tigers & dishes

Yesterday the y1's created some pieces based on Rousseau's painting 'Tiger in a Storm'. They've also been reading 'The Tiger Who Came To Tea' by Judith kerr. We used techniques from the last couple of weeks in that we wove, using paper strips, the tiger's stripes and then stitched the grass, using coloured wool.

Meanwhile in ceramic club we took home our completed and fired dishes.

leaves & city blocks

In y1 we wove, using paper strips, some 'Autumn' leaves.

Today the y6's made slab container city blocks (after James Rizzi). We'll bisque fire them and then carefully (!) paint using acrylics.

completed bookmarks

Today the y2's completed their woven bookmarks. After cutting them from the card looms we just tied the warp threads together at the ends.

Some children added stitching.

I'm sure that whoever receives these will value and treasure them knowing that a lot of effort went into their creation.

weaving

It was y2's turn to weave today! We started by threading up our looms before embarking on the tricky task of creating stripey bookmarks! There was a lot of unravelling of mistakes so hopefully they'll be completed in time for Xmas!

tigers

Following on from their leaves last week, our y1's did some more weaving. And as they are currently looking at the book 'The Tiger Who Came To Tea' it seemed apt to weave tigers!

We added extra stripes, claws, grass etc. to further enhance them.

Our ceramic poppies were very favourably commented on today and about 2/3 of them were taken away in return for donations to the RBL. Shall have to check tomorrow how much was actually raised. The remaining ones will be available for the next few days before finding a suitable home in our forest area.

leaves

Today our y1's wove some Autumn leaves. They cut out simple leaf-shaped looms and wove strips of paper and card through them.

We added thinner strips to further enhance the overall effect.

Excesses were trimmed off.

weaving

Y5 today completed their weaving projct by adding found, natural materials. A few lucky children found feathers to weave in whilst others were content with greenery.

 

 

 

We then tied them (securely we hope) to the fence that lines the walk up to our 'Forest Schools' area. It'll be interesting to see how they change over the coming weeks after being exposed to the elements.

 

weaving

Continuing with our 'going green/enhancing the environment' theme in y5, we used prunings to make small looms. We tied them together with colourful threads before adding woollen warp threads. We started to weave using wool but, as they progress, we'll add other bits and pieces.

 

 

leaves & doodles

Y1 have been adding to our 'magical forest' by weaving leaves. These are then being threaded with wire before being wrapped onto the branches with yarn - a laborious process but its all slowly beginning to take shape.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, a few doodles from my sketchbook. Must've been listening to some Sinatra tracks in my head whilst drawing them!

 

 

 

pollack & doodle

In art club this week we embellished our strip woven pieces by adding woollen threads and card 'buttons'. They turned out quite 'Jackson Pollacky' !

 

 

Today's doodle - 'bowling 'bot', A5, ink & pencil on paper.

 

weaving + daily doodle

In art club this week we wove paper strips. We interlocked strips of different widths and then added even thinner strips on the surface. The intention is to embellish these pieces further with threads, buttons and beads.

 

 

In an effort to keep some sort of personal creativity going I'm going to try and draw and post a doodle a day. At the moment I do these whilst waiting for the photocopier to get its act together. I then usually leave them lying around in the repro room - to raise a smile, spark ideas, as a random gift for whoever would like them. Here's the first;

 

A5, ink & pencil on paper

Fish

In Y1 today we did paper-weaving using strips of paper to represent the scales of fish. 

 

 

 

The children will be looking at the book 'Rainbow Fish' next week so it should prove a good stimulus.

misc. xmas stuff

On the run in to the Christmas hols. Some bits and pieces that we've been doing in between rehearsing and performing our whole school carol concert.

 

The y2's followed up their yarn woven bookmarks by creating cards by weaving paper strips and then cutting them into a simple tree shape before sticking them onto a card.

 

In y3 we used strips of paper to make star/snowflake decorations

In y5 we made pop-up nativity scenes incorporating a simple box-fold mechanism for the stable.

weaving

In y2 we've been weaving bookmarks. Simple card looms with woollen threads. The loose ends have been tied off. The children did really well to keep the tension constant and still manage to weave quite tight pieces.

 

 

It's also Christmas card making season. Here's a small selection of the card designs we've done so far this week. Simple cut/folded shapes.

'Fossil' hunting

As part of our themed study about dinosaurs, tomorrow we are going 'fossil' hunting. The children are going to be given a tray in which 'fossils' have been buried. The 'fossils' are really the wooden parts from those model dinosaurs that you can construct. The idea is to get them to not only excavate the 'fossils' but then try to assemble them without having a picture or diagram to work from. This will hopefully put them in a similar position to the early Victorian fossil hunters who used a bit of guesswork and

conjecture to assemble their finds. Obviously after a while I'll put them out of their misery - maybe! Oh, and just to get them into the spirit even more, each tray does not necessarily contain all the parts of a dinosaur model.

Some of the Y2 children have also completed their woven bookmarks.

Weaving

Back after the half-term break. Y2 followed up their paper weaving with simple yarn pieces. We'll tie them off and use them as bookmarks.

Paper weaving

Following on from the weaving we did for the kilts of the Katie Morag figures - we did larger, individual pieces today. We also interwove thinner strips to add to the overall effect. Have also been playing around with robot images. Painted these two ACEOs over the weekend - acrylics on heavyweight paper.

Back up and running

After almost a year without a viable pc set-up I'm hopefully back up and running, with every good intention of posting regularly.

Going to start off with stuff we've been doing in school today. Being as it's book week and Y2 have been looking at Katie Morag stories it seemed obvious to create life-size figures. We did the obligatory scrunched tissue for her woolly jumper, whilst the kilt was fashioned by weaving paper strips onto small cut card 'looms'. Eyes still to be added using buttons (just visible), hair to be completed and the whole to be finished off by placing copies of Katie Morag stories in hands.

We created two pieces because there are two classes! The one with outstretched arms will have them bent into position in fornt of her as if reading said book.