Physical to digital work is transforming our art area this year, thanks to Cathy Hunt. It’s a simple idea which builds cameras in to your art area. Children move between the iPad and their physical art work to develop their ideas. Cathy has a host of lesson ideas for all ages on her website, and it’s been great fun building this way of working in to our art activities.

In the early weeks of September, we worked collaboratively to create mixed media collages of animals from the Brown Bear, Brown Bear story. Children found out how to use white and black paint to make lighter and darker shades of colour for their animal. They learned different techniques of tissue paper layering. From their large scale group work their moved to small scale independent pieces to refine their newly acquired skills.

Learning was messy, as it should be. All of the different brushes, rollers and sponges were out. Boxes of mixed media wide open as they scavenged for matching colours for their animal. As children worked in their animal teams, they were retelling the story of Brown Bear. Singing ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I see a red bird looking at me. Red Bird, Red, what do you see? I see a yellow duck looking at me’ and so on.

So it was great that our class set of iPads are now in their new splash proof cases! These new additions, from Hills Components, are perfect for this kind of physical to digital work flow in Foundation Stage!

I gathered the groups together to show them how Chatterpix app works. This is a simple step app from Duck Duck Moose which takes a photo of a face. Children draw a line with their finger over the mouth on the image. They press record, speak in to the microphone and then image talks this back to them. It’s a simple 3 step process for early learners to pick up and use quickly.

The class loved bringing their art work to life with their own voice. This took their retelling of the story to another level through art and design. And anyway, who doesn’t their painting of a character to sing back to them?