|
|
ART & ENVIRONMENT WEEK - JUNE 2008
VIEW FROM THE CHAIR (of Governors)
|
When I discovered that helpers were required to help out with Art & Environment week, I said "stick me down for the whole week, don't mind where I go, or what I do" - and what a week it was! We were blessed with a beautiful sunny start on Monday morning and I was invited to accompany Mr Giles' YR group to the beach. It was perhaps a little unfortunate that the tide was out and the warmth of the day meant it was rather pongy, but the plus side of that was being able to show the kids what lies beneath the water - mud, seaweed . . . a rusty old bike. As one of the themes of the week was all about not littering our environment with our rubbish the children concluded that it must have been dumped by nasty robbers because nice people wouldn't chuck rubbish like that into our lovely sea! And then I got to go again with the rest of year R. For some of the little ones it was their first ever trip out of school and they thought it was a great adventure. I was "set up" (Miss Waldren's words, not mine but nevertheless most appropriate) at the end of Year R for the afternoon. Presented with an enormous blank canvas, a variety of materials, glue etc I was asked to help the Year R children to create a beach collage (gulp!) So, where to start? Well, in the middle obviously because the scale was so big it had to be folded down so the children could reach! And so they set about finding various shades of blue, green and purple, ripping and glueing, and creating the sea. Lace was used to great effect to give the illusion of waves. Groups of four or five children at a time worked on the picture, all of Year R contributing their own ideas to create the whole scene. It was interesting to see that they didn't try to make it look like a "bucket and spade holiday" beach but chose green materials reflecting what they had seen earlier. I think the end result Tuesday lunchtime was very impressive and this picture does not do it justice. I spent Tuesday afternoon with Mrs Lazell. The Island schools had been invited to take part in a poster competition so the children were discussing "why plastic bags are bad". Ideas were quickly forthcoming, ranging from the pollution caused by factories in the making of them, to animals choking on them, people slipping on them, even little children suffocating in them and more besides. Armed with these ideas, plenty of pictures and real plastic bags for inspiration the children then planned their poster designs, ready for painting later in the week. Wednesday morning I was joined by fellow governor, Gill, and we were based in Ms Carter's class. We were presented with creating a dog rose flower using pastels as one task and pencil drawing of ivy or ash as the other. Gill took the pastels groups and I took the pencils. As usual the groups rotated so that everyone got a go. The children were encouraged to look at a variety of shading techniques, to study the lines, shapes and differences between the two pieces of greenery, comparing the smooth edges of the ivy leaves with the jagged edges of the ash. Some fantastic drawings were produced (not by me!) as a result of their careful study and on Gill's table there were some absolutely beautiful shades-of-pink dog roses in pastels, not least Gill's own that she presented to me with "Happy Wednesday" written across the top! We both moved across to Mrs Williams' classroom for the afternoon. Gill's table produced fabulous "drawn string" patterns and I was in charge of finger painting scarecrows. Mrs Backler had left a lovely example to show the children (mine left a lot to be desired!) and they had a great time, colour mixing to create the right straw colour, painting their scarecrows bodies - with just the right amount of "flick" to get the straw effect - then "dressing" them in vibrant colours, perhaps with a jaunty hat. One or two definitely had a Dr Who influence! I spent Thursday morning with submarine class where activities were being led by one of our student teachers, Mr Gater. Their task was to consider which three of all the techniques they had looked at during the week might be good to produce pictures to go on the front of cards. The class voted to use printing, painting (water colour) and pointillism (pointy what?) and they rotated in three groups trying each of these techniques again to decide what their individual first choice would be. I was in charge of pointillism and I was so glad that the children were able to explain to me what pointillism was and the technique to be used - in this case the "dotting" being done with felt pens so it sounded like a whole lot of woodpeckers in full peck! Then finally, on Thursday afternoon, I got to spend time with the scarecrows! I had kept popping out during the week to watch progress on this project, led by Steve Porter, a very talented artist. He built up a wonderful raport with all the children and the end results are just unbelievable! If we did not have the pictures to prove it (see the gallery) it would be hard to believe that these scarecrows and their backdrops really were produced by the children. I have a suspicion Steve has already been booked by Mrs Lock for a return visit. With the Bridge Club using the hall as usual on Thursday evening, putting the scarecrows ready to play at their table in the corner just had to be done! It's worth taking time to visit Steve's website: http://www.steveporter.org/ and discover his musical talents too. A huge thank you to Mrs Lazell, all the staff and the children for allowing me to share all these wonderful activities. Whilst I spend a fair amount of time in school, it was really good to get stuck in. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I'm sure the kids did too! |
