I keep coming across videos I made for my classes during lockdown 1 and 2 2020-2021. It’s strange looking back at them! This one is part 4 of a series on caterpillars/butterflies . Rather than miss out on learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and having the joy of watching caterpillars transform, I…
Poetry and Art
We talked about what ‘a poet’ and what ‘an artist’ is and learned about Maya Angelou and Jean Michel Basquiat. ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ is a poem written by the great Maya Angelou. The paintings in this book are by the iconic artist Jean Michel Basquiat. I have been using this work for a number…
Growing Things
I am not green fingered to say the least! But, in the last year, we have been developing an edible garden project after gaining some funding from the Whole Kids Foundation with the help of my friends Rashida Boeteng and Isatta Sheriff. As we went into lockdown almost a year ago, the edible garden project…
Talking About the Work of Malick Sidibé
My Nursery class and I explored the work of the late photographer Malick Sidibé. Malick Sidibé (1935 – 2016) was a Malian photographer, well known for his iconic black and white images celebrating life, youth and people. His work gave us so much to talk about and explore and was a great provocation for the…
Frank Bowling: Paint Possibilities
A while ago, my class and I looked the work of British-Guyanese artist Frank Bowling. I was fortuante to able to see some of his work when going to an exhibition at the Tate Britain in 2019. The abstract nature of his work was a great starting point for exploring art with children in my…
Chamber Tots
After a rather long time on the waiting list, we have finally managed to get signed up for Wigmore Hall’s ‘Chamber Tots’ project. Coming from a performing arts background, this is indeed a very exciting opportunity for me to reflect on how we can use the arts to provide rich, varied and meaningful learning opportunities…
Small Feat In The Classroom 