Prep pupils recently took part in the National Gallery’s annual “Take One Picture” initiative, which invites pupils to explore a famous painting and complete a project based on the picture. The aim is to inspire a lifelong love of art and learning. This year’s painting is Henri Rousseau’s “Surprised” - a dream-like portrayal of a tiger prowling through a stormy rainforest.

Children from Reception to Year 6 undertook a myriad of cross-curricular work passed on Rosseau's painting, exploring it in Art, DT and Maths, and also through writing and performing. Our youngest pupils looked at information books about tigers and the children decided to make a jungle using their recently planted cress, and lots of toy animals. In Year 1 Art, pupils created their own mixed media scene, creating a rainforest for Rousseau’s tiger to live in. Meanwhile, Year 2 measured the size of the real painting and calculated how many children might fit inside. Other highlights included Year 3's use of the snipping tool in ICT to create colourful collages, Year 5's carefully-constructed match box art, and Year 6's use of an app to measure red, green and blue wavelengths before mixing their own matching colour from poster paints. 

All the activities were completed during our whole school Arts Week (20-26 March), which at the Prep also included orchestral collaborations with the Senior School, lunch-time recitals, and author writing workshops.