Project 8: Colours - mixing and experimenting and making magic!

There's nothing our students enjoy more than getting their hands dirty!!!! Getting stuck into painting and mixing with no one behind them telling them not to get themselves dirty!! 

Using our fingers, cotton buds, paintbrushes and anything else our kids want to use, we discover how colours change magically when mixed together... how they get lighter when mixed with a bit of white, or darker when mixed with a touch of black. Magic!!!

Project 7: The Human Body: proportions (All groups) - Spring term

We all know that kids have to go through different stages of drawing the human body before they begin to realise that the head isn't the largest part, that our eyes are in the middle of our face and that our fingers are not tentacles reaching out to another universe!!!

Respecting the natural evolution of our students' drawing phases, we believe it is an important indicator of a child's physical and mental development and, as such, should be worked on and encouraged as much as possible. We like to include this project in our annual planning every year. 

Before drawing themselves, we do some physical activities to be more conscious of the different parts of our bodies and the proportions... we use mirrors to inspect our faces and see the shape and the location of the different parts. Kids love looking at themselves and they enjoy doing their self-portraits. 

Here is a selection of drawings from year 1:

Project 6: Chained Christmas Story (All groups) End of first term 2014-15

Spectacular! That's the only way we can describe the outcome of this project which was presented at the Christmas concert.


The whole school, students and teachers, was involved in the project which was done in the following order:

1. Third year students kicked off the story and set the pace. Each further group of students added a piece of the story to the piece done by the group before. But none of them knew exactly what had happened before, just a brief summary of the story line. 
2. Once the story had been "invented", in cooperative groups, students drew the characters and different elements which were to be included in the illustrated version. Images were included from all the groups so that all students felt that part of the story was theirs. 
3. The story was corrected for mistakes and typed up on the computer to make it easier to read. 
4. Large pieces of recylcled cardboard were used as pages of the book. Students painted the card so that the background was the same for all pages - dark blue, a christmas night. 
5. The pages were mounted and the book was ready.
6. All students and teachers were invited to read a line or two from the story and the audio was added to the images resulting in a fifteen minute video. 

A lot of work went into the project, but the students were absolutely delighted with the outcome. The book has been on display at the local library since its presentation and will be back in our school soon as part of the educational heritage of our children! 

We hope you enjoy the finished result as much as we enjoyed making it!

Project 5: Joan Brossa - (All primary) Visual poetry with letters

Joan Brossa is a catalan poet and artist, among many other things, who uses letters and objects to create thought provoking visual images.

We used many of his visual poems to discuss what different people can see in different artistic manifestations. Our students' ideas were truly surprising and logical!

We decided to create our own visual poetry from letters, the results were spectacular... creating art from letters was something the students really enjoyed! Just look at some of the results...

Project 4: Sweet Rosary for All Saints (4th and 5th year groups) - Autumn 2014

This project is on our list every year and is usually undertaken by the students who are planning a school trip as the finished project is raffled and the proceeds go towards lessening the cost of that trip. 

The work is undertaken simultaneously with another project as not all students can work on it at the same time. Students rotate, sewing different sweets and biscuits on to a long piece of thick string and adding other elements which are relevant to the schools centre of interest which, as we mentioned in a previous post, was books and reading this course. 

With this project, we work on manipulative skills and mathematical sequencing.

Material needed:

• String (like the one used in the Mallorcan "matances")
• A variety of sweets and biscuits
• Squares of coloured tissue paper
• Laminated quotes from different books (handwritten by students)
• "Patana" (Circle which will serve as the central point, like the crucifix in a rosary)
• Needle and thread
• Scissors

How we do it: 

1. Wrap all the sweets and biscuits in different colour tissue paper.
2. Sew the sweets on to the thick string in sequence.
3. Add a laminated quote after each sequence.
4. At the end, add the "patana"

Project 3: Logo for school library (5th and 6th year groups)

The library in our school has not functioned well for some years. Each class has it's own small book corner, but we wanted to have a central library to promote reading as a pleasurable pasttime and as another option for our students at breaktime. So we started our "Bibliopati" - a playground-library activity where kids can come and look at or "read" books and magazines all together, without having to analyse anything, just for the pure fun of it!

We needed a logo to relate to the activity, so students from years 5 and 6 had a mini "competition" to decide, among them, which logo was the most apt for this. Shamila from year 5 drew an astronaut sitting on the moon and explained to us that it doesn't matter who or where you are, there is always time to read! The other students were impressed with her idea and decided that her logo should represent the school library!!!

Project 2: What's in a name? (All groups) - Autumn 2014

This year, our school's central project (Centre d'Interès) was based on reading and books in general. We decided that the first thing we needed to be conscious of was the way the letters were formed. What better way of discovering this than starting off with our own names: manipulating different material to see how great our names look and how a small number of letters can look so interesting with different backgrounds and different techniques. 

For this project, each group of students had to use a different technique:

Infant education:

• 3 year olds: Photo of each student and printed names
• 4/5 year olds: Background with aquarela paint. Names with plasticine. 

Primary: 

• Years 1 and 2: Wax crayons for name and background.
• Years 3 and 4: Newspaper collage background. Names with thick markers. 
• Year 5: Plain white background: Letters cut from shiny paper. 
• Year 6: Wet chalk for name and background. 

Project 1: Making folders from recycled material (All groups) - Autumn 2014

Throughout the school year, we do lots of different work which doesn't fit in a normal size folder, so we decided to make our own and have a personalised place to keep all of our works of art!  These folders will travel with students throughout their primary years (they take their work home at the end of each school year) and are a great way of keeping work in order and in good condition!
The older students enjoyed personalising their folders even more with letters and a bit of bling!!

Material needed for each folder: 

• 2 pieces of cardboard - size about 60cm x 45cm. Cut from sides of boxes. 
• Photos, reused pieces of wrapping paper, odd bits of left-over paper from other activities, a variety of magazine cuttings, etc.
• Glue
• Coloured plastic tape
• 40cm of elastic

How did we make it?

1. Join the two pieces of cardboard together with the coloured plastic tape
2. Glue reused paper and photos on both sides 
3. Make a hole on two edges of one piece of cardboard. Pass the elastic through and tie a knot. 

BENVINGUTS!!!

Benvinguts a aquest nou bloc del centre públic CEIP Montaura a Mancor de la Vall, Mallorca. 

Hem pensat que un bloc seria una bona manera de recordar tota la feina que hem fet a les classes de plàstica al nostre centre i de difondre aquesta feina a les famílies dels nostres alumnes i a qualsevol altra persona que estigui interessat/da en la feina de plàstica en anglès a primària. 

Hem vist molts blocs super guapos i molt currats per la web. No volem pretendre copiar cap idea, però si pensam que qualque cosa valgui la pena compartir, ho farem, sempre posant d'on l'hem tret, perquè es tracta de compartir per millorar, no per tenir el reconeixement d'una feina feta d'una altra persona!

Posarem molts imatges de la feina feta al nostre centre perquè veieu que passam molt de gust de fer-ne i intentam que sigui sempre interessant i divertida!

Començarem amb les feines fetes al llarg del curs 2014-15 i seguirem posant fles feines que feim a partir del nou curs 2015-16. 

Ah, i ho feim en anglès! Això vol dir que, a partir d'ara, les entrades d'aquest bloc es faran en llengua anglesa!!!

Thank you for visiting. We hope you come again soon!!!