On Friday we celebrated World Book Day! Class 6 looked absolutely awesome in their book themed costumes.
We started the day by creating crew book murals where we all thought about our favourite books and how we can represent them.
We had a fabulous Alice In Wonderland themed day where we took a trip to the mad hatters tea party and spent the morning using our imaginations to create our very own wonderlands!
What an amazing World Book Day we had at Norton Infant School this year! It started off with an exciting visit from the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland. They read us a story and invited us to a very special World Book Day Tea Party.
We were getting very excited waiting to enter the Tea Party…
We couldn’t believe our eyes when we entered! We were in Wonderland! The buns and drinks went down a treat. A huge thank you to FONCA for making this magical moment happen! It really was a highlight of our day.
Back in the classroom the children looked at the work of Eric Carle, in particular we looked at the butterfly drawing from ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We spoke about how we can show accuracy when drawing and practiced looking carefully. We investigated the different lines Eric Carle used to create his butterfly. We then used watercolour pencils to add colour. The children produced some beautiful artwork…
Here are some inspirational messages that we discovered on Eric Carle’s website…
I think you will all agree that the children looked wonderful. Thank you for making such an effort with your costumes 🙂 It was a great day…
This week Nursery have been Artists as they have continued to explore case study two of our expedition; “How do plants grow and change?” The stimulus has been the life cycle of a sunflower. We have been looking at artists who paint flowers, in particular Vincent Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings. However Nursery have compared these during a gallery walk to the works of Georgia O’Keefe (Green and White Lilly close up) , Claude Monet (Water lilies) and Maria Van Oosterwijck (Wilting flowers with black background). As the children began the week by looking at the colours used in paintings, for the purpose of light and dark and how this made them feel?
We practised painting using light and dark shades and talked about what kind of colours make us think of different feelings. The children likened the lighter colours to “sunshine”, “the sky” and happy events. Whilst they thought of darker colours as “dirt”, “shadows” or “night-time”. When they looked closely at the wilting flowers they realised that the flowers in the painting were dying and that the artist had captured them as they had started to “Wilt”, “droop” and “flop”. This made the children feel sad that the flowers had passed their best and they then associated the darker colours with sadness.
The children were challenged to think about; “If the artist was listening to music whilst they were painting – do you think it would make a difference to how they painted? Would it cheer them up or make them feel sad? Make them angry or excited? The only way to find out was to test the idea. Nursery closed their eyes and carefully listened to four specifically chosen music tracks to see if they could hear a difference in the tunes and move in a way that responded to the music? The tracks were; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, “Proud Mary” (a slowed version) by Tina Turner, “Fire Starter” by Prodigy and “Axel F” by Crazy Frog.
They then captured there response to the music in drawing…..
Finally Nursery have used all of their new knowledge and experience to paint their own Van Gogh Sunflowers from a choice of two designs, using either a palette of either angry or sad colours whilst listening to their choice of “Fire Starter” or “Proud Mary”. The efforts made by the children for these paintings and the results have been outstandingly beautiful and such a relevant and purposeful experience. They have had lots of fun and have been exposed and challenged into thinking further about their feelings and responses to music and art.
Crew Chadwick has enjoyed taking part in some great ‘outdoor crew’ sessions this week, led by Mrs Jackson. In our first session, the children enjoyed sculpting clay into different animals. Take a look at some of our creations…
Our number one rule in Class 1 is to be kind, therefore we loved our next crew activity. We got to make bird feeders for all of the local birds and hung them in our Norton Songbird Cafe. Within minutes of them being hung on the tree, a beautiful robin was already feasting away! Looking after nature is something we spoke about in our last expedition, ‘How do we show we care’. It felt great, carrying out this act of kindness.
Crew Chadwick would like to give a BIG shout out to Mrs Jackson for planning and resourcing such great activities. We loved it! Thank you 🙂 xx
In case study two the children have been answering the question ‘What happens to plants as they grow?’ Not only have the children been scientists in this case study, but we have also been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and his series of ‘Sunflower’ paintings.
Each child did a great job mixing powder paints to create a large petal that we later turned into a bigger piece of artwork. We are looking forward to sharing the finished product with families at our celebration of learning event.
This week we have been working on our own versions of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflower’ painting. The children have mixed different colours and shades to create a desired effect. I think we may have some budding artists of our very own in class 1!
We loved our PE session this morning where we practised lots of skills at a series of stations. We travelled across and jumped off of different apparatus. We worked on our ball skills, kicking a football and dribbling around cones and also using basketballs to bounce balls to ourselves and our partners. We also practised Yoga poses that we have learnt recently. It was great fun and was brilliant to see children challenging themselves and moving with great control and confidence. A great effort by everyone in Class 2 today!
To celebrate pancake day Y2 had a very special surprise this morning. We had a special treat of scotch pancakes.
This morning in crew, Y2 have been thinking all about World Wildlife Day and what we can do to help the wildlife both in our local area and around the world.
Over the past few weeks Nursery have been working hard as “Artists” to create a petal each or as a duo, in preparation to be used as part of their final product for this expedition. Through our stories “Little Sunflower” by Igloo Books and “Sam Plants a Sunflower” by Kate Petty the children gained inspiration for their artwork as they learnt how a sunflower grows and blooms. They have been investigating and exploring techniques using both paint and collage. The children have grappled with the effects that they could create using ready mixed paint and different brush strokes or manipulations of their paint brush. Some children chose either medium of paint or collage, whilst others chose to create with both. Here are some wonderful examples;
Upon completion of this beautiful artwork, the children worked collaboratively to first build their own sunflower for each nursery group, and then as a collective of Nursery as a whole merging both groups petals (later to be revealed on their final product at our celebrations of learning). Just look at the children’s beautiful work!
Crew Goodyer have had a lovely week taking crew outdoors and enjoying some early Spring sunshine!☀️ Mrs Jackson led our crew on Tuesday when we made some wonderful clay animals and this morning we walked around our grounds looking for signs of spring. Being out in the fresh air and sunshine is a great way to start each day.
