Spring Term
WE ARE Behind the Scenes is our project for Spring in Year 4 - we will be putting on a school production titled ‘Into the Forest’.
The whole production will be created and presented by the children and we are progressing swimmingly. So far we have:
- Explored the original narrative of ‘Into the Forest’
- Delved into the differences between story and script
- Re-written the story in the form of a play script
- Written extra scenes in the style of the original book
- Auditioned for parts in the play
Our next steps, going into Spring 2, are to start rehearsals and all the ‘Behind the Scenes’ business of set design and prop/costume making.
Some of the jobs that have been assigned already are judges, Assistant Director, actors, stage hands, make-up artists, set designers, and backdrop artists.
Once everything comes together, we are sure it will be a wonderful, entertaining, celebratory occasion.
Autumn 2
Year 4 have had such an exciting half term with many opportunities to develop our artistry, improve our historical knowledge and work collaboratively as a Year group.
At the beginning of the term, children were introduced to DJ Kool Herc - a black pioneer of the Arts. This mini-project gave pupils the opportunity to learn about Hip Hop culture, whilst celebrating DJ Kool Herc's achievements. We looked at Hip Hop terms such as toasting, MCing, looping and scratching which later helped us to create our own record song titles. The project outcome involved children producing a collaborative graffiti art piece, with a graffiti expert, and informative fact files about Herc's life.
During our project (WE ARE Civilised), we learnt about where and when the earliest civilisations appeared. We focused on four different civilisations; Ancient Sumer, The Indus Valley, Ancient Egypt and The Shang Dynasty of China. Children were then given the opportunity to become experts on two of the civilisations mentioned above. We explored how these civilisations communicated, what they believed in and what they invented. The children produced non-chronological reports about their chosen civilisations and artifacts such as canopic jars, cartouches and cuneiform tablets.
We have learnt a lot about how people lived, what they did, how they worshipped and what they have left behind for us to discover. We now have a better understanding of the world and of differences among cultures, people and the environment.
AUTUMN 1
During our project, 'WE ARE 7.9 billion and counting', we learnt about the population of humans in the world.
We found out lots of interesting facts about diversity and how special people are. We made discoveries of international foods; we found that the places where people live are unique to the countries they live in but with many similarities too.
The most amazing thing about people is that they communicate and live in different ways because they have adapted to the environment that they live in.
To celebrate the diversity of the people around the world, we decided to create a fabulous statue that shows represents diversity in our classrooms; in our school; and in our world. Our inspiration came from The Statue of Europe, which celebrates peace and diversity in Europe.
On our statue there are flags from countries around the world and diversity flags; there are five hands that are coloured to represent the different continents of the world (like the Olympic rings); the globe to show the whole world; and finally, symbols that we believe show peace, diversity and identity.
ALL of the students in Year 4 contributed to the process of making, designing and understanding our statue.
Sketching the Statue of 7.9 Billion.
First, we learnt the technique of how to sketch a flat hand. To do this, we sketched circles and squares to look like the skeleton of a hand. After erasing the 'skeleton' of the hand, we drew in the details of the hand with more pressure on our pencil strokes. We repeated this process for hands indifferent positions. Using these skills (and the inspiration of the Statue of Europe), we drafted and redrafted a sketch of our statue - The Statue of 7.9 Billion.