On Wednesday, thirteen pupils from Allerton CE primary met with eight graphic design students from Leeds Beckett University at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It was the first workshop of the ‘Barking Up The Wrong Tree’ project and blessed with a beautiful autumnal day we were certainly able to appreciate the outdoor gallery and create.

Inspiration came via Giuseppe Penone sculptures and exhibition, the beautiful trees in the park as well as our imaginations. The purpose was to build relationships and generate ideas for the project. Here is a glimpse of what we got up to:

Well once again, Dr Seuss’ book ‘The Lorax’ inspired Y2HL’s Arts fortnight.

Over the fortnight we certainly began to grasp how important trees are to all living things. Shi-Ying shared that trees helped to prevent flooding; Rory knew that trees gave us oxygen and together we discovered how trees captured carbon dioxide. Our letters to the old Once-ler definitely communicated how cross we were about him chopping down all the Truffula Trees and the damage his actions caused to the environment. His reply to each and every one of 2HL acknowledged the importance of planting trees to replace those we chop down and the importance of us caring.

Our observational drawings of leaves inspired our plasticine creations and our final clay ‘Truffula Tree’ leaves. From wool we made pom poms to represent the tuft of these colourful trees while our prints captured trunk and tuft!

Sycamore seeds and horse chestnut seeds inspired the dance. Well done Y2 for working collaboratively to create your conker shapes and tree! I was particularly impressed with the ‘lift’ Mia’s group managed to incorporate. You now know how important team is in dance as well as perseverance-how many times did we rehearse the initial cross/windmill?!

Once again, Mrs Walker worked with the class and baked apple or plum crumble-the fruit was from our own orchard. I wonder what unit of measure was used in making sure there was the right amount. In measuring the circumference of the trees outside in the school grounds and the height of objects in the studio centimetres were used. Miss Lucas was impressed with how teams worked together in order to work out the measurements.

Thank you to the all the interested adults, who managed to squeeze in time in their busy day to attend all or part of the celebration on Friday. We are so glad you had ‘a great insight into their learning for the last two weeks.’

Dr Seuss’ book ‘The Lorax’ certainly inspired our learning together. Thank you 3ES for working as scientists, mathematicians, artists, dancers, chefs and authors over the fortnight.  Together we:

•         explored and identified some of the trees in our school grounds
•         measured the circumference of tree trunks and the length of leaves

•         created 5 word slogans to capture what we now appreciated about trees
•         effectively used felt tips, wax crayons and acrylic paint to create                              collaborative mixed media leaf artwork

  

  Carefully cutting

  

  Having a go at stippling our initials

  

  Our 5 word slogans

  
  

       

•         shared the impact of deforestation through dance
•         baked scrumptious apple crumbles
•        built our own Lerkim’s

•         wrote letters to the old Once-ler suggesting solutions so that the                             Bar-ba-Loots, Swomee Swans and Humming-Fish could once again live                 in the glorious place where the Truffula Trees grow
•        transformed the art studio from a blank canvas to a celebration of your                   learning

Thank you parents, carers and interested adults for sharing in 3ES’s Arts Celebration-you were an appreciative audience as we shared our dance TWICE! It was wonderful to see the conversations and smiles as you engaged in the measuring, reading, baking and art activities alongside your child. Thank you for coming, your encouragement and appreciative comments.  ‘The Lorax’ books are on order for the next class. Hopefully the story will capture more year groups over the coming year.

A huge thank you goes to Foundation-HV, AM and TE-because the art studio was continually transformed from a blank canvas to a colourful record of their learning week on week throughout the month of June. Who would have thought that in just four days there would be treasure hunts to find the main character of our story ‘Leaf’; cave building using the weird and wonderful resources from ‘Scrapshed’; a dance with a conga and a lift to Avicii’s ‘The Nights’ (yes a lift by four and five year olds was definitely a first); the baking and icing of polar bear buns; as well as painting, printing and drawing…

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On top of all of this, there was a story written and orally performed by each and every class as well as an independent story written by the all the ninety authors in Reception!

‘Crow Drive’ and ‘Bird Bingo’ along with the dance, art and writes-story and letters of apology- gave parents and interested adults a taster of the learning experienced and enjoyed by Reception last Friday.

‘Creative Ones’ across school have been chosen, in consultation with their class teacher, to participate in the Thursday after school D’Art club.

So far we have looked at and created rubbings of textures around school, listened to the sounds in the school grounds and creatively used found materials to capture what we discovered outside in our sketch books. Ellie-an ex pupil but still creating at Allerton High, Nyiemah and Alexia (inspired Y5 pupils who worked alongside the Leeds Beckett Graphic Design students back in the Spring Term) are leading the group whilst Miss Whiteley and I facilitate. How will these initial sessions contribute to the D’Art exhibition to be held in the school entrance? Hopefully all will become clear within the next couple of weeks…

Inspired by Catherine Raynor’s book ‘Augustus and his smile’, Year 1 has explored the story and our beautiful world through play, paints, press prints and dance. Our school grounds provided the natural materials to create beetles; card, collage, fabric, buttons and sequins were imaginatively used to create exotic birds and our own unique reflections inspired our wonderful, smiling self-portraits!

The possible mountains and oceans Augustus crossed in order to search for his smile were found in an atlas; riddles of sea creatures read and then watched; and finally our own stories planned, shared and written.

There have been many challenges along the way-especially in dance. Year 1 had to work effectively as a team in order to bring Miss Allison’s challenging yet inspired choreography to life. Collaboration and active listening were essential so that movements were in time to the music and the many elements correctly sequenced.

Baking with Mrs Walker produced some delicious tiger buns which were very much enjoyed by all on the Friday celebrations. Well done Year One for working incredibly hard throughout your class fortnight.

These are some of the comments from proud parents, grandparents and interested adults who were asked what they really liked:

“It was a lovely afternoon seeing the children’s work. It made a real difference splitting the class in two. It’s lovely to see the school spending time doing the arts-very refreshing.”

“The enthusiasm of the children and the staff. The beautiful art space and seeing all the work. It was all wonderful.”

“The range of the things-the art studio and getting to join in and do some art together, enjoying a tasty treat in the café and seeing work in the classroom. The dance and explanation was also a real treat.”

“The fact so many different mediums have been used to teach (dancing, art, baking etc.)-there was something for everyone…How inspired Tommy has been over the past two weeks. He has brought a lot of the learning home-wrote his own story and created artwork.”

Drawing and Risograph, Photograms and Stop Motion, Storytelling and Haikus were all experienced by 5RA in three intense yet enjoyable workshops this Tuesday at Leeds Beckett Graphic Art and Design department. To get a glimpse of some of their creations, the students have kindly shared some of the photographs that captured the learning throughout the day on the link below. DART 27022018

It was a relief to see that the lockers had travelled with 5RA too- thanks to Tetley coaches! Now they are just waiting  for the students to work their creativity on them.

Next Friday will see the students working with Y5RA at Allerton CE, as they support them to create their own lockers from shoe boxes.

This week, Y5RA stepped out into their local area with the Leeds Beckett Graphic Design students. Each pupil had with them a booklet to record their journey as well as a bag to collect any items of interest.

The weather was kind-sunny with a blue sky-and although a little muddy underfoot great fun was had by all as they observed, created rubbings, collected objects of interest and listened to and recorded the sounds in each location.

Next week, Y5RA join the Graphic Design students at their school…

Excitingly, the D’Art project was launched this week with Year 5 RA and some Graphic Design art students from Leeds Beckett University. The brief is to find beauty in the banal-LS17. After a game of SPLAT, dart throwing commenced so that the locations for the commissioned Locker installations were established. What beauty waits? Revelations will hopefully start unraveling in a fortnight, when Y5RA and the students start the process.