Dear Parents,
It was great to see lots of dads in the hall today from Classes R and 6. I hope you all have a lovely day on Sunday.
We wished Mrs Ronaldson goodbye for now in school this week. She is heading off to Pensarn with our Year 6 class on Monday and will end her time working here at Bidborough doing what she loves best. We will be asking her to come back for a proper send-off later in the year. I am delighted to be able to tell you that we have appointed Adam Carrick as our new School Sports Coordinator. He will be taking over the reins from Mrs Ronaldson and getting involved in all areas of sports here at school. Many of the children already know him through football and we look forward to him joining our team next week. We’re really pleased, also, that Mrs Tribe will also be returning for a few weeks to cover in Year 6 until the end of term.
International Arts Week Special
It was great that so many of you could come and see your children’s work this week. It has been a week crammed full with activities from around the world and this week, I have decided to let the children tell you about it all:
Class One – France
We began with learning about the artist Matisse. We took inspiration from ‘Matisse’s Garden’. By cutting up brightly coloured paper we created our own snails. We also cut up pieces of paper to create our own garden pictures, we didn’t waste any paper.
After that we created flags to wave, the French flag is bands of blue, white and red.
Franck Ayroles was the second artist we studied. He uses lots of colourful patterns to create pictures of ladies. Using bright felt tips and patterned paper we created our own lady!
The last artist we looked at was Seurat and his pointillism pictures. We read the story ‘Katie and the Bathers’ (James Mayhew). The story showed us lots of pictures. We liked the one by Seurat called The Bathers. Using cotton buds we created our own pointillism pictures.
On Thursday afternoon we had a fun French afternoon. We waved our flags, listened to some French music and tasted some yummy French food!
Year 2 – India
“We had a great time learning about India. We used the iPads to research facts about India and make posters. We also made colourful elephant paintings by colouring elephants in and by then cutting them out and sticking them on a sunset picture that we painted. We then wrote in Hindi by copying some words on a sheet that said numbers written in Hindi.
We made some Indian food and it was called roti. You have to put the roti in the oven when you have made it. We also made a drink called lassi. Lassi is a yoghurt drink made from yoghurt, water, sugar and caramel. You mix the ingredients together and you get lassi.
We did lots of beautiful rangoli patterns outside. We put lots of rangoli patterns near the door because Indians put them near a door to welcome people.
Next, we did some Bollywood dancing with a visitor who came and taught us.”
Year 3 – Russia
“On Monday we learned about Kandinksy – a famous Russian artist. We tried to copy one of his paintings: colour studies, squares with concentric circles. It is a painting with squares in and in the squares were lots of circles. I think that all of ours were brilliant.”
“On Tuesday Mr Traven came to speak to us about Russia as he was from Russia. It was very interesting and he read us a Russian fairy tale. He told us how to say hello and thank you and he also told us how to count to five.”
“On Tuesday we listened to Peter and the Wolf music and we tried to work out what instrument was each animals. Then we got instruments and went into different groups and we tried to play music ourselves. After a little practice we showed it to the class.
Year 4 – Brazil
This week Class 4 have been learning about Brazil and a famous artist that lived there called Romero Britto. His art is very bright and very bold; he uses famous TV characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald duck. We made our own art inspired by him. We used very bright acrylic paint and went over our outlines in black so we could see our main character or shape.
Year 5 – America
We began by watching Pocohontas because were were finding out about what the explorers found in America. We talked about what we learnt about their culture from the film. We understood what it was like – it was wrong to call them savages. We found out that Pocohontas was a real person and is buried in Gravesend. The women were treated equally in the government and the Iroquois council made of 5 tribes still meets today.
We started to make dreamcatchers. We stripped the willow but the circles didn’t quite work and we couldn’t tie knots. As we added bits, they started to look good but it was hard and fiddley.
We also made bookmarks based on Native American beadwork which had to be symmetrical.
In Science we learned about sound and watched a clip from North America showing them playing different instruments. We made straw panpipes. We also learned that their food was from the land and that we got corn, potatoes, tomatoes and strawberries from them as well as peppers and avocados.
Year 6 – Around the world
This week in Year 6 we reviewed and tried many different types of art.
On Monday, we started in England and looked at graffiti art. A very smart person decided to make a yellow flower and join the stem to the yellow lines on the road. We looked at some examples of work by Banksy. We make our own graffiti posters with our names and used water to make it look like graffiti on the wall.
On Tuesday, we looked at Australian art and we were designing boomerangs. Once that was finished, we created the design on cardboard.
On Wednesday, we looked at the USA and this time focussed on poems. We created poems in the shape of animals and other things.
Whole school – Bollywood dancing
On Thursday we did some Bollywood dancing. All classes from Year 1 to year 6 learned how to dance with lots of twisting hip and wrist action. Parents came to watch us all perform on the top playground – it was so fun!
Whole school - Gamelan music
Gamelan is an Indonesian art of music invented in Bali around 600AD. One of the instruments is called the metallophone, a xylophone kind of instrument that you tap different keys with a wooden gamo. The other instrument is called the gong which you hit with a hammer in the middle of the big metal plate. They use these music to summon their Gods.
Whole school - Mr Peek
“Mr Peek did some really funny poems about teachers. Also he did some scary poems which were quite funny after all. One of his poems were about his auntie” Y3
During the week a poet came in called Mr Peek and shared some of his poems with us so that we could make our own. We used some rainforest animals and made a poem about them, and made a poster with our table and decorated them. Class 4 have had an amazing week and we thank Mr Peek for coming in to help us. – Y4
Mr Peek will be in touch if there are any others of you wishing to purchase any of his books. Drop us an email if you would like to make a late order.
Whole school - African masks
Y2 “We painted coloured African masks in with paint then we did lots of curly patterns.
Year 6 “…Africa does mask making. They believe it’s the best. It’s colourful and sacred and shows the true colours of the wearer.
Year 6:
Africa is a country of beauty and warmth,
Even at night it is at its height,
The masks they make are filled with colour and light
For an Englishman to see them is quite a sight.
To sum up, a poem from Year 6:
This week is International arts week,
Learning lots of different techniques,
For reading, writing and drawing
to making music and dancing!
First we looked at Aboriginal art from Australia
And Gamelan music from Indonesia
Asian dancing – Bollywood
was the most popular – I knew it would!
Poems were written from USA
Mr Peek came in for the day
But my favourite activity
Was looking at famous work done by Banksy!
International arts week was very fun,
I knew it would be good before it begun.
Finally, have a lovely weekend and get packing Year 6! It was great to see lots of dads in the hall today from Classes R and 6. I hope you all have a lovely day on Sunday.
Kind regards,
Julie Burton