Year 1

Term 1

This term our topic was Superheroes. We discussed what patterns are and we looked at different pictures of patterns and had a go at drawing our own. Some of us drew some repeating patterns and talked about the colours and shapes that we had used. We then experimented with different resources using pastels, coloured paper, colouring pencils and pens and had to create some buildings using patterns. Some of us worked independently and some of us worked with a partner. After that we created some superheroes using photos of our faces and we turned our artwork into a display on the window.

Finally we focussed on fine motor skills and had a go at creating our own Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles. We had to stick down squares of tissue paper, draw around a template to make a mask and use a pipe cleaner for a mouth. We also had to draw and cut out our own circles for the eyes.

Term 4

This term we have been looking at the artist Anthony Gormley. At the start of the term we were learning from home and the children looked at a picture of the sculpture The Angel of the North which is 20m tall! They had to produce their own angel sculptures using whatever materials they had available at home. Some children had a go at copying Gormley’s sculptures and other children made their own version. They then looked at his artwork ‘Field’ which consists of 35,000 individual figures. The children learnt how to make salt dough and created their own mini versions.

Back in school the children then looked at Gormley’s sculptures Exposure and Framers. We talked about what the sculptures represent and discussed what his work looked like and why he used lots of straight lines to create them. The children used strips of paper to produce their own people – but only using straight lines so it was quite tricky!

We then looked at his work Another Place and the children had to create their own sculpture out of clay. They had to choose a challenge such as trying to make their person sit or stand up and we looked at lots of ways of modelling using our hands and various tools.

Term 5

This term Ash Class have been learning to experiment using a wide range of tools and materials including charcoal, oil pastels, crayons and paper. We looked carefully at paintings of The Titanic and had a go at completing the other side of a picture of one. We had to think carefully about the colours and shapes that we would see in icebergs and what kind of weather we would like in our pictures and then we used various collage materials to make pictures of the Titanic.

Term 6

In Design and Technology we have been looking at designing purposeful, functional, appealing products. We had a look at some mobiles and talked about what the purpose of a mobile is and why they hang above babies beds. We discussed what the different mobiles were made out of and the skills that we would need to make one.

We all had to design a fish that we would make to become part of our class mobile. We had to sew around the edge of our fish and stuff the inside of the fish with fluff. We chose buttons for eyes and had help sewing the buttons on. Finally, we talked about how to decorate our fish (less is more!) and we all had to cut out pieces of felt to make patterns, scales and/or fins. Everyone was very impressed with how hard we worked on our sewing.

Our next challenge is to make a jellyfish out of plastic bags and then we will be hanging up all our sea creatures together.