During the second week of our Arts Fortnight, the children continued exploring Ancient Greek myths through art, cooking and performance. They created beautiful terracotta plates, first practising their techniques with Plasticine before moving on to clay. Using long coils, they carefully built up their plates before smoothing the surface and decorating them with painted scenes inspired by Greek mythology, including Medusa, Icarus, battles and traditional patterns.

The children also became chefs for the day, preparing falafel while practising their cutting, chopping and mixing skills.

Our fortnight culminated in a wonderful celebration, where the children performed their myth-inspired dance and storytelling in front of their parents. Everyone then enjoyed sharing a delicious Greek-inspired feast of pitta bread, tzatziki and homemade falafel.

It was a fantastic celebration of the children’s creativity, teamwork and learning across the arts!

During the first week of our Arts Fortnight, the children began exploring the myth of King Midas. They practised learning the Midas’s Warriors model text by heart and rehearsed their myth-inspired dance to Gold by Spandau Ballet.

We also began creating our artwork: an impressive modroc shield inspired by Athena, featuring Medusa at its centre. The children worked carefully through the creative process (which started by creating a mood-board of everything Medusa) bringing their ideas to life as they began transforming their shield into a striking piece of art.

We can’t wait to see how our projects develop in week two as we continue to bring this ancient myth to life through art, storytelling, movement and more!

The children enjoyed their first music lesson with our specialist music teacher, where they were introduced to the lively rhythms of Samba music and discovered its origins in Brazil (evolving from music all the way from West Africa). They explored some of the instruments used in Samba and watched a video of a vibrant Brazilian carnival, experiencing the energy and excitement of the music in action.

The children were captivated throughout the lesson, showing great curiosity and enthusiasm as they discovered this exciting musical style. We look forward to developing our rhythmic skills and exploring more Samba music in the weeks ahead!

The children created their own self-portraits, outlining their features in black felt-tip pen. Around their portraits, they divided the background into five sections and filled them with meaningful doodles representing their interests, hobbies, favourite things and personal qualities.

Each doodle told a story, offering clues about who they are and what makes them unique. This activity encouraged the children to celebrate their individuality, express themselves creatively and recognise the similarities and differences that make our classroom such a special place to belong.

During our first week of school, we began settling into our new classroom and getting to know one another, we shared the wonderful story The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.

Through the colourful characters and their letters to Duncan, we explored different emotions and discussed how everyone can feel differently at different times. We thought about what it means to feel tired, frustrated, shy or misunderstood and how important it is to recognise and express our feelings.

The children shared their ideas about how we can look after ourselves when we feel overwhelmed, what helps us feel brave when we are feeling shy, and how we can work together when we disagree. We also reflected on the importance of being ourselves, celebrating our differences and making sure everyone feels valued and included in our classroom.

Just like Duncan’s final picture, our classroom is a place where everyone matters! We began thinking about the unique qualities each of us brings to our class and how, by supporting one another, we can create something truly special together.

What a lovely way to begin our school year: learning that every feeling matters, every voice deserves to be heard and everyone has their own special colour to add to our classroom masterpiece!