Amazing Artwork!

On Friday afternoon, for our last big art project together, we created a massive masterpiece!

After coming up with lots of nouns, we picked three that were unrelated. The three nouns we chose were: 'fireworks', 'battle' and 'flowers'.

We worked together, as a whole class, to draw an image that combined all three of these things. We had to fill the whole piece of paper:

Next, we were given colourful paints, but we weren't allowed to mix them and if we wanted to use a new colour, we had to swap with someone else. This was tricky at first, but we soon got the hang  of it!

Finally, we added the highlights and shadows with black and white paint, which again, we could not mix:

Here is our finished piece:

Can you think of a suitably marvellous title for our masterpiece?

Happy National Poetry Day!

We have had a lovely day today celebrating National Poetry Day! We found quotations from famous poems all around the school- can you remember any? Which was your favourite?

This afternoon, we wrote our own poem! We worked as a class on a poem train- writing one line, then passing it on to a classmate.

Here's the fabulous final poem:

Haunted Forest

The forest was as dark as an ebony dragon,

Splish! Splash! Splosh! The rain poured down,

Bang! Crash! Stones hit the ground and cracked in half,

Suddenly lava started to pour out, it was horrific,

All the dragons started to leave the country,

They were all scared of the Lava,

Bang crash the conkers fell off the trees,

The trees started to fall down,                                           

The wolves were running from the trees scared and shivering as they run,

All of a sudden it went silent,

Then the noise of trees creaking,

Everywhere there was lava- I had to get out of there,

Then suddenly… whoosh! A ghastly ghost emerged from the lava,

How can I escape?

I looked back but an army of ghosts were behind me I searched for a wat to get out,

Scary and goulish the forest was,

The trees fell as I looked back,

A tree which looked like a bear,

Its arms were creaking out towards me,

Lumps and monstrous eyes,

Birds flapping their wings,

The moonlit sky above me, I feel a cool breeze blow past,

Under a green mossy tree, a flock of birds screech by,

I heard a scream and stumbled,

Tree twigs fell to the muddy ground,

I’d never seen anything like it before,

The creatures started to approach,

Something grabbed me as I sank into the ground.

By, St. Clare's Class, 6/10/16

A Fabulous First Week!

What a wonderful first week we had! It was fantastic to get together as the new St. Clare's Class and settle into our classroom together.

We've completed some beautiful artwork this week, to make our mark on our new classroom. We each designed a stunning circle design, before chopping them up to make this beautiful collaborative mural:

Every child in St. Clare's put their best foot forward into the new year by designing a creative trainer. Which is your favourite?

On Wednesday, we received a very strange notice about Hula Hoops! The children in St. Clare's all had to come up with a theory, or story, about why this might be and what could have happened for Hula Hoops to be banned. There were some fabulous pieces of writing (click on the pictures to make them larger and easier to read):

On Thursday, we needed to work together in teams on a special rescue mission! Poor Fred the worm had been out sailing when a storm struck and he was trapped on top of his boat, with his life ring underneath! The teams had to work together to rescue him- but they could not touch him, the boat, or the ring with their hands (or any part of their bodies). They could only use the paper clips and couldn't let poor Fred touch the water- or puncture him or his life ring. It wasn't as easy as you would think- it took some serious thinking, planning and teamwork!

On Friday, we enjoyed a fantastic afternoon with Bassistry- singing and dancing along with the rest of the school. What a wonderful way to end a lovely first week!

Powerful Poetry!

Today, we have been writing more wonderful poetry. We spent some time analysing William Blake's 'The Tyger'.

Source: nassrgrads

The children were able to identify some complex ideas demonstrated in the poem- they discussed Blake's use of metaphors and the connotations of the words he used and why he might have chosen particular combinations. We looked at the rhyme scheme, which led to some impressive linguistic detective work- we realised that the pronunciation of some words in English must have changed since 1794, when the poem was written.


Inspired by Blake, we wrote our own poem about a dangerous animal- the wolf:

Wolf, Wolf, Stalking Death

(After William Blake)

Are you sure you are as frightening as a yeti?

Wicked wolf, eyes piercing through the dark like fireflies illuminating the void,

Its bold grey-coated fur shining in the obscured moonlight,

Creeping silently, covered in pearl white snow, invisible to others,

The blood-thirsty phantom looming through the night forest,

Ravenous beast stalking his fated prey.

The powerful hound dancing with the wind,

Panting with mighty breath, as warm as the logs on the burning fire.

Death-defying animal from the wild, rapidly dashing through the haunted dark forest,

Rattling the sound barrier with its desperate howl,

Its hopeless prey crying out, like a baby without its mum, to its pack,

The blood-curdling beast cloaks its prey,

As fierce as a hyena, the wolf takes a pounce and grabs on with his claws.

Are you as deadly as a Widow Spider? 

By St. Clare's Class

Excellent Escher

As promised, here is a picture of our beautiful class collaborative artwork inspired by our visit to the M.C. Escher exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery. We are very proud of it!

'Trapped': A Poem by St. Clare's Class

Last week we worked together to write a poem as a class. Following the dramatic events of 'The Templeton Twins Have an Idea', we wrote our poem on the theme of being kidnapped.

The children offered ideas for lines for the poem and we wrote them on strips of paper. We made sure that we included some similes, metaphors and alliteration.

 
Then we made a ladder with the strips of paper and moved them around until we felt that it was in the correct order. We then went through the editing process, changing a few words to improve the rhythm of the poem and adding punctuation where necessary. Our final job was to come up with the perfect title for the poem. 

Here is our wonderful final poem- we are very proud of it!

Trapped

Fear has taken over,

The damp dungeon smells of last night's meatloaf,

The dungeon is a fearsome forcefield.

Tied with tape like a mummy's bandages,

Our hope is melting like a snowman in spring.

A slug stopped in its tracks by salt,

A mouse trapped in a mouse trap,

A helpless lamb trapped in barbed wire,

A pathetic cow trapped in an abattoir.

Fear is swelling like the water inside the Titanic.

Will this change our lives forever?

By, St. Clare's Class, October 2015

New Year New Houses!

Source: playbuzz

The School Council have chosen the new names for our houses: air, water, earth and fire!

Last week, we found out which houses we were in and designed some wonderful images to represent our new houses.

Here are some beautiful examples. Can you tell which house each child is in?

By Darcy

By Jack N.

By Harry

By Daniella

By Jessica

By Ace

By Mina

By Gracie

A Busy First Week!

Last week, we settled into our new classroom and new routines. We enjoyed our Minecraft Maths (Mathscraft!)

We also had great fun with a team building challenge called 'Tiny Glass Towers'. Here we are working hard to make the tallest possible tower with the tiny glasses. It was much harder than we expected- they were very wobbly indeed!

An Underwater Adventure

Continuing our oceanic theme this week, we worked together yesterday afternoon to produce some HUGE paintings...

We covered our classroom floor with plastic sheets and taped down some very large pieces of paper. Then we split into two teams to design a large underwater painting. Each group was asked to work together to create an image of life under the sea.

Firstly, the groups drew their ideas out:

Then, we mixed the colours we needed and began to paint...

Here are the marvellous finished pieces:

Finally, the paintings were hung up to dry!