I always let the girls choose the topic they’d like to study beforehand as I find they are more focussed on the lessons that way, and this week they asked if they could use Coco as their inspiration. This worked well as Cinco de Mayo almost fell into the week (it fell the Tuesday after the topic started) so we decided to run it as a Mexico topic that would last 7 teaching days and finish with a Cinco de Mayo feast. (As usual, maths was separate for the most part and followed the White Rose scheme as suggested by school!)
On our first day we focussed on how to use non-fiction books. We played some alphabetical order games to ensure we could use an index which the girls loved. We then used an atlas to locate Mexico before labelling a map and creating a factsheet.
As the girls had asked to create 3-d sugar skulls we decided to do the papier-mâché prep! I can’t believe I used to do this with a class of 32 all at the same time! So much mess!
Tuesday was spent learning about Frida Kahlo. The girls did some research about her, writing up their findings.
They then studied her artwork, The Frame, before creating their own self-portrait versions. They began by drawing themselves before painting with watercolours. They then made a separate floral frame and coloured these with mixed media before gluing them on top of the portraits. I absolutely love these, and they are now hanging in our kitchen (we have a frame either side of our dessert which, from the girls being babies, we’ve used to display special artwork in).
We had a day focussed on Coco where the girls answered comprehension questions for their Literacy. They also wrote some Disney haiku. Can you guess the movies?
The girls then created their own spirit guide by carefully sketching their chosen animal before adding bright and beautiful patterns. They spent hours on these, and I am so impressed with the level of detail (I did one too as it was so relaxing!)
We learnt some Spanish words and then learnt the song ‘Proud Corazón from Coco, which was a lovely way to end the day.
The following day the girls created a Coco storyboard as a way of retelling the story. The plan was to create a movie trailer for the film, but we ran out of time so will leave that task for another topic.
In the afternoon the girls wanted to paint each other’s faces. A lovely lady who often does the girls’ parties (and who also does the best princess phone calls during lockdown!) kindly made us a tutorial so they followed that, although we didn’t tackle the outlines!
They really did amazingly well as it wasn’t easy at all! If you’d like to try you can find the tutorial here:
We decided to spend a day learning about the Aztecs as the girls love the Aztec sections on Horrible Histories. We used Lego to carry out an investigation based around the area of different pyramid levels in maths which was a fun way to start the day.
We then created a timeline of the Aztecs and learnt about Hernan Cortez before solving some problems based around Aztec hieroglyphs. The girls were a bit under the weather, so we finished the day watching The Road to El Dorado on the sofa!
For our final day of the topic the girls spent the morning creating a piece of descriptive writing about Hector finally getting to return home in Coco. I love what they created here.
In the afternoon the girls decorated the 3-d sugar skull papier-mâché heads they started earlier in the topic. I assumed they’d do them as a full face, but Polly went for a hat option!!
As Polly finished early she also got time to create some foil art. She pressed on the back with a blunt pencil to create a raised outline before colouring it in with Sharpies (I must have been feeling brave!!)
The final task of the topic was to make a Mexican tea. The girls chose cheese and salsa topped nachos followed by chicken fajitas and churros. The Disney churros recipe is brilliant…so easy and tastes delicious! Although, it does make a lot of churros!
During the week we also received our NHS Heroes medals which the girls got for doing a virtual 2k race (they ran laps of the garden) to raise money for our healthcare heroes. They are so proud of them!
We had a fabulous time during this topic and I’m glad we made time for Art as I’ve been pushing it aside to make sure we cover other topics in past weeks, yet it’s my favourite thing to do with the girls. After we finished we had a few days learning about WWII before the VE Day celebrations which the girls really enjoyed.
They even created their own news report.
Up next is 2-week Harry Potter topic (chosen by my mini Malfoy!) Better get planning!
Doodle & Peg Do Disney 