Creativity In The Classroom

School : Goldenbridge

Class: 6th

Teacher : Ms. O’Donnell

We decided it would be a good idea to try and connect with our locality and focus on a building very close to the school . The barracks is situated directly opposite the school and the children pass it every day. We were very kindly given permission to visit the building . we started off by making preliminary sketches of what was around us.

The children were amazing!!!! so focused and eager to draw and draw and draw…..

After our successful afternoon of sketching, we arranged to return the following week  and have an art session inside the building. We decided that we would do some collaborative art works. We divided the children into three groups and projected photographs of different views of the Barracks on to large sheets of brown paper. The children worked in groups to transfer the images to paper.

And this is where the children came into their own. In their individual groups they worked out colour combinations for their paintings. rather than use brushes, I gave the children heavy card cut into different widths.

Using the card they applied the paint, building up layers of texture and colour.

The results!!!!

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School:St Francis Cbs

Class: 2nd

teachers:Sarah & David

It began with Davids class taking a trip to “Sculpture in Context” at The Botanical Garden.

We were in search of some inspiration for work to carry out back at the school. The boys loved the giant insects crawling towards the hot house. Back at school the boys began by weaving the insects bodies using gold and silver card.

Once the main bodies were constructed , they focused on adding details like , legs, antenna, wings and eyes. We then hung them up throughout the school.

Inspired by a school full of golden insects, Sarah’s class continued by examining insects trapped in arcylic blocks and seeing how many parts made up each insect.We studied the different shapes within each insect and discussed how we might draw them. The boys started by making drawings of the insects in pencil. They used different grades of pencil, 2b, 4b and 6b to achieve differences in tone within their drawings.

we they moved on to oil pastel on black card. From examining the insects the boys noticed that they had a huge range of colours. This time I encouraged the boys to make their drawings using whatever colours they wanted. To make their insect unique to themselves. We also talked about using the complete page to fill it with their drawing.

The boys were thrilled with their work. They surprised themselves with their own wonderful talent and ability. “This is the best thing that I have EVER done!!!”

we then made then displayed the drawings outside their classroom.

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School : Goldenbridge

Class 3rd class

teacher: Mr. Gallagher

Taking inspiration from their class novel , The children made illustrations using black pen and marker.

we then decided to make some giant wings of our own.

using fabrics and wallpapers , gold card and gold foil the children created patterns and textures to individual leafy shapes. The plan being to put all the shapes together to form one large wing span.

We then projected the front cover on to a large sheet of paper. Once the outline was drawn the children worked on adding the finer details to the drawing.

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School : Our Lady of the Wayside, Bluebell

Class :4th

Teacher : Emma Garland.

We started by heading out to the small garden space at the school to explore and search for different shaped foliage, petals berries anything at all that was natural.

The children collected foliage of different shapes and colour.

Back inside we examined closely what had been found and began playing around with the found natural objects to make them into something else.

The children then used coloured chalks to build up layers of colour before sticking down their creations.

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Our Lady of the Wayside

Class: 5th

Teacher: Ms. Barton

4th class were reading the novel ” Serefina and the Twisted Self”, they were really engrossed in the story and the characters so i decided to focus on this for several weeks of their creativity in the classroom workshops. Part of the novel takes place in a forest where Serefina runs from the evil side to the magical side. we started by going outside and examining the silhouettes of the trees.

The children then returned to class and began constructing their own individual silhouette of a tree in card.

They made golden leaves to help convey the magical part of the forest, using wire and beads they added detailing to the veins

The plan was to put all the trees together to create a magical forest. We needed a lrge sheet of backing paper to paint in the background and while searching for sometihing suitable i cam across wallpaper that had silhouttes of trees on it, we used this as part of our backdrop, using oil pastels the children added colour and blended it to create a magical setting..

They painted the lower half  as ground cover for the woods and sponged a watery mix over the pastel trees.

we then assembled their tree silhouettes

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Making their initial drawings in black marker, the children then used patterned wall papers and oil pastel to their drawings of their favourite character.

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Our Lady Of The Wayside , Bluebell

Class: 4th

Teacher: Mr. Dillon

we began by rolling out large lengths of paper. the paints were squeezed in layers at the bottom of the paper.

the children used squares  of heavy card to scrape the paint up the page. This was an exhilarating experience for the children. paint brushes were not allowed for this painting session so they had to explore many possibilities of making their mark.

they used smaller pieces of card to create bridges and pattern.

once the paint was dry they added more detail with chalk pastels.

Reworking the painting using the chalk pastels added a whole new dimension to the finished work.

Together they created the most wonderful and interesting cityscape.

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Our Lady Of Lourdes, Goldenbridge,

Class :Senior Infants

Teacher: Ms O’Dwyer

we started by taking a stroll around the school and collecting leaves. the children closely examined the leaves and made pencil drawings of their veins.

Watercolour paints were used for colour and gold insulation for pattern and texture.

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Our Lady of The Wayside, Bluebell

Class 6th

Teacher: Mr. Brett

This year, the full moons of October, November and December all took place when the moon was at its closet point of approach in its orbit around Earth. The moon reached peak fullness around December 14th.. This led to investigation into the planets in our solar system.

the children worked as a group creating their own planets in chalk pastel on black paper.

using materials from ReCreate they also constructed spaceships and rockets

Our Lady of Lourdes, Goldenbridge

Our Lady of the Wayside, Bluebell

The children and parents began by cutting down the gold and silver insulation into small squares.

They created patterns using the squares and made links between the patterns.

They then dyed the salt using coloured chalks.

once they had prepared enough colours , they added the salt to their patterned work.

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