Expressive Arts and Design
Expressive Arts and Design can be divided into key areas:
Art and Design:
- Drawing: Exploring mark making through different drawing materials. Beginning to draw from observation using faces and self-portraits as a stimulus.
- Painting and Mixed Media: Exploring paint and painting techniques through nature, music and collaborative work. Developing creativity through child-led exploration of mixed-media, making collages and transient art.
- Sculpture and 3D: Exploring the sculptural qualities of malleable materials and natural objects; developing the use of tools and joining techniques; designing and making clay animal sculptures.
- Structures / Junk Modelling: Pupils explore and learn about various types of permanent and temporary join. They are encouraged to tinker using a combination of materials and joining techniques in the junk modelling area.
- Textiles: Pupils develop and practise threading and weaving techniques using various materials and objects. They look at the history of the bookmark from Victorian times versus modern-day styles. The pupils apply their knowledge and skills to design and sew their own bookmarks.
- Cooking and Nutrition: In this unit, children explore the differences between fruits and vegetables using their senses (taste, texture, smell etc.). They listen to the story ‘The best pumpkin soup’ and discuss the key ingredients the characters used before developing a class-based vegetable soup recipe.
Music and Dance:
- Exploring Sound: Children explore how they can use their voice and bodies to make sounds, experiment with tempo and dynamic when playing instruments, identify sounds in the environment and differentiate between them.
- Celebration Music: Learning about the music from a range of cultural and religious celebrations, including Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwankzaa and Christmas.
- Music and Movement: Children come up with simple actions to well-known songs, learn how to move to a beat and express feelings and emotions through movement to music.
- Musical Stories: A unit based on traditional childrens' tales and songs. Moving to music with instruction, changing movements to match the tempo, pitch or dynamic of the piece; understanding that music and instruments can be used to convey moods or represent characters; playing an instrument as part of a group story.
- Big Band: Learning about what makes a musical instrument, the four different groups of musical instruments, following a beat using an untuned instrument and performing a practised song to a small audience.
Acting:
- Role play is crucial for young children, in order for them to explore, revisit and reflect on their experiences and secure their learning.
- The children at Aldeburgh have access to a lovely home corner throughout the year, as well as other role play areas that change throughout the year to fit with the topic for the term e.g. pet shops / vets to go with our topic of 'Family and Pets'.
- The children also have access to lots of puppets, and they enjoy putting on their own plays and shows during their independent learning time.
