Creative Arts Week at Berkhamsted Pre-Prep

Pre-Prep celebrated their annual creative arts week, dedicated to exploring different creative techniques and developing soft skills alongside them.

Pre-Prep has been filled with imagination and wonder this week, as we celebrate our annual Creative Arts Week. Inspired by book ‘The Wonder’ by Faye Hanson, pupils took part in a rich array of activities that sparked their creativity and stretched the limits of their imaginations.

Monday: DT Day

In order to kick off a busy week of creative thinking, Pre-Prep spent their Monday exploring how to tap into their sense of creativity and wonder. Reception designed striking ‘imagination hats’ to help this process, fashioned from coloured card, feathers, pipe cleaners and other recycled material that represented their imaginative thoughts.

Year 1 created 3D collages inspired by the things they ‘wondered’ about the world. They linked many of their inventions to their recent topic learning planning, designing and modelling hot air balloons, monster trucks and aeroplanes.

Free build stations across the Pre-Prep gave children the chance to construct whatever was on their mind. Year 2 particularly enjoyed creating personalised puppets who told wonderfully imaginative stories, practising oracy and storytelling all the while.

With every child having reflected on the power of their imagination, the stage was set for a very creative week.

Tuesday: Art Day

With Art already central to the early curriculum, Tuesday focused on broadening every pupil’s understanding of what materials and equipment they could use to create art.

In Reception, children were challenged to create animals by using only one shape, in the style of Matisse’s famous collage snail. In Year 2, pupils spent the morning experimenting with magic powder-based paints to create imaginative paintings on fabric, and were challenged to design completely monochromatic landscapes out of mixed media in the afternoon.

Year 1 ended the day by considering the artwork of Kandinsky, discussing how his bold colourful rings that rippled out formed a powerful metaphor for the potential of each child’s imagination.

Every year was also treated to one more surprise: a paint pendulum set up in the hall! Pupils watched in awe as they pushed cups of paint to drop interesting patterns onto the paper below. This was an opportunity to combine painting with physics and marvel at the artistry of momentum!

Wednesday: Dance Day

Energy was burned in the bucketfuls on Wednesday as Pre-Prep channelled their imagination into physical dance routines. Every group imagined they were part of the bustling parade in the book ‘The Wonder,’ devising dance routines that celebrated the many movements and activities at a parade. From ice-cream eaters to trumpet players, Pre-Prep showed how creativity can take many different forms. Even Stepping Stones (our youngest pupils) joined in, using glittery cloths to practise travelling, stopping and moving in different ways, filling the hall with some wonderful scarf-ography. This opportunity to quite literally exercise the imagination was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Thursday: Music Day

On Thursday, Haresfoot rung with the sound of stomps, claps and shouts. Pupils were visited by Ollie, a West-End performer who led workshops creating rhythms with everything but an instrument. Assisted by four enthusiastic Year 6 learning leaders from Berkhamsted Prep, he taught pupils how to make repeated rhythms out of things as simple as their names.

Reception transported us to the Brazil Carnival with their two-part samba rhythm, while Stepping Stone’s thunderstorm, created entirely by producing different sounds with our own hands, had several staff reaching for umbrellas. Year 2 experimented with hip-hop rhythms using recycled materials such as old bottles filled with pasta and scrap plastic. While Pre-Prep learned some music theory in the workshop, exploring different musical phrases, beats and time signatures, the simple pleasure of smacking a tin with a stick was equally enjoyed.

Friday: Creative Storytelling Day

To round off the week, pupils practised their oracy and reflective skills by thinking about the busy week they had had. This was also an opportunity to complete one final task: each class was challenged to create their own 8 beat rhythm by only using body percussion. These will be combined together to create a Berko Creative Arts Week soundtrack: look out on social media for the full tune.

Creative Arts Week was a highlight of January, helping pupils to explore the power of their creativity and discover the breadth of different artistic disciplines. In line with our Early Years education focus, learning through play, pupils stretched their sense of innovation, imagination and lateral thinking skills. We’re excited to see how the next generation of artists, dancers and musicians continue to bring colour and imagination to Haresfoot in the months ahead.