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Lesson 4: Craft and Design 1: Craft puppets

Using a polystyrene ball, a selection of paints, card, dowel rods and grey felt, children make a puppet mouse inspired by the book ‘The Dark at the Top of the Stairs’ by Sam McBratney

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Before the lesson

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Learning objective

To use different materials to make a three-dimensional artwork

National curriculum

Pupils should be taught:

To create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas
To improve their mastery of Art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials [for example, pencil, charcoal paint, clay]

Success criteria

Cross-curricular links

Attention grabber

Main event

Differentiation

Pupils needing extra support: If the taping proves fiddly for small hands, the children could pair up to help each other attach the features to the mouse head.

Pupils working at greater depth: Add texture to the grey fur on the mouse head by painting it in tones of grey instead of as a block colour; the lines of grey should follow the direction the hair would fall on a mouse (i.e. flowing away from the tip of the nose). Also, the pupils may wish to paint in an expression for the eyes and mouth on the face.

Wrapping up

Assessing pupils' progress and understanding

Vocabulary

In this unit

Created by:

Simon Chubb,

Art and Design specialist

Simon is a teacher, cartoonist and artist. He uses his 25 years of experience to teach art in schools and has his own workshop business ‘Scartoons’ in which children create comic characters and strips. Simon is a member of The…

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