We began the week in our classroom and looked at the poem ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou. We discussed its meaning as well as its rhyme patterns and used this as a jumping off point to write our own version. In the afternoon, we continued to practice our samba piece in preparation for the celebration.

On Tuesday, we started the day by working on our dance with Miss Pratchett. It was amazing to see how much of the dance the children remembered from the previous week. We started to incorporate our performance poetry into the dance – which took a lot of focus.

During our time in the art studio, we worked on a piece of art in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat. We used our knowledge from our portraits the previous week to create a wash on cardboard. We then added a black figure and used different coloured chalk pens to add detail to the design and write on our kennings about fears. We also designed, cut out a template and painted our very own birds for an amazing installation. We used the Maya Angelou poem ‘Still I Rise’ to help influence our bird designs. I am sure you will agree we did a fantastic job!

On Friday, we took part in our celebration. It was so great to see so many interested adults come to our celebration – which I know really pleased the children. They all really impressed combining all the different elements we have been working on.