A work of art that is made by attaching different pieces of materials.

Reception - Learning through purposeful play

Our arts curriculum is embedded within all our weekly topics in Reception. Staff set out a variety of activities which encourage children to be creative whilst learning more about their topics. Here are some examples of how the children have utilised these quality resources within their learning environment to collage for a purpose.

Topic - All about me - Carefully sticking pre-cut shapes onto an outline of their name.

Topic - Elmer - Self selecting materials to use to decorate a colourful patchwork elephant, just like Elmer including opportunities to talk about how different materials feel.

Topic - Elmer - Creating patterns and designs, placing gems precisely.

Topic - All about me - Loose parts play. Can you make a face?

Topic - Homes - Three Little Pigs - Noticing a difference in material, creating a straw, stick and brick house. Using scissors to cut materials.

Year One - Story Scenes

The children love to get fully emerged in their focus stories during their literacy lessons. As part of their creative literacy, and to support the children's vocabulary (particularly adjectives), they often collage a stories setting. At the start of the year, this is a familiar story, where children can select from a range of given resources and create 2D scene. This is then built on within the spring term, where children create their own story scenes using their imagination - a mix of techniques and things that they already know and an opportunity to experiment to find new ways of doing things.

Year Two - Craft Club

The children who attend craft club have spent several weeks learning about and 'perfecting' their collage techniques. We started off with the question 'What is collage?'. Collage is a work of art that is made by attaching different pieces of materials. We discussed suitable collage materials and decided that the most accessible in school would be tissue paper or coloured card. After that, each child collaged the first letter to their name, trying hard to stay within a given shape. The following week the children built on their previous knowledge of collage and famous artists to create works of art which they could combine for a group project. Kandinsky's concentric circles, which they had learnt about their previous school year, was chosen as the focus for their project. The children had previously created representations of Kandinsky's artwork using paint, but now they would do this with collage. It was interesting to watch the strategies the children chose, techniques to make the material smaller to fill gaps, and how some children experimented with the media to create a 3D effect. Check out our finished project below.