recent

Our y1's have been studying the Queen - so we created new palaces for her! We made them in the form of a pop-up with the possible idea of posting them off to her!

 Our y6's have been studying the Shang Dynasty (Ancient China) and have carefully, over a number of weeks(!), made full-size replicas of bronze ceremonial vessels out of papier mache over card armatures. We tried to add an authentic patination using pastels. (nb. bronze contains copper and so over time goes a greeny colour).

the Vikings are coming!

The y5's have completed their Viking longship sculptures. The hulls are made from terracotta clay - using the coil method, which simulates the wooden planking. The mast and spars are wood (dowel & lollipop stick) whilst the sail is a piece of cotton. They even made some crew members from short lengths of paper dowel. Size? About 15cm stem to stern.

seals

Y4 have painted their clay sculptures. We used a 'splodge' technique to achieve the colouration found on grey seals!

clay

In y3, as a follow up to their pop-ups last week, we decided to sculpt some penguins (and seals) out of clay. We modelled the penguins around our thumbs! Dowels and broken lollipop sticks complete the look. We'll let them air-dry before painting.

I love the modelling and detail of these back flippers.

reindeer

Using the same net as for their tiger 'sculptures', the y1's have been creating reindeers. This is my prototype with lollipop stick legs and twig antlers. On the actual ones we've also used small red pompoms for the nose!

busy, busy, busy

Have been rearranging and updating the displays in our entrance foyer today.

Y5 automatons (with a WW2 theme). As you turn the handles the tanks in the foreground piece go round the explosion as do the doves in the back left, whilst the aeroplane goes both around and up and down.

Y1 card sculpture tigers (inspired by the Henri Rousseau work 'Surprise'.)

And the y6 (James Rizzi inspired) clay city blocks.

fs1

In FS1 (our 3/4 yr olds) today we made gingerbread man 'sculptures' out of craft sticks. Googly eyes, a button and some black felt tip dots completed the look.

Meanwhile I've been playing around with a slightly different style/method of creating my 'doodles'.

leaves & buildings

The y1's followed their paper weaving exploits of last week by stitching some Autumn leaves. The shapes/holes had been pre cut so they could concentrate on the sewing! Wool and big plastic needles were the order of the day.

The y6's have started to paint their bisque-fired, James Rizzi inspired slab, city block containers. They used acrylic paint and we'll probably varnish to further protect and give them a glossy finish.

bears & cityscapes 2

The y1's have been reading 'Peace at Last' by Jill Murphy. So we decided to have a go at drawing bears - they did a 'before' picture and then with some simple guidance as to shapes they created some much more recognisable images.

They then used clay to sculpt some semi-relief bears, using similar shapes.

The y6's have followed up their James Rizzi inspired sketches with 3d card models. We've decided the next step is to create them in clay! we might even go so far as to create slab containers and paint them in a 'James Rizzi' style!!

self portraits 2

The clay faces sculpted by our y1's are dry and have been mounted on thick card. They've also received a coat of thinned down PVA to help keep all of the bits together, especially the finely modelled hair! Here's hoping they remain intact when they're hung on the wall.

queen of hearts

Our FS2 children are learning the 'Queen of Hearts...tarts' rhyme this week, so to aid their retelling we made little representational figures. A strip of paper folded and stapled for the body and a square of card slotted in for the head. You could embellish to your hearts (!) content, add arms, feet and also make the knave & king figures should you so wish.

Self portraits

Today the y1's rounded off their short project on self-portraits by creating semi-relief sculptures using clay. We used air-drying clay so here's hoping they don't crack and fragment as they dry. We'll give them a good coat of PVA to seal and glue any stray bits together before attaching them to a piece of card that can then be hung for display.

romans

Y4's began their study of Romans this week so we made small 3d figures of legionaries.
They look quite effective en masse, with each figure standing about 15cm tall. Not sure whether to make some barbarians for them to 'fight'. 

back at school - yay!

Managed to put our 'Tudor' houses on display - they were only completed on the final day of last term! Partnered them up with our model of the Globe to portray a small section of Shakespeare's London! It looks quite impressive in the flesh - each house stands around 25cm tall. 
(And I seem to be able to email myself pics again!)

The children made peg doll characters to populate the streets.

recent

On a recent school trip to Hannover we stopped and admired sculptural works by Niki de Saint Phalle - such fantastic colours and exhuberant poses.

Meanwhile in school our y2 dinosaurs are nearing completion. It was a bit of a slog this morning but hopefully they will dry ok and we'll be putting in the pneumatic mechanisms, adding teeth, eyes etc. next week.

Trojan chair

Here we are frantically trying to complete projects before the end of the school year. We've lost lessons along the way and some things have invariably taken much longer than anticipated!
This is the completed Trojan Horse that will serve as the backdrop for our display of Greek Warrior sculptures. 

It was once just a 3-legged chair.

even more dino related stuff

Today in y2 we started to papier mache our dinosaurs. We tried to make sure the joins were carefully done, as these are the points that will need to be strongest in order for the pneumatic(!) systems to work effectively.

more dinosaur stuff

In y2 we've begun making dinosaur sculptures that will eventually have mouths that opens and close!
Today we got as far as constructing the armatures - out of boxes, tubes, wood and plenty of Sellotape!

Note: the heads have not yet been attached!

 

Greeks & Tudors

The y3s have made a start on painting their Greek warrior sculptures.

The y4s are continuing with their project to build some Tudor real estate.

And there's progress on the painting table.

sculpture (3)

Today we had a go at wrapping wool around a pipecleaner/wire armature to create small, free-standing sculptures.

One of the children made this cute tiger!