Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The last two weeks have been an explosion of colour, ranging from chocolate brown all the way to apple red. Each year group has been bright with their chosen colour and taken inspiration from their colour as they learned over the last fortnight.

Friday marked the Colours Celebration, the ending to the Colours Fortnight and a chance for the children to show off and highlight all they have learned surrounding their colour.

EYFS took on the colours of pink, turquoise and orange, having an interactive area where you could try your ‘hand’ at painting nails with turquoise nail polish that the children purchased on their trip to the shops. As you walked around the corridor, you came across a visitor in EYFS that had scales and fins - some goldfish!

You disappeared under water as you entered Year 1. Can you remember what colour they were? You were surrounded in a ‘sea’ of blue with floating jellyfish and whales as you learnt about blue sea creatures, countries with blue in their flag and even got to fish for some sea creatures in their mini fishing pools.

Red, red, red was all you saw as you came across Year 2, but first you had to make a stop at their jam station. Once you had a lick of ‘school-made’ strawberry jam, you got the chance to hear the wonderfully creative red myths the Year 2s came up with based on how an animal came to be red. The Year 2s were able to tell their peers and parents interesting facts about some red animals they had researched and the habitats they had created.

Year 3 really pulled it out the bag by showing how much variety and learning there is surrounding the colour ‘brown’. You could have a go at mixing different paints to make brown and learn about the digestive system or about melanin from the very informed Year 3 children. There were even some delicious chocolate brownies as well as a range of brown spices.

Your senses were muted as you entered Year 4. After one of the children placed a blindfold over your eyes, you had to try to make your way around a maze of chairs, using your other senses - a very interesting interpretation of the colour ‘black’. Some of the children’s faces were comical as they tried a piece of liquorice and an olive.

Year 5 was a blaze of white as you learned about different albino animals. Some of the albino animals shown really shocked the children, such as an albino peacock or albino hummingbird. The classroom was littered with great ‘white’ facts such as facts about calcium in bones, white flags and a white Christmas.

Something smelled a little funky as you made your way across to Year 6. The reason behind the strange smell was the cabbage leaves they used to make their own indicators. Children got a chance to be a scientist and test different substances to see if they were acidic or alkaline. A further test had taken place, which led some children wanting to try this at home. If you put a few drops of purple food colouring in a vase with flowers, those flowers will begin to turn blue as the blue is a more dominant colour.

You had to shield your eyes as you entered Year 7 and 8 from how bright their classrooms were. The children enjoyed playing a Kiswahili guessing game, matching the Kiswahili word to the yellow food items, some of them were very tricky. Another fun activity was writing different letters in hieroglyphics. Can you think why hieroglyphics would be in a yellow exhibit? Beautiful yellow poems lined the walls as well as some yellow sculptures. In the Science Lab, the Bunsen burners were a blaze and the Y7 and 8 led fascinating demonstrations. The children were amazed to hear all of the interesting facts about the different yellow ‘things’ around the world.

Once the children had gone around to view the exhibits in the classrooms, the parents joined the fun and got to jump along the rainbow, learning all there is to know about the different colours that guided the learning.

To end the Colours Exhibition, each year group blew everyone away with their colour themed dances. We were treated to songs from Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and a lively song called Purple People Eaters and even a (very last minute) staff song. The children really dove into their colour learning over the last two weeks and the amount of information and skills learned during that time was clear as one walked around the exhibits. Well done BNIS for a wonderful journey along the rainbow!