Teach-Primary-Issue-19.2

You may well have heard the pupils in your class belting out the high notes from the songs ‘Popular’ or ‘Defying Gravity’ in recent months. The blockbuster movie Wicked has been all over the television, news and social media since its release in December - it’s certainly been hard to avoid! If you’ve seen the film yourself, you’ll no doubt recall the stunning tulip fields, which make up the magical landscape of Oz. In this lesson, we’ll use these scenes as inspiration for a colourful art activity with a touch of Wicked charm. After all, everyone deserves a chance to fly ... 1 | I’M LIKE A BIRD A fun way to begin this study is to focus on the idea of viewing things from above. Invite pupils to imagine they are a bird, swooping around the classroom looking down at its contents. What do things look like? Take a table for example; can you see its legs from above? No! From above, a table is a simple rectangle. What about a bowl, a pencil pot or a drinks bottle? They become circles when viewed from up high. Encourage pupils to draw bird’s eye views of the everyday objects all around them. Can they guess what their friends are drawing? Can their friends identify the subjects of their sketches? You could even extend this to challenging pupils to draw the whole classroom from above. 2 | FIELDS OF GOLD Next, bring the class focus back to the fields of flowers. Look at the photographs again or watch a clip of the opening sequence of the film, where Glinda is floating above the stunning scenery of Munchkinland in her bubble. Pupils are going to be creating their own artwork inspired by this imagery, but still thinking about a view from above. Ask the children to again imagine they are soaring high in the sky. This time though, they are outside of the classroom environment and above the tulip fields of START HERE MAIN LESSON WHAT THEY’LL LEARN l The meaning of the term ‘bird’s eye perspective’ l How to create artwork using a photo/video as a point of reference l How to create an abstract piece of artwork using colour, line, shape and space to represent rows of flowers Art Begin by sharing a selection of photographs of tulip fields with your pupils; a quick internet search should turn up plenty of images. Lay them out on tables or display them on the interactive whiteboard or via a visualiser for the whole class to see. Invite discussion on the images, focusing on colour, line, shape and space. What colours can pupils see? Can they spot patterns, shapes or lines? Draw attention to some bird’s eye views of the fields. Explain that these show the view a bird would have if it flew over them, and that a bird’s view of the world while it soars is very different from a human’s view down on the ground . Fly over Wicked and wonderful fields of colour! Defy gravity, and imagine soaring like birds over the dazzling fields of Munchkinland, with Adele Darlington KS1 & KS2 LESSON PLAN @mrs_darl @mrsdarlingtonsworld 90 | www.teachwire.net