Transcript Fernwood Infant School Big Arts Project

Fernwood Infant School
Big Arts Project
An idea is born…..
We are a large, high achieving Infant School (360 pupils age 4-7) in the city of Nottingham.
Our Head teacher, Mrs J. Bradbury attended a head-teachers’ training day several years ago
at the National Gallery and returned with lots of enthusiasm and motivation for using the Take
One Picture Scheme as one opportunity to drive forward an increasingly creative and exciting
curriculum for our young pupils.
Her enthusiasm was inspiring and as a starting point last year, our whole school staff chose to
study a past painting from the scheme (Bacchus and Ariadne). This became the major focus
for our school Big Arts Project in the Summer Term. As a community we thoroughly enjoyed
the experience of all working together in a cross-curricular manner and as a result, we all very
much wanted to be involved again this year using the current painting, ‘The Fighting Temeraire’,
as our inspiration with a view to submitting our work to the National Gallery.
We began our project in the summer term this year by inviting Mike Connelly, a local artist and
advisor working with city primary teachers and students to a whole school staff meeting. He
was able to promote discussion around the painting and work creatively with us to give us ideas
and starting points for consideration when planning our cross-curricular approach to this
project with our very young children. Staff then met in Year group teams to look at and
discuss the different opportunities and cross-curricular themes that they might want to
explore and develop during the project.
The children practised and improved their art
skills showing progression over the three year
groups. This is apparent in both the displays and
in this report.
We hope you enjoy seeing our work as much as
we enjoyed doing it!
In the Foundation Stage, the very youngest pre-school children in our Early Birds Unit
took time to look at and talk about what they could see in the painting.
They enjoyed hearing about how important the ‘Temeraire’ was in a very famous battle
at sea and they looked at how the ship appeared to be like a huge ghost ship coming out
of the distance, relating this to their direct experience of cartoon themes. They also
looked closely at the dirty blackened tugboat with its tall smokestack and this became
the starting point for some focussed work on ‘smoke’.
Smoke
immediately
made the
children think
of fire and fire
engines. This
lead to a visit
and a topic
discovering the
role of the fire
service in fire
fighting.
The children spent time
blowing bubbles using a
variety of bubble-blowing
instruments in order to
simulate smoke rising.
They also made bubble
paintings
and
enjoyed
creating pictures of the
Fire Engine they had been
on.
The Fire-brigade were invited in to talk to the children and they brought with them a fire truck
which the children thoroughly enjoyed exploring.
Reception Year
The older children in
the Foundation Stage
quickly became
interested and familiar
with the painting. They
spent short focussed
times looking closely at
the painting as whole
class groups using the
Smart-board and also
individually or in pairs
on the classroom
computers in their
independent activity
times.
The children loved
finding out about the
Battle of Trafalgar with
the excitement of guns
and cannons and they
enjoyed listening to the
1812 Overture with
their eyes closed,
imagining the sounds of
the battles at sea.
The children were also able to appreciate, feel and express their
own ideas about the sadness in the painting that Turner must have
felt, seeing this magnificent ship looking so worn and about to be
broken up and gone forever. They related this to their own
precious toys that were once so special to them that had then
become broken, battered and discarded.
As one creative focus, the children looked closely at the sky that Turner had
painted and then, over a period of weeks, they spent lots of time lying on the
grass outside in order to look carefully at the different cloud patterns in the
sky above them. They looked for pictures in the clouds and made up simple
stories around these images.
The children also painted cloud and sky pictures using sponging techniques and
foot printing. When they were dry they again looked for pictures and patterns
to describe to each other.
Another creative focus, inspired by the necessity of wind in order to power
the sails of the Temeraire, was the making of large wind-socks that the
children enjoyed flying afterwards on the playground as a whole year group
on a lovely windy day.
Click to see a short video clip of the children with their windsocks
Year 1
In Y1 the main focus for this project involved the children considering what it might have
been like below the Thames waterline. Over the course of their study, the children
produced an amazing abstract wall mural full of depth colour and interest.
The wealth of art skills developed in this project included weaving, sewing, felting, 3D
modelling, tie dying, collage work and painting. In literacy pupils focussed on developing
their descriptive language skills reflecting their knowledge of the painting. These
adjectives and nouns formed part of the overall display.
The ship’s bottom!
Year 1 Under the Thames Mural
Paired Work
Some children worked in pairs to create some mixed media paintings
Model Making
Some children spent time exploring 3D shape
and form using wooden bricks to build
sculptures with.
Year 2 Display
Year 2
Our Year 2 children developed their skills even further. They borrowed 3D
models of famous sailing ships to inspire their observational drawing and took
the opportunity to find out about the voyages and endeavours of both the
Temeraire and other sailing ships.
Year 2 explored
different 2D and 3D
techniques to
represent the colours
in the sea and sky and
looked closely at the
detail seen in sailing
ships. They explored
how the painting
made them feel and
used this to inspire
written work.
The story behind the painting
inspired the children’s group
poetry. The resulting verses
were used as a border for the
display.
Literacy
‘Messages on
Bottles’
(from
sailors)
The ship was old and spooky
The mast was long and creaky
It smelled of rotting flesh!
The sea was calm like a breeze
The tugboat heaved the ship to shore
To be battered, crushed and broken into
pieces.
To fight no more.
Descriptive writing provoked by the Fighting Temeraire
Reflections in the water were easy to reproduce on the
computer using simple drawing programs.
Techniques
This picture record shows some of the activities in progress. The children
used chicken wire and modroc to make the base for their focus piece. This ship
was drawn by one of the children and projected onto a piece of hardboard
where it was re drawn and then built on using different skills and techniques.
Creating the ship, frame and background allowed the children to try fabric
dying, weaving, 3D sculpture, various paint effects, pastel work and knotting.
Knotting, weaving and
painting
William’s Ship
Everyone joined in – Mrs
Bradbury!
We hope you liked our work!
The children and staff of Fernwood Infant
School