History Focus Week - Leeds primary school, Year 5 .  The Vikings - February 201 6 Bu ilding on the children's work on the Vikings during their hi sto ry topic wee k, I decided to put the rich vocabular y they had been learning to good use with these fantastic word-art portrait s.  We discussed the meaning of Viking runes and the children matched a n appropriate symbol to a n image : s tr ength with a horse, protection with a helmet , fire with a drag on.  The children charcoal - transferred an image onto a strip of pape r (their first time!) and then used the vocabulary to fill in the lines. As a set they look very effective! Visit the gallery to see more examples of thi s great w ork !  

Inspired by a visit to the cinema, this week's bulletin features creative ideas for Shakespeare's epic Macbeth by Leon Garfield. This is taken from a collection called Shakespeare Stories and is a book I remember knocking around our house when I was a little boy! It's brilliant though and easily my favourite retelling of the classic plays. If you try any of the ideas I'd love to see the work your children produce. A  'Have You Tried?'  ideas sheet for Macbeth can be found  here .  To request this in pdf format, please join the mailing list by clicking  here  and sending me your details. ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------------------------- Book a FREE taster workshop for your school   ------ ------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------- This half term I am offering FREE creative literacy taster workshops to primary schools in Leeds. If you ...

These excellent drawings were completed in our final workshop today. Some of these snapshot images are aspects of the book's main illustrations whilst some are taken from various doodles that are scattered throughout the pages. Using black ink, detail was added using the different shading techniques we have practised. Colour was applied later using watered acrylics. The children demonstrated not only their progress as artists but also their confidence in selecting shading patterns. Great work!

An artist creates emotion and atmosphere by using the right colours. Week 2 Pastel seascapes. Continuing from our experimentation with colour in last week's workshop, this time the children were challenged to create the right atmosphere with a stormy seascape. We agreed on a colour palette (from a paint chart), choosing colours to give the viewer feelings of cold, power, mystery and danger. These pastel seascapes were inspired by Armin Greder's illustrations. The children showed real mastery of pastels and chalks to create these brooding, vivid images, blending layers of colours to add depth. They are the perfect backdrop for our writing work next week. Check out the rest of the images in the gallery below.

An art collection collage - created by a Year 4 child for Gorilla. This workshop was an excellent way of getting children to analyse pieces of art, looking for symbols, colours and themes and explaining how paintings and their artists are trying to communicate with them.  It was like a flash back from Every Which Way But Loose this week as I  was back on the road in Leeds with my trusty Gorilla companion. We didn't even have time to stop for a burger at a road-side diner or for a bare-knuckle dust-up as there was plenty of work to do with some incredibly articulate Year 4 children.  This week, the focus of our work was the emotional tire swing of Gorilla, alone and trapped by modern life in his specially modified zoo cage until rescued by his unlikely companion, Clint Eastwood...erm I mean a little cat called Beauty. Same same. Anthony Browne's references to art as a means of of communicating with the reader is at the heart of why his books are such fert...