perilous penguin pyramid

p..p..p..penguins

 Today in y4 we moulded some penguins. We first of all flattened a ball of clay and then moulded it around our paper-towel covered thumbs.

 

 

We added broken lollipop sticks for wings and a short length of dowel for the beak.

 

We used air-drying clay so no worries about the wooden bits being burnt in the kiln! We referenced Anthony Gormley's 'The Field' and are hoping that 70+ penguins looks like a reasonable colony.
We'll paint them next week when they've dried.

up and running

Back at school and back into the swing of things. Have decided that this year is going to be my breakthrough year (again!)!!

This week we are drawing as a gentle lead-in to the topics/themes we will be studying over the next few weeks.

In Y4 today we sketched polar animals - using the now legendary 'A is for....' as a starting point.

Hopefully the animals depicted should be recognisable which is what we were after, rather than a photo-realistic image.

 

 

Here's hoping that everyone has a wonderfully creative year!

(Hmm, not too happy with the photo!)

today

Am busy getting my art room into shape! But still finding time to come up with ideas for forthcoming lessons. Y2's are looking at castles so I thought we could have a go at pop-ups.

 

 

 

My sister likes penguins so I've cheap-skated and drawn her a xmas card this year. It helps if you squint a little as you look at the pic;

 

The little chaps are supposed to look like they're holding their flippers/wings in certain positions, though the more I look at 's' the more I see Elvis !? Big sis doesn't read my blog (!) so I'm not giving the surprise away.

papier mache

FS2 read one of Oliver Jeffers' stories about the boy and his friend the penguin today - 'Up and Down'. We decided to try and re-create one of the illustrations - in semi-relief. We papier mached  a cannon (of the human cannonball variety) and a ring master. Boxes as supports pasted over with one layer of newspaper and a coloured layer of tissue.

 

at school

In FS2 today we read a story called 'Penguin Small' (by Mick Inkpen ) and so, made some small penguins! Simple card and paper construction with a sticky label forming the white front.

 

 

In Y2 we painted our Chinese bowls (made from air-drying clay). We used blue over an undercoat of white. When they've dried, we'll add a coat of PVA to seal them and give them a bit of a shine. Can't wait till the new kiln comes and we can start experimenting with 'proper' clay and real glazes.