Hello to all my Grade 5 students from Cambridge Primary School and whoever else might be reading this post.
I can’t believe it is Week 6
GRADE 4 WEEK 6 REMOTE LEARNING 2020
GRADE 4 WEEK 6 REMOTE LEARNING
Your celestial bodies final artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
You must submit all your artworks (rough draft of four/2 ideas/final celestial bodies artwork) or your report for Semester 1 will state NEEDS ATTENTION in the Visual Arts section.
Hello to all my Grade 4 students from Cambridge Primary School and whoever else might be reading this post.
I can’t believe it is Week 6
of remote learning already!
We are going to be doing a bit of Visual Arts learning around the topic of CELESTIAL BODIES in ART!
So, in Week 3 you drew a rough draft of four different celestial bodies. If you didn’t do this work go to week 3 here.
And in Week 4 you drew 2 ideas for a celestial bodies artwork. If you didn’t do this work go to week 4 here.
Now, in Week 5 and week 6, I would like you to create your final artwork for this unit of work. I want you to create a celestial bodies final artwork.
This artwork will require some thinking and some organising. So this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
In the past, my grade 3 students have created a celestial bodies artwork using clay like this.
This artwork involved-
-
deciding which of the celestial bodies you were going to create with
-
deciding how the celestial bodies were going to interact if the student was using more than one type of celestial body
-
deciding whether the celestial bodies claywork was going to be 3D and freestanding or flat
-
painting the claywork after it came out of the kiln
But you won’t be making a celestial bodies clay work in the art room.
In this time of remote learning we all have to adapt to creating at home.
How can you produce an artwork that has more than one celestial body in it? How can you put them together? Or perhaps you just want to create one of the celestial bodies? What will you use?
So you have lots of choice with how you create your celestial bodies artwork. However I want you to use more than one sort of material or one way of creating your art work. You have choices to make!
So perhaps you will draw,
or paint, or use oil pastels or chalk or watercolour pencils,
or use lego,
or make salt dough
Salt Dough Recipe
Ingredients
- I cup salt
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 cup hot water
Method
- Add salt and plain flour to a bowl gradually adding hot water. You might not need all the water!
- Mix together until a dough forms. Make sure it isn’t sticky.
- Leave your salt dough creations to air dry overnight. Then put your salt dough creations in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius for about 3 hours.
- When your salt dough creations are cool you can paint them. If you don’t have gloss paint and you want them to look shiny you can paint them with varnish when the paint is dry. If you don’t have any varnish just paint them with PVA glue. This will also make them nice and shiny.
or use cut paper
or torn paper,
or cardboard
or aluminum foil
or use stuff from the kitchen drawers and cupboards
or stuff out of the laundry basket
or other stuff
or all of those things
or something I haven’t even listed!
This moon looks like it has been made using shaving cream!
If you want to look at more celestial bodies artworks go to my Pinterest board.
I am giving you lots and lots and lots of choice 
in how you create your artwork but I am NOT telling you to go out and buy stuff! Use what is already in your home! Don’t forget to ask permission to pull stuff out of cupboards to use or to make salt dough, or things like that.
Email your photos to me when you have finished.
shelley.menhennet@education.vic.gov.au
And, of course, tidy up after you have created!!!
I cannot wait to see your artworks inspired by celestial bodies!
You can send it in earlier but remember this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
Have fun creating!
Mrs Menhennet
Don’t forget to leave a comment! My students love to read your comments!
GRADE 3 WEEK 6 REMOTE LEARNING 2020
GRADE 3 WEEK 6 REMOTE LEARNING 2020
Your sunflowers final artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
You must submit all your artworks (rough draft 4 sunflowers/rough draft vase of sunflowers/final artwork vase of sunflowers) or your report for Semester 1 will state NEEDS ATTENTION in the Visual Arts section.
Hello to all my Grade 3 students from Cambridge Primary School and whoever else might be reading this post.
I can’t believe it is Week 6
of remote learning already!
We are going to be doing a bit of Visual Arts learning around the topic of Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers in ART!
So, in Week 3 you drew a rough draft of four different sunflowers.
If you didn’t do this work go to week 3 here.
And in Week 4 you drew a rough draft of a vase of sunflowers. if you didn’t do this work go to Week 4 here.
Now, in Week 5 and Week 6, I would like you to create your final artwork for this unit of work. I want you to create an artwork of a vase of sunflowers.
This artwork will require some thinking and some organising. So this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
In the past, my grade 3 students have created a vase of flowers like this.
This artwork involved-
-
drawing a line across the paper to show the edge of the table
-
painting the background and the table cloth
-
printing flower stems using a piece of scrap cardboard on its side
-
making sure the stems weren’t all perfectly straight
-
painting or printing sunflower heads leaving one stem without a head
-
making sure the sunflowers were not all just facing the front
-
some of the sunflowers might even be dropping their petals onto the tablecloth
-
folding a piece of coloured paper in half and drawing half a vase on one side, cutting out the shape and unfolding it to form a vase
-
gluing the paper vase on top of the stems
-
decorating the vase with buttons, beads, sequins, ribbon, paper and fabric scraps
-
creating the last sunflower head with Model Magic, an air dry clay, gluing it onto the last stem and painting it so one of the flower heads was three dimensional.
This sort of artwork is called mixed media because so many different sorts of materials and ways of creating are used at the same time to create a whole artwork.
But in this time of remote learning we all have to adapt to creating at home.
So you have lots of choice with how you create your vase of sunflowers this week. However I want you to use more than one sort of material or one way of creating your art work.
So perhaps you will draw
or paint
or use oil pastels
or use lego
or make salt dough
Salt Dough Recipe
Ingredients
- I cup salt
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 cup hot water
Method
- Add salt and plain flour to a bowl gradually adding hot water. You might not need all the water!
- Mix together until a dough forms. Make sure it isn’t sticky.
- Leave your salt dough creations to air dry overnight. Then put your salt dough creations in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius for about 3 hours.
- When your salt dough creations are cool you can paint them. If you don’t have gloss paint and you want them to look shiny you can paint them with varnish when the paint is dry. If you don’t have any varnish just paint them with PVA glue. This will also make them nice and shiny.
or use cut paper
or folded paper
or torn paper
or cardboard
use stuff from the kitchen drawers and cupboards
or stuff out of the laundry basket
or other stuff
or all of those things
or something I haven’t even listed!
And if you decide to create other sorts of flowers instead of sunflowers that is also okay.

This cooking artist, Lorraine Elliott from her website Not Quite Nigella has created a focaccia as a vase of sunflowers!
I am giving you lots and lots and lots of choice 
in how you create your artwork but I am NOT telling you to go out and buy stuff! Use what is already in your home! Don’t forget to ask permission to pull stuff out of cupboards to use or to make salt dough, or things like that.
Email your photos to me when you have finished.
shelley.menhennet@education.vic.gov.au
And, of course, tidy up after you have created!!!
I cannot wait to see your artworks inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings!
You can send it in earlier but remember this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
Have fun creating!
Mrs Menhennet
And here they are!
Yes, that is Sunflower bread! You saw it here first!
Don’t forget to leave a comment!
My students love reading your comments!
GRADE 4 WEEK 5 REMOTE LEARNING CELESTIAL BODIES 2020
GRADE 4 WEEK 5 REMOTE LEARNING
Hello to all my Grade 4 students from Cambridge Primary School and whoever else might be reading this post.
I can’t believe it is Week 5
of remote learning already!
We are going to be doing a bit of Visual Arts learning around the topic of CELESTIAL BODIES in ART!
So, in Week 3 you drew a rough draft of four different celestial bodies
And in Week 4 you drew 2 ideas for a celestial bodies artwork
Now, in Week 5, I would like you to create your final artwork for this unit of work. I want you to create a celestial bodies artwork.
This artwork will require some thinking and some organising. So this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
In the past, my grade 3 students have created a celestial bodies artwork using clay like this.
This artwork involved-
-
deciding which of the celestial bodies you were going to create with
-
deciding how the celestial bodies were going to interact if the student was using more than one type of celestial body
-
deciding whether the celestial bodies claywork was going to be 3D and freestanding or flat
-
painting the claywork after it came out of the kiln
But you won’t be making a celestial bodies clay work in the art room.
In this time of remote learning we all have to adapt to creating at home.
How can you produce an artwork that has more than one celestial body in it? How can you put them together? Or perhaps you just want to create one of the celestial bodies? What will you use?
So you have lots of choice with how you create your celestial bodies artwork. However I want you to use more than one sort of material or one way of creating your art work.
So perhaps you will draw
or paint
or use oil pastels or chalk or watercolour pencils
or use lego
or make salt dough
Salt Dough Recipe
Ingredients
- I cup salt
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 cup hot water
Method
- Add salt and plain flour to a bowl gradually adding hot water. You might not need all the water!
- Mix together until a dough forms. Make sure it isn’t sticky.
- Leave your salt dough creations to air dry overnight. Then put your salt dough creations in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius for about 3 hours.
- When your salt dough creations are cool you can paint them. If you don’t have gloss paint and you want them to look shiny you can paint them with varnish when the paint is dry. If you don’t have any varnish just paint them with PVA glue. This will also make them nice and shiny.
or use cut paper
or torn paper
or cardboard
or aluminum foil
use stuff from the kitchen drawers and cupboards
or stuff out of the laundry basket
or other stuff
or all of those things
or something I haven’t even listed!
This moon looks like it has been made using shaving cream!
If you want to look at more celestial bodies artworks go to my Pinterest board.
I am giving you lots and lots and lots of choice 
in how you create your artwork but I am NOT telling you to go out and buy stuff! Use what is already in your home! Don’t forget to ask permission to pull stuff out of cupboards to use or to make salt dough, or things like that.
Email your photos to me when you have finished.
shelley.menhennet@education.vic.gov.au
And, of course, tidy up after you have created!!!
I cannot wait to see your artworks inspired by celestial bodies!
You can send it in earlier but remember this artwork is due on Monday 24th May 2020!
Have fun creating!
Mrs Menhennet
WINGS – WHAT LIFTS YOU?
I always start off the school year with a collaborative activity across all of my grades usually focusing on drawing/pattern and this year we made paper feathers.
First we looked at Kelsey Montague‘s gorgeous wings from Nashville in Tennessee, USA.
Then we looked at feathers and wings that were created by Cassie Stephens and her talented students, again from Nashville, Tennessee.
And after that we looked at the feathers and wings from elementaryartfun.blogspot.com
And if that wasn’t enough to get us inspired, we also found that Kelsey Montague had created a pair of wings in Melbourne, which is our capital city. They are at Melbourne Central, which is a shopping centre right in the heart of Melbourne. They are on level 2 next to Plantation Coffee, if you want to go and look at them.
Somebody said to me that they thought Kelsey Montague had done another set of wings at Flinders Street Station but try as I might I couldn’t find an image for those wings.
One of my Grade 6 Art Ambassadors, Amber, asked her Nanna, who was heading into town on Monday, if she could see if she could find Kelsey Montague’s wings at Flinders Street Station, if she had the time, to prove they were actually there. And they are! 🙂 But she didn’t take a photo. 🙁 I love my Art Ambassadors!
So there are two pairs of Kelsey Montague wings in Melbourne. The next time I am travelling through Flinders Street Station I will make sure I take a photo of those wings to share with all the students.
So after all that inspiration this is what the students did to create their feather.
- chose which sort of paper they would use – plain white, coloured or patterned
- traced a feather shape from an assortment of cardboard templates
- added colour to their paper – paint, textas, oil pastels, coloured pencils, watercolour pencils, etc
- students chose how they would apply their colour to their feather – just a strip of red oil pastel across the middle, sponge cool colours of paint on for an ombre effect, create a rainbow of colour with watercolour pencils over the whole feather, etc
- students then designed/practised 5 patterns on a small 5 box photocopied strip of paper to get their brains moving from thinking about colour to pattern. Lots of pattern charts/images were available for inspiration
- added pattern/s onto their feather selecting the material they wished to use after considering how they would get the best contrast so their detailed patterns would really stand out- metallic textas, metallic pencils, black or white fineliners, etc
- and finally, cut out their feather carefully!
Yes, this is a lot of choice and that is why the feathers are all so different. Some of the students took 3 sessions to complete their feather!
So here are some more wings photos and even a few individual feathers as well as some of the students posing in front of the wings. Over the next week or so I plan on taking all the students photos at the wings.
And did I mention that the only way I can actually photograph the students at the wings in the main hallway is to open up the hallway window and run outside and stick my head in through the window to take the photo as I can’t stand back far enough to take the photo otherwise.
The students all think this is hilarious!
Thanks for visiting my blog! I would love it, and so would the students, if you would leave a comment.
GRADE 2 DAVE BEHRENS INSPIRED DETAILED DRAWINGS AT THE CAMBRIDGE PRIMARY SCHOOL ART SHOW
As mentioned in previous posts, the Grade 2 children were inspired by the work of Queensland artist Dave Behrens. We looked at his website on the projection screen and even watched a video of him in his workshop.
The children were itching to get started after looking at the amazing squiggles, lines and symbols that go together to make Dave Behrens amazing paintings.
We started off small with each child decorating a rectangle to add to a whole grade piece of work.
They then chose a template to trace from a heart, a circle or a person. Some children found looking at the whole empty shape daunting so they used rulers to break the space up into sections to fill.
They were so proud of their work when it was finished and they looked terrific displayed together at the Art Show.
- Dave Behrens painting the spoken word
- Dave Behrens painting Crossroads
- Dave Behrens self portrait
DAVE BEHREN’S STYLE!
A friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook during first term telling me that she had found an amazing website that belonged to an Australian Artist and I was going to love it. My friend Sue knows me really well and she was right. It’s a great website and DAVE BEHRENS is an amazing artist. He lives in Queensland.
http://www.davebehrens.com/
I sent him an email and told him I was going to do some work with my Grade 2’s and 3’s in the Dave Behren’s style. And in the end we sort of spent the whole term working in Dave Behren’s style and the work the children have produced has been absolutely stunning.
Dave Behren’s paintings are incredibly detailed and the” WOW!!!” factor was certainly there as the children all “oohed”, and “aahed”, while looking through the website together and watching a video interview, which was available on his website, on the projection screen in the classroom.
We started off small. The grade 2 children had to decorate a rectangle of coloured paper. The grade 3’s had to do a star shape. I glued them onto a large sheet of black cover paper so they would look similar to the way Dave Behren’s arranges some of his paintings. There was a lot of discussion about what could be drawn, repeating patterns, shapes within shapes, symbols, etc. I drew up some idea sheets BODIES/SHAPES/LINES and asked everyone to contribute one idea to at least one sheet. Once they were working though they all took inspiration from each other – “Ooh I like what you did just there. I’m going to try that one.”
I have lots more photos to put up of this stunning work so keep looking for future posts.
Shelley
Grade 4 Paul Klee Sinbad the sailor
Last year I looked at Paul Klee with the Grade 4’s.
We discussed the backgrounds of his paintings, particularly Sinbad the sailo,r although we did look at others as well, and decided to try to make our own backgrounds like Paul Klee.
These backgrounds took a lot longer to finish than I thought they would but the children were totally absorbed while creating them. We made our foreground images using flouro paper and gel pens. When they were carefully cut out we raised them up using thick double sided mounting tape so they appeared to float on top of the background. The Grade 4 children were all very proud odf their finished work.








