Teach-Primary-Issue-19.4

Take your class on an imaginary trip to the ocean by utilising the sculptural capabilities of paper ADELE DARL I NGTON www.teachwire.net | 31 To begin, bring the ocean into your classroom, watching footage of waves ebbing and flowing on the whiteboard. We talked about the lines and shapes we could see in their movement, the heights they reach and the way they crash on the shore. Try closing your eyes and listening to their soothing sounds, imagining you're in front of them, water lapping round your ankles and salty spray splashing on your skin. Use A3 blue card (white would work as well) as a base for your sculptures and have a selection of strips of paper for the children to choose from to create their waves. A variety of blue, silver and white paper adds interest to the final creations; we even used newspaper and squared paper for ours! Once your paper wave sculptures are complete, clear a space on the floor in the classroom and join them all together to make an ocean installation; we laid ours out in a rectangular shape. You can play the sounds of waves in the background to create a multi-sensory experience, and even invite other classes and school staff in to enjoy the waves with you and experience your wonderful artwork. Next, practise making waves in the air with your paper, holding up strips and bending and curling them, before doing the same on the card base. Pupils should choose where the start of a wave is going to be, place a blob of glue there and stick it down. Then they can bend the strip up and over and glue it again. Continue this until pupils get to the end of each strip. Remind the children that the number of wave curls each strip creates will depend on the height and width of each bend (you can link this to maths, if you like). Next, explore the idea of sculpture as a three-dimensional artform, and that sculptures can be made from a wide range of materials using a number of different techniques. Tell children they’ll be making their own wave sculptures, and provide card, paper and glue. To turn the 2D paper into 3D form, support pupils to bend it into curved shapes, reminiscent of the majestic waves of the ocean. M y class created these paper wave sculptures to complement our week’s focus text, which was Clean Up! By Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola. The story sees the loveable main character, Rocket, travel to the Caribbean to visit her grandparents. While there, she’s shocked to see the local beach is littered and the sea is polluted. She decides to take action and organises a big beach clean-up. The front cover of the text shows Rocket surfing, smiling and enjoying the waves, and this inspired the creation of our own mini oceans using just card, paper and glue! F EATURE S AR T Adele Darlington is an experienced primary teacher and art consultant. She is the author of 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers: Art (£15, Bloomsbury).