Squirrels News - 6th May 2022

This week we started our Artists topic which will continue over the next three weeks. We will be exploring the work of different artists and using this as an opportunity to experiment and learn about different art techniques. We began by looking at the work of Pablo Picasso. We learned all about his early life and discovered that his first word was "Lápiz" which means pencil in Spanish!

We found out that he explored many types of styles but was most famous for his Cubism pieces. We looked at many of his paintings and sculptures, and discussed the different shapes and colours. We decided to create our own colourful sculptures, moulding clay until it was just right. Later in the week we also created abstract portraits using various colours, shapes and unusual positioning of the body's features. We discussed what the word abstract means and used images of Picasso’s work to help draw inspiration from for our own pieces.  

On our Outdoor Learning Day we looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy who uses natural materials to create artworks in nature. We collected a range of different natural materials, including sticks, leaves and flowers before everyone had the opportunity to create their own masterpiece using what had been gathered. The children worked really hard and came up with some fascinating names for their creations such as "The Flowers and Stones of Hail."

Back in the classroom we have been continuing to explore colours. In Science we conducted a chromatography experiment using water, a cup, a coffee filter and coloured pens. The children coloured on the coffee filters using one coloured pen then placed this into a cup of water to watch the colour disperse. This experiment taught us what different colours are made up of and reinforced our learning of the primary colours. The Squirrels love learning about colours, and everyone was excited to extend the activity to mix colours of their own!