Year 1

Term 1

This term we have been learning all about what happens when we mix different colours together. We had a whole lesson experimenting with the paints where we had to predict what would happen when we mixed two primary colours together. We had lots of fun, made lots of mess and discovered that we could make green, purple and orange.

We then started working on a project to create a superhero collage. We used watercolour paints to create the background and then we looked carefully at the shapes in a Paul Klee painting of some buildings. We created our own buildings by drawing around 2D shapes and stuck them at the bottom of our pictures. We then had to cut out little rectangles and squares which we used to make the windows on our buildings.

Finally we all had to strike a post and pretend to be superheroes! We cut our photos out and stuck them onto our pictures so that we became part of our art. We hope you like them!

Term 2

This term our work has all been based around the weather. We started off the unit by doing some squiggle drawings. We sat on the floor and had to take our pencils for a “walk” on large sheets of paper. We had to draw the shapes of the beanbags and think about the shapes of the spaces between the beanbags too.

We then went on a nature walk to collect some natural objects and we repeated this exercise using leaves, pinecones, twigs etc.

After that we had a look at a colour wheel with red, yellow and blue on it. We recapped what would happen when we mixed the primary colours together to make the secondary colours and recorded our work in our working book. We then looked at the colours in a rainbow and compared them to the colour wheel. We created some fantastic wax resist drawings of rainbows and used language such as bright, colourful, light and dark to describe the colours in our work.

We then looked at the work of artist Vicki Rawlins. She makes portraits using leaves, flowers and other natural materials. We created our own portraits drawn in pencil or charcoal and added leaves that we gathered on our nature walk to complete our work.

At the end of the term we created some fabulous pictures of snowmen using collage materials included shredded paper. Our art studio looked like it had been in a snow storm!

Term 3

This term we have been learning about The Titanic. We looked at the painting, Iceberg with Hole and Northern Lights by Doris McCarthy and talked about the shapes and colours in the painting. We discussed how lots of different blues were used in the painting and then we had a go at making our own collections of different sorts of blues. Some of us sorted our blues into light and dark colours too.

After that we had a go at making collages showing an iceberg. We cut out triangle shapes for the Northern lights and then we cut out our own iceberg and added some reflections to the water using pastels.

Finally we looked at some pictures of The Titanic and talked about the shapes and colours used. We got to choose our own materials to draw a ship so we had the choice of pencils, colouring pencils, oil pastels, chalk pastels or pens. Then, we carefully cut the ships out and stuck them on our collages.

Term 4

This term the children have been learning all about the green man .The green man is a symbol of the new growth that happens every spring. We started off by completing the rest of the picture of a section of a green man. The children chose their drawing/collage materials to do this. We then looked at a selection of other green men art and discussed the similarities and differences between them.

The children then worked individually or in groups on the playground to create their own green man faces. We then experimented with mark marking using clay and planned our own green man art which we created by sticking leaves, twigs, flowers, stems, mud, acorns and sticks into clay which was stuck on tree trunks. We took photos of our artwork and evaluated them altogether in our Working Book.

Term 5

This term we have been looking at how to draw animals. We used huge sheets of paper and learnt how to draw different fur, eyes, ears etc and then looked at how to turn photos of animals into cartoon characters. We had fun thinking about the expressions that shy animals would pull if they were in busy supermarkets and what a cross animal would look like in a car!

We then looked at the work of Henri Matisse. We looked at his collage The Snail and discussed how he created it and why we thought he named it that. We then looked at some of his other collages and learnt that he painted the paper and then cut out shapes to create his collages.

We decided to work as a team to create one large piece of work using the skills that we had learnt so far. We created lots of beautiful paper to use for our collages. We split into groups and did printing, painting and mark-making in paints and then we rotated so that we all had a go. Then once the paint had dried each one of us were given a challenge to create a collage animal and another object to go onto the canvas. We had to sponge paint onto the canvas to create a background depicting four different environments for our animals to go onto.

Once these were finished we carefully cut out our animals, stars, trees and leaves and placed them onto the background. We checked that we liked the composition and moves pieces around when needed. Finally we stuck the collages onto the canvas and displayed it for everyone to see.

Term 6

This term we have been working on a project in Design and Technology. We started off the project by researching mobiles that go above cots. We discussed what the purpose of a mobile is, what they are made out of and what skills we would need to create a class mobile. We drew some pictures of different mobiles in our books.

After that we used pre-cut felt fish shapes and used running stitch to join them together. We had to remember to leave a little gap so that we could stuff the fluff in them before sewing the last little bit. Once we had finished sewing them we cut out shapes and patterns out of coloured felt and stuck these onto the fish. We then added sequins to make our fish look shiny and attractive.

Finally, the fish were all finished and we were able to hang them from a hoop to make our mobile. We worked together as a class to evaluate them.