In 2007 the ministry of education opened up an amazing opportunity for artists, schools and communities by launching a ground breaking project called "Artists in schools". To find out more about the Artist in schools project please visit here
Here you can view Yr 1 Whangaparaoa primary students actively engaging and participating in a workshop based around a theme of "Construction"
With construction as the theme, yr 1 children from the "Tindalls" block made a wonderful selection of bright, colourful rockets!
Starting out with card and bottles, they learned how to make slits in card and slot two shapes together. They began understanding the importance of balance in an effort to make their rocket ships stand. Once the Children had constructed their rocket, they covered their construction with papier mache`. I then took about ten students to paint a space background, where the children used scrubbing brushes to flick white, yellow, pink and blue paint onto large sheets of painted black paper. To make planets for our installation we splashed water soluble dye on water-strength paper which we then cut into circles and added to our space backdrop.
Room M4 made the stars for our installation. They cut Stars and moons from card which they papier mache`d and painted yellow. They then used glitter to make their stars sparkle.
Room A6 took a different approach to the theme of construction and they collected boxes and other recyclable junk such as tapes, lolly jars, discarded party poppers etc to make wonderful, magnificent robot sculptures which I sprayed silver (after school, away from the five yr olds!) to add effect.
