Our opening discussion focused on PLANNING since we were doing our best to be organised to design and paint our wrapping paper…

We looked at other DESIGNS like wallpaper and saw how shapes and colours were used:

We refreshed our memories about the COLOUR WHEEL and the PRIMARY and SECONDARY colours and learned a new name for the colours that sat OPPOSITE each other on the colour wheel: COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS.

We discussed the idea of COLOUR CONTRAST and that we could design our wrapping paper using shape and 2 colours that stood out from each other. The planning thing meant that we should paint our BACKGROUND first and let that dry, then design the pattern.

The children selected a colour from the colour wheel, mixed and painted their white sheet of paper.

   

        

       

       

       

       

The children named their colours…

Dino green, blackberry pie, ocean blue, shadowy orange, gold, mint, jade, flower purple, pepper green……

Reflecting on what we had done the children said they enjoyed painting the sheet because they could paint where ever they wanted …crazy all over the sheet!  Now we just had to wait for the paint to dry overnight and continue our plan tomorrow.

As ‘homework’ I asked the children to look out round their homes for PATTERNS….

In the morning we connected again online and the children told me they found lots of patterns everywhere. From curtains, wallpapers, sofa covers to the Crossmaglen Rangers football shirt!

So our task was to DESIGN a pattern then draw it out and paint it…. we had no time to loose! Christmas was coming and so was the Christmas dinner and early lunch! So with Christmas jumpers and hats all on the children set about exploring SHAPE AND PATTERN using cardboard shapes I had cut out and sent in the post.

3 minute small groups COLLABORATIVE task:

Work together to create a ‘picture’ with 3 different shapes.

Look at the great ideas!

       

We still had a lot of testing out shapes and patterns to do and next we tried PATTERN and TESSELLATION – this we discovered means leaving no spaces or gaps between shapes when they were repeated.

    

   

   

While Mrs Hughes was showing the children some TESSELLATION patterns on the computer, I noticed a Christmas creature trying to get a peep!

      

Playing with shape was really interesting and eventually the children settled on a design / pattern for their own paper, then tested out the colour pattern too….

     

    

      

Here’s some pictures of them working up the shapes onto the background paper and painting with acrylic paint because it was brighter and dried better.

    

    

    

   

    

    

    

     

     

 

 

 

 

more to come….