Foundation Stage 2021/22

This academic year  Jayne is located in Early Years Foundation Stage.

She will be working with the team to introduce maker skills into the FS curriculum as part of our whole school 'Maker School' year of research.  Jayne will continue to use the visual arts to encourage and develop rich, high quality language development, 'quality' talk and enhance literacy through first hand experiences with materials, making, observing, problem solving and reflection. Atelier spaces will be developed in both inside and outside and digital media will be introduced alongside traditional methods.

Jayne's work in progress research question is:

'How do the visual languages of children (and an artist) expand and develop  through the introduction of digital technologies, and what is the impact of this in an Early Years setting?'

June 2022

Stacking Technique

FS2 children recreated frames they had seen at The Graves Art Gallery. We talked about the shapes we could see ('that one's like sweetcorn'), made drawings first then used cardboard and gold paint to make the frames. The children were encouraged to use a 'stacking' technique; gluing cardboard shapes on top of each other to create a more 3 dimensional surface.

June 2022

Caterpillars

The children are using split pins to attach circle shapes to create caterpillars. As you can see, some caterpillars are very long! Like Eric Carle, the author of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', we created our own paper by painting it first, mixing different shades of green and using sponges and toothbrushes to create interesting textures. In the classroom, we are observing  cocoons and waiting for the butterflies to emerge.  

May 2022

Art Critique

I had a lovely morning with these Foundation Stage 2 artists. They were helping me prepare a piece of work for the SSELP exhibition, by revisiting the slot technique to make sunflowers for an interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh's famous 'Sunflowers' painting. After we made our Sunflowers out of cardboard, pastels, paint and foam shapes, we mounted them on paper and had a critique session were we discussed what we liked about each others work. Some sunflowers made their way to the big artwork, which is now in display, until September at The Circle conference centre in Sheffield, along with other work from SSELP (Sheffield South East Learning Partnership) schools.

April 2022

Slots and Sunflowers

Continuing with our emphasis on making skills and methods of attachment, the children in FS2 have been constructing cardboard sunflowers, based on the famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh. They have used the slot technique to make their models.

March 2022

TABS!

As part of our skill building drive in FS  to develop ways of attaching materials, FS2 children have been learning to make their drawings stand up using tabs. Some children made little scenes with multiple components , others found that their drawing became more interactive when it was upright, like an action figure. We had people, friends, volcanoes. monsters, dinosaurs and trees, stripey dolphins and pinchy crabs.

January 2022

Makey BIG!

Makey Big is an area located in FS1 designed for large scale construction and developing gross motor skills through painting. This 'house' appeared as a provocation; the children took great delight in making it their own, taking  turns to paint inside the space whilst another knocked on the door. Many of the conversations were about colour; both observations in the field and questions on how to achieve their desired outcomes.

December 2021

Making holes.....attachment skills.

In Foundation we are developing our making skills using split pins and treasury tags. To use these you need holes..... many children in FS1 are still developing the strength in their hands to use the hole puncher, so we have been using a sharp pencil point and a piece of blu tack ( placed underneath the card or paper) as an alternative. Point, push and twist......

November 2021

Fixing Skills

This week I have introduced the 'slot technique' to FS2 as a way of attaching cardboard. As the children are reading The Gruffalo, I modelled how to make a claw as a way of teaching the skill and make a direct link to their current learning. The children then used the technique to create models of their own, which included claws, but also, helmets, zombies, elephants and tigers.

October 2021

Different types of orange....colour mixing and painting in the pumpkin season.