During the first three days at school, children in Years 3 to 6 explored the masterpiece – Henri Rousseau’s 1891 ‘Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised) and developed their visual literacy skills through participation in a wide range of activities.
All children engaged in discussion around the artwork as they described the tiger and its surrounding landscape. Then, they had the opportunity to explore the elements of the painting focusing on composition and movement; colour and line and recorded their annotations. At the end of the three days, there were three final outcomes: an art or creative outcome, a written outcome and a performance outcome.
Year 3 students created a class acrostic poem using ideas from the vocabulary generation activity. During their art session, they created a collage using different coloured papers and used suitable layering.
Year 4 students wrote their own poems inspired by the art piece and created a collage with an animal of their choice in their own habitat in the style of Rousseau.
During the art lesson, Year 5 students split the painting into sections and extended each section in groups to make the scene larger. In addition, they were encouraged to be imaginative and wrote their own narratives based on the picture.
Year 6 students had a class debate based on the question, ‘Should tigers be kept in captivity?’ , where they confidently presented strong arguments for or against the view. Their art session involved recreating Franz Marc’s ‘Tiger’ incorporating their own animal, and used geometric shapes, ruled lines and pastels.
What an amazing way to start the school year!
