St Oscar

Year 6 Poetry

Dear Families

Year 6 would like to share some of their poetry with you! We do hope you enjoy reading them.

The inspiration for the children’s poetry came from two short films about the Festival of the Day of the Dead.

The first film was about a young girl who visits her mother’s grave. She is taken into a world of skeletons and celebration and one particular skeleton catches her eye- is it her mother? The second film was a factual film about the festival so the children had to write a poem that would persuade others to come and visit.

Robinwood 2021

Dia de Los Muertos

We researched the background of the festival and the significance of the skulls, learned about the traditional patterns and the meaning of each one and the materials used in the past (sharp, pointed ends of leaves instead of metal needles). We looked at examples of painted skulls then made several designs of our own until we were completely happy with what we had sketched. We experimented with different colour palettes before deciding on the final one for use.

We used air-drying clay then followed instructions to sculpt and form the skull. When the clay had dried, we painted the base layer. Once that was dry, we used Sharpies to add the patterns on the white paint because of the intricate nature of the shape. We couldn’t use Sharpies on the coloured paint because the colours didn’t stand out, so we drew the patterns on paper then very carefully cut each one out and stuck it on to the skull. When the ink was dry, a coat of PVA glue was used to seal the patterns and protect the paper.

We evaluated are finished skull and are very pleased with the finished results.