Dunannie’s Day Exploring Antarctica

Dunannie’s Day Exploring Antarctica

23/05/2011

Pupils in years 2 and 3 at Bedales pre-prep school, Dunannie, spent a day exploring Antarctica as part of a special workshop run by artist and author Frances Hatch, using her book, ‘Drawn to Antarctica’ as the inspiration for the day.

Frances brought the fascinating world of Antarctica to life for the children, telling them stories of her own journey to the “bottom of the world” from her home in Dorset and what she found there: the landscape, people, and clothing. Frances compared the continent with Australia so that children could understand the scale of Antarctica and the contrasting weather, living conditions and environment.

The children were then invited to create Antarctica using the artistic techniques Frances had demonstrated when talking of her journey and her sketches and paintings that she did while on the icy continent. They began by using line drawing techniques, learning about tone and depth and were asked to write ‘ice’ in different ways to represent their feelings of the word and the landscape. They progressed to making ice sculptures using recycled material and creating 3D models of Antarctica creating foregrounds and backgrounds complete with penguins and other animals to help them get a sense of the scale of the country.

The biggest challenge was in the creation of a giant frieze, which was laid across the entire Dunannie library and pupils were encouraged to use different paints and different application styles to create the rugged landscape of Antarctica. Frances played music during the frieze painting that was symbolic of the cold and amazing landscape to help imaginations flow.

At the end of the session Frances remarked how creative Dunannie is as a school community and how lovely it was to see children enjoying learning in such a way that they had “light behind their eyes.”

Commenting on the workshop, Jo Webbern, Head of Dunannie, said: “We are lucky to have the flexibility in our curriculum to incorporate days such as this, which really give children the opportunity to explore a topic in-depth and, in doing so, learn in an engaging and enjoyable way. It was wonderful to observe the children engrossed in their artwork during the frieze painting in the library, which is now gracing the main school corridor.”

In the following week, Dunannie’s children were involved in a performance of Noah’s Ark in front of an audience of proud parents and teachers.

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