January’s annual RSPB scientific survey, The Big Garden Birdwatch, was the inspiration for our project studying avian wildlife.  To warm the children’s minds up for chilly nature, we played guessing games to name different varieties of birds; heard the poem “Blackbird” by Nicola Davies and the Beatles song by the same name.  We listened to […]

With Festivities in full flow, we finished this term adorned with crowns fit for royalty.  Bejewelled and beautiful the children took great pride in designing, making and wearing their creations. We opened this activity by discussing the meaning of the word “crown”.  What imagery does it conjure up in your mind?  How will you capture […]

Stained Glass Baubles These festive stained glass baubles, were created using a collage of tissue paper tiles, stuck onto a tracing paper backing, using stick glue. The design for the story, within the stained glass, was based on a repeat pattern drawn in the style of a compass, with a north, south, east and west […]

More creative Christmas trees, we can’t get enough of them.  This project required both technical dexterity and creative flair.  These stunning seasonal folded fir trees were made from paper and were decorated with golden foil baubles. The two-tone trees were folded from two pieces of paper, then trimmed to a semi-circle at the base.  Adorned with […]

Christmastide can be expressed through arts and crafts in so many ways, it’s hard to choose a project.  So, we chose many! The first resulted in some gentle, atmospheric, snowy landscapes, allowing the viewer to glance into a magical world of Christmas Spruces, against a starry sky.  These were made using mixed media; watercolour block […]

Artist Louise Pasquill and assistant practitioner Susie Aylett, created a real challenge for the children, with this multi-skilled project, to build a functional lighthouse. The many techniques covered to learn how to assemble this complex design and technology model spanned most of this term.  Here are some of them: painting; cutting; glueing; knotting; folding; 3D […]

To make these lively collages with a Hallowe’en theme, artist Louise Pasquill started by teaching us how to use the materials we need for this project: a palette of watercolour block paints, watercolour paper, soft (sable-like) brushes and water. Firstly, we each took a small piece of white, textured watercolour paper.  We learnt the wet-on-wet […]