11 November 2022
Vocabulary is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.
We’ve just begun a new Art topic and with it comes new Art vocabulary.
This half-term, each phase is learning about different forms of Art. Y1,2 are focusing on sculpture, Y3,4 are focusing on digital art and Y5,6 are focusing on printing. Here’s a list of key words that are being learnt and applied as part of our learning. Over the half-term, practise using these words with your child.
Years 1 and 2 Art vocabulary:
- graphite: mixed with clay, graphite forms the ‘lead’ in a pencil
- HB: referring to pencils, HB stands for ‘hard black’ – a medium hard pencil
- H: stands for ‘hard’
- B: stands for ‘black’; these pencils are soft
- primary colours: three colours (red, yellow, blue) that can’t be made by mixing other colours, but can make other colours
- secondary colours: three colours (orange, green, purple) that are made when two primary colours are mixed using paint
- pattern: arrangements of things such as colour, shapes and lines that repeat in a logical way
- texture: how something feels, like smooth or rough
- op art: short for ‘optical art’, op art is a style of art that uses visual illusions
- pointillism: a form of painting where very small dots are used to form colours and images
- forgery: copying another artist’s work and making money from it
Years 3 and 4 Art vocabulary:
- complementary colours: colours that are opposite on the colour wheel (roughly, a primary and a secondary colour can be paired up like this)
- warm colours: roughly one half of the colour wheel, warm colours (like red, orange, yellow) usually represent heat and emotions like anger and excitement
- cool colours: roughly one half of the colour wheel, cool colours (like blue, green, purple) usually represent cold things and emotions like calm and sadness
- form: often used to talk about sculpture or the human body, form is the physical aspects or the shape of the artwork or parts of the artwork
- space: usually used to describe areas or parts of an artwork where there are large blocks of colour or ‘gaps’
- medium: the type of art (eg painting, sculpture, printmaking), or the materials an artwork is made from (plural: media)
- digital art: art that is made or presented using digital technology
- architecture: a specific form of design: buildings and other structures
- architect: a person who designs buildings and other structures
- commission: a person or people chosen to produce something, eg a portrait, a building
Years 5 and 6 Art vocabulary:
- pastel: a coloured drawing medium, usually stick-shaped, produced in soft, hard and pencil formproduced in soft, hard and pencil form
- art: the expression of creativity or imagination, or both
- art movement: a style in art followed by a group of artists, often linked to a time and place or to particular artists (sometimes called an ‘ism’)
- printing: transferring ink (or some other medium) from one surface to another
- Arts and Crafts Movement: a design movement started by William Morris in 1861 which aimed to improve the quality of design and make it available to the widest possible audience
- graphic design: covers a range of design activities including logo creation, advertising and typography (fonts)
- industrialisation: the process of using machines to work that was previously done by people.Some of these words have been introduced already this week but there may be others that are going to be covered in the coming weeks.
Art Topic
This half term, our topic is Art. We will be focusing on the work of George Seurat and Bridget Riley.
Seurat used a technique called pointillism.
Zoom in and look at his Sunday Afternoon painting. Can you see all the small dots used to create the painting?
Bridget created op art pieces.
We have started by talking about the topic vocabulary, which you can see below.
Amazing adjectives!
Today, in Key Stage 1, we had a special adjective day! We all came dressed up as an adjective – some examples include sleepy, sporty, powerful, stripy and smart!
An adjective describes a noun. A noun is a thing, place or a name.
Amazing adjectives!
Today, in Key Stage 1, we had a special adjective day! We all came dressed as an adjective – some examples include sleepy, sporty, powerful, stripy and smart!
An adjective describes a noun. A noun is a thing, place or a name.
We labelled some nouns in our classroom. Then, we thought of some adjectives to describe them.
‘The fluffy pillows.’
‘The snuggly teddy bear.’
‘The red book.’
Ask your child: which is the noun? Which is the adjective?
Digital Art
This half term, the children will have an art themed topic. As well as developing the children’s practical skills, we will be learning about art history. Our art will be created and presented using digital technology.
In lessons, we will be studying some architecture. Spend some time at home discussing these questions and images. What do you like? What don’t you like? What’s the same and what’s different? Which are modern and how do you know? How could you describe these amazing pieces of architecture?
What is an architect?
What job do they do?
Can you name any famous architects?
Below is a list of the vocabulary the children will be using throughout this topic. Ask your child if they know any of these words and can they tell you their definitions?
| complementary colours |
| warm colours |
| cool colours |
| form |
| space |
| medium |
| digital art |
| architecture |
| architect |
| commission |
Spellings
Next week, we will be learning about how to make words plural. Learn the following words for a test on Friday 11th November:
communities
attaches
categories
dictionaries
wolves
hooves
puppies
crutches
Community week
This week, we’ve had lots of visitors into school because it’s been our community themed week. The week got off to a great start when the Mayor of Wetherby visited us and spoke to us about his responsibilities within the local community and how he became Mayor through a democratic vote.
Throughout the rest of the week, we had our local community police officer visit us to talk to us about staying safe in our community; Wetherby in Bloom came into school to talk to us about how they support our local community and our younger children potted some plants with the help of some of their volunteers; Boston Spa, Wetherby and Villages Community Group came into talk to us about how we can help the environment; and Wise Charity spoke to the children about supporting the elderly within the local community with the help of their mascot owl!
Children in Years 4- 6 Zoomed some children at Moortown Primary School to compare our school communities and found out some similarities and differences. A group of children also had the opportunity to speak on the local radio station, Tempo FM. It’s been a busy week!
Thank you to all our visitors for making our week so enjoyable.
04 November 2022
This week, we’re thinking about homophones – words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
We need children in Year 4 to not only know how to spell these words but to also have the skill of knowing which word is the right one to use at the right time!
hear/here
break/brake
heel/heal/he’ll
berry/bury
whether/weather
buy/bye/by
there/their/they’re
to/too/two
where/wear/were
who’s/whose
St James’ does Tempo FM!
Today, some children did a fab job of representing St James’ on Wetherby’s very own local radio station – Tempo FM!
Maybe you tuned in and heard Dexter deliver the weather or Aubree tell us about local events or perhaps you heard Mrs Bald explaining why our school were visiting Tempo FM…
As part of community week, we joined up with the community radio station. All week, we’ve been thinking about what community means and what it’s like to be a part of a community.
Check us out in action…
Counting in 3s!
This week, in Year 2, we counted in 3s for the first time! We sang songs and used lots of objects to help us. Why not count in 3s on your way to school?
Here is the link to a song you could sing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V96IZWctZYA
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
