Class 7 focused on the environment ‘At the Beach’ for Arts Week. We have looked at the different animals that you might find when you’re on the beach and we have also identified different structures and objects you might spot there too! We also learned a range of sketching skills such as stippling, circulism, hatching and cross-hatching. This prepared us for completing our final sketch of a seashell. We enjoyed taking our time to complete this sketch and we ensured to use the sketching methods we had learnt.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed making a range of artwork out of different media. We started the week making a melted ice cream out of clay looking very carefully at the shape and structure of it. We had to make sure we put plenty of water on the joins so they didn’t fall apart when they dried. Whilst we left these aside to dry, we absolutely loved getting our hands messy making a starfish out of salt dough. We watched a video which showed us a step-by-step guide on how to make salt dough and how to make it into a starfish. We carefully followed the instructions and made our very own starfish and then we put them in the oven for 2 hours to harden them up. When they came out, they smelt so yummy but Miss Bamford said we weren’t allowed to eat them! We then started our sunset palm tree pictures by creating a sunset effect using red, orange and yellow paint.

On Wednesday morning, we created a surfboard out of cardboard using a collage effect and replicated a picture of a real surfboard. We really loved doing this! We worked on four different designs – one with a palm tree, one with a turtle, one with waves and one with waves and a sun! In the afternoon, we created a seagull drawing and we got to choose which setting we wanted for the background of our picture – either a beach or rocks. Some children’s seagulls were even a little bit cheeky and caught a fish with its beak!

On Thursday, we started the day by creating a beach landscape using oil pastels. We had to concentrate really hard doing this as we didn’t draw it in pencil first, we did it straight away with the astels! They looked so cool when we finished! Following that, we carefully painted our ice creams being extra careful that we didn’t blend the colours together. In the afternoon, we got our craft hats on and created a boat out at sea picture with 3D waves! We loved making these! Our last session of the day was finishing our palm tree pictures. We lightly drew a palm tree with pencil and carefully painted it black to create a silhouette look.

On Friday, the children spent the whole morning creating their final sketch of a seashell. We took our time to use the sketching techniques we learnt in our art lessons to make our shells look as realistic as possible. We then made a jellyfish out of chalk on black paper – these looked really effective! To finish the day off, we spent a full afternoon in the hall learning an educational song about the beach. We made this song even better by adding percussion instruments in and then we got to perform it to the rest of the KS1 children!

The children have worked extremely hard this week and they made some lovely comments such as ‘this is the best week ever’ and ‘I’ve loved today because I love painting’. I think it’s fair to say they’ve really enjoyed themselves and they can’t wait for you to see the display.