I’ve been a little tardy with sharing the details of our last speaking and listening groups. Last month we had the focus of art or artists. I enjoyed this topic area as it isn’t an area of study that naturally comes up day to day, so without a specific focus on it then it is one of our weaker areas.
Art is an area that I think Em is more naturally drawn to than D is, so this is one I think she enjoyed much more than he did.
Choosing our artists
I wasn’t sure which artists they would choose; whether they would choose a style of art to study (eg: impressionism, abstract etc) or a particular artist. We looked through a powerpoint together as well as a couple of artist books I picked up from the library.
Em was quite taken with Frida Kahlo and Daniel chose Helen Frankenthaler which did surprise me given her work is abstract and I was sure he would choose a more classical artist.
Creating the lapbook
We created a small project book / lapbook by printing some of the pictures both the artists had created and noted some key facts about their lives; things such as their childhood, the type of art they created and how it developed over their career. We talked about the style, the colours they used and thought about how the art made us feel. We used a range of resources for this information (I’ve linked to these below)
Recreating the art
The children both tried to recreate their chosen artists artwork so for Em this was a self-portrait and for Daniel, we poured some watercolours to see how they mixed. They both enjoyed doing these pieces and we talked a lot about how their chosen artists might have approached their own work and how their work developed over time.
Presenting their project
The children presented their project to their friends, and we head about Wassily Kandinsky, Andy Warhol, and many other artists. It was lovely seeing the different approaches the children had taken and watching them present their learning back to the group. I always enjoy seeing how they are growing in confidence and it’s always clear to see when a particular topic had really grabbed someones attention.
Resources we used
The main resources we used for this project were:
- Twinkl powerpoint about artists
- Twinkl – information about Frida Kahlo
- Usborne book of Famous Artists (although found this disappointingly male-dominated)
- Frida Kahlo Book
- HERStory book – the section on Frida Kahlo was really good.
Our previous Speaking & Listening Groups have included:
- Endangered animals
- RSPB badges
- Spring Projects
- Dinosaurs
- People of Note
Next up was inventors and inventions which we completed this week and I’ll share that one soon.
