Author: Ferryhill Primary School

Good afternoon boys and girls of Ferryhill. Are your rainbows up in your windows? Ours are. I am saying ‘ours’, but it was my 16-year-old daughter who painted two rainbows. One for the windows to the front and one for her own bedroom which is facing the garden and the tenements across the lane. 

This is the picture the little boy from downstairs drew with chalks on his house wall. He had his mother’s permission, in fact, I think his mother drew the sun, the cloud, the rainbow and the red flower and he did the rain and the white flowers. 

Drawing on walls is a bit risky unless you own the wall. Do you own any walls? Stick to pavements for chalk drawings until you have bought your first house. 

I tried to make a rainbow with unusual materials, some limp fruit and vegetables found at the back of my fridge. Can you name any of the fruit/ veg I used? Have you tried any of them before? What do you think of my artwork? Is it Art?

You are right, some colours are missing. Which ones? 

Yesterday we finished with looking at the ‘Niagara Falls, from the American Side’ picture by Frederic Edwin Church. The rainbow was in the bottom right corner. Well spotted. Church painted the picture in 1867 from sketches he made on site and from some photographs. Photography had just been invented. It was also the beginning of tourism. But let’s not go there today, on Lockdown Day 2, when our longest journey must not be further than to our local supermarket.

Today’s tasks

1. Between which two countries are the Niagara Falls located? 
2. Name the continent. 
3. Find at least three interesting facts about Niagara Falls. 

For our STEM lovers or any pupils in the upper school years:

1. Why do modern day visitors to the Niagara Falls see a lot less water than Frederic Church did when he visited the Falls in the 1860s? (It doesn’t have anything to do with rainfall.)

This painting is located in the National Gallery of Scotland on the Mound right in the centre of Edinburgh. 

1. Locate the Gallery on googlemaps. 
2. Find a picture of the building of the National Gallery of Scotland (on the Mound). Sometimes it is called ‘Scottish National Gallery’.
3. Take an A4 piece of paper. Landscape format. 
4. Make a line drawing of the gallery. Leave 5 – 8cm space at the bottom of the picture for a pavement. Do not fill the whole page because we will need space for a pavement in front of the gallery.  Use a felt tip pen. Ignore any mistakes you make. 

We will need this picture for tomorrow’s task. 

Just in case you forgot what a line drawing was. This is one I made of the Old Town. Please remember to leave space for the pavement. 

Good morning boys and girls from Ferryhill Primary School. I hope you are all well and ready for your first online Art lesson. It’s my first online Art lesson ever, too, so I am learning with you as we go along. 

We’ll start off with something simple. Today we need to make a Rainbow picture for the window of your flat that is facing the road. All over the world children are currently painting, drawing, making collages of rainbows which they display in their windows to show solidarity. Solidarity means that you are thinking of others and that no one is alone. The two little girls in the ground floor flat two doors along from mine have a rainbow picture in their window and it cheers me up every time I look out of my living room window. 

Before you rush to draw a rainbow using up your precious felt tip pens, stop and think.

What are the colours of the rainbow?

Can you sing the colours of the rainbow? In Germany we don’t have the song that all of you seem to learn at nursery. You are definitely a step ahead of Germany!

Can you make a rainbow from things you find in your recycling bin? Can you make a collage? We don’t want to wear out your felt-tip pens in the first week. What other materials could you use instead? Take a photo of your work and try and upload it. 

Will you just make a rainbow or can you add something else? Is there a story? 

For those of you in the upper classes I’d like you to find out online why there are different colours in a rainbow. 

Check out ‘How a Prism Works to Make Rainbow Colors’ on youtube. I think some of you STEM whizzkids might like it. 

If you have any time left check out the website of the National Galleries of Scotland. One of my favourite pictures is by Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara Falls from the American Side, 1867. 

Go to www.nationalgalleries.org. Type in Frederic Edwin Church into the finder and you’ll be directed to this picture. 

Can you spot the rainbow?

Have fun and let me know how you get on. 

Dr Stahl

All of the classes participated in Global Play day giving the children an opportunity to engage in free play. There was a variety of activities happening in their classes, outside and in the P.E hall. Children were creative, used their imaginations and had fun playing with others.