT. Because of this they have got ahead of the other kids. I like to make sure I support their classroom learning in this time so this week we used it to explore the Aurora Borialis to link in with their research of natural environmental features and landscapes.

First of all we had a short discussion to concidering what medium would be best to create the swirling colourful lights. They suggested watercolour and pastels. As we had done a lot of watercolour work I decided that chalky pastels would be the one we would use.

The next step was to explore the medium in their visual diaries and then share their results with each other through a 'studio walk'

when they were ready they used the pastels on black paper to create their Aurora Borialis designs. Once they were happy with their background they created an silhouette of the arctic habitat to glue along the front. 

I think the results are pretty amazing! Don't you?

wild energetic colourful pieces

These art works are some of the figures in motion that the yr6/7 kids have been working on and finally finishing off.

And some Fauve inspired landscapes done using chalky pastels.

A few more birds and some characters from our colonial past.

Upcycled paper mâché project

Finally after athletics, fun runs, and a short period of leave for me the kids are completing their paper mâché figures. Each class had a theme that matched with their classroom learning in English, science or history.

Some classes did animals and birds...

some made aliens...

others have made figures from our colonial past.

By next week most kids should be finished! I'll post more photos then!

Here is a selection of ceramic works made by the year 6/7 kids. They were given instructions on how to work clay as a slab or as a figure sculpture. They took notes and used this information to create models that related to the theme of research in their regular classrooms for history. Some are based on ancient Greek & Roman myths others are from Asian culture.

Ceramic centenary project.

Last year was our centenary year. The children across the school did a lot of research about life in the past, this included looking at school days in the past. We discussed what things we would remember about our time at school when we grew up. These things were recorded on ceramic tiles.

the children rolled out the clay using spacers (two lengths of wood of the required thickness) and used a template to cut a square of clay. This square was carved out and added to using the scraps of clay cut away from the edges. 

Each tile has something relating to our school today. ABC 123 - reading and writing, art, music, PE, crunch and sip, the Pally Patch and kitchen, the dogs that get tied to the fence when they come for a walk to drop kids off to school in the morning.

I found another 30 or so tiles that were tucked in a high shelf drying and still need to fire those, I'm waiting for the 6/7s to finish glazing their work to get a full kiln so there will be another two lengths of tiles to add to these soon.