Back in the classroom after the story-telling/drama session in the hall, Tony reminded the class of their keyword UNITY and what they had already learnt about symbols.

Then the pupils explored the idea of signs -
What are they?
Why create signs?
They also talked about the difference between man made and natural objects and phenomenom and thought of lots of examples which were written up on the board.

Natural:

moon, sun, stars, trees, roots, leaves, mud, human beings, flowers, water, clouds, lightening, animals, coal, gas, oxygen, birds, sand, potatoes, silk

Man Made:

letter-box, litter, paper/wood, plastic, furniture, clothes, wool, bricks, toys, shoes/leather, glass, ink, paint, food, trains, factories, buttons, wax, houses, cardboard

We discussed how the two elements can work in unity - man and nature...wind in sails, water for power, etc. and we looked at the way symbols develop and are read universally, how they cross language and literacy boundries.

Next the class was divided into two - man made and natural - and each child chose an object to draw. These individual drawings were simplified into signs and symbols and then cut out of black paper and scanned onto the computer where they were resized ready to be coloured in in Paint. They changed from symbols to patterns when REPEATED or tiled as backgrounds. See the computer work.

Following on from this, the class worked again on their symbol shapes, further simplifiying them or aspects of them. These shapes would form the basis of their screen printing.

After discussing patterns and abstraction, they then cut out a few of their shapes on white paper, some of different sizes, and laid them onto black card to work out their final design before the screen printing commenced.

Sarah Mangan came to help the pupils screen print their pieces.

The pupils worked on two sides of thin organdi fabric - one side for natural images and one side for man-made images.

The finished pieces would be made into a wind sculpture so, as the fabric panels are turned by the wind, they are UNIFIED.

The pupils wrote their unity poems on strips of cloth to blow in the wind like wishes and prayer flags.

The pupils' completed screen prints were then given to Shelagh to start making the wind sculpture. First of all they were cut into panel shapes.

Once finished the wind sculpture was permanently assembled in the upstairs hall. Read more about this in the additional information page.