Another blast from the past...this is a photo of work produced from a PSHE lesson I did with my Year 3/4s last year. It is called 'Rainbow of feelings.'

The children had to think of happy and sad times in their lives. They painted a rainbow using one colour and different shades - starting with light in the middle and getting gradually darker towards the outside of the rainbow. When dry they wrote the happy times on the lighter parts of the rainbow and then the sadder times on the darker parts of the rainbow, with the saddest time on the darkest part. This was a really useful activity to do with the children to compare their experiences in their lives so far. Very insightful into their lives and how they deal with different situations and how the different situations make them feel. 

Variety of Literacy displays over the years...

Here are a few photos of different Literacy displays from my classrooms over the years! All themed differently and reflecting different topics! Some a celebration of the children's work and some working walls! Please leave a comment to tell me what you think!

Descriptive Writing Display

Themed around describing the haunted house and grave yard!

Adventure Stories Display

Showing the key features of adventure stories as well as examples of adventure stories.

Literacy Working Wall

Fairy Tales and their key features + VCOP.

Magic Box Poems

Creative poems inspired by the Kit Wright poem - The Magic Box.

Diary and Letter Writing

A variety of genres of writing inspired by the book 'Friend or Foe' by Michael Morpurgo.

Spelling washing line

Hanging spelling rules on a washing line to remind children of the rules we are currently learning. Easily accessible and easily referred to in lessons.

Art through Literacy

Children explore the setting in 'Flat Stanley in Space' by creating their own art work of Planet Tyrra.

A tribute to Van Gogh!

We were very lucky this term to have an artist in residence working with our phase. One day when she was working with my class she decided to create a large scale 2D piece of art work which every child in the class contributed to. 

We talked about introducing a style of art to the children which was different to what they were used to and which could be built up in different layers over time.

Throughout the day the artist worked with small groups of children to create this wonderful recreation of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and love having the finished piece up in the classroom. It has wowed many other teachers in school! 

Don't be afraid to create large whole class pieces of work as the final product is amazing! 

Art - Self Portraits

As part of our PSHE theme week (All About Me) the children created a self portrait using ready mixed paint. The children we're encouraged to mix their own colours to match their skin tone and hair colour. Here is the end result! 

Hanging from the ceiling the children decorated a photograph of themselves with strips of tissue paper. I then laminated them and cut them into squares. I have hung them vertically by punching holes into them and linking them using treasury tags! The children love to see a photograph of themselves in the classroom! 

Charlotte's Web Enquiry Display

This half term we are studying the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B.White. On display are key extracts and images from the novel showing different parts of the plot. I have included photos of different farm animals found in the book as well as painting my own spiders web! In art the children have created their own spiders web by using straws to blow white paint into a web shape onto black sugar paper. I think this looks particularly effective! 

Along with studying the novel the children are learning all about farming. Here is a photograph of the farming display which includes key information, photographs and key vocabulary. 

For both of these displays I created my own lettering using word art and inserting my own image! 

The Highwayman Literacy Display

Here are some images of my latest literacy display all about the narrative poem The Highwayman. The children produced artwork in the style of Charles Keeping the illustrator and some artwork to represent the metaphors in the poem. This visual display really helped the children remember lines from the poem as well as the metaphors. The children really enjoyed being creative in literacy and seeing their work celebrated on display.

Finished Choices Enquiry Display!

Here is the final product! I have added children's paintings, a world map and a poster of world flags for the children to refer to!

Invaders and Defenders - World War 2 Enquiry Display

Here are some photographs of my Invaders and Defenders display. During this topic we focused on the key events of WWII and the key people involved. We learnt about the Blitz and created our own Blitz artwork!

Our Solar System - Earth Sun and Moon

Another popular Year 5 science topic - Our solar system - Earth Sun and Moon. Here are some images of a planets display I created by backing an internal window with black sugar paper and the children's oil pastel drawings of the different planets. I finished off the display with books about the topic which the children could read in their spare time / enquiry lessons.

The window facing into the corridor...

Who Am I Enquiry Display

Another whole school curriculum theme adopted this year was Who Am I? The children worked across the curriculum to find out who they were spiritually, morally, culturally and socially. They compared themselves to others in similar and different places in the world. They analysed data of our school to see if there were any trends or similarities to the nature of the students in our school. They looked closely in art at what they looked like and produced self portraits. The children thoroughly enjoyed being the centre of attention in this whole school topic!

As the topic progressed I added children's work to 'Our Learning Journey' above our enquiry display. This helped the children see over the course of the topic what they had learnt and achieved. Quite a powerful tool in revisiting / evaluating learning at the end of a topic.

Self portraits display