At Airly, we place reading on a pedestal. So, when it came to art, we were inspired by our Readers’ Workshop texts. We don’t have a specialist art teacher: we promote The Arts as an everyday process.

14 Cows for America showed pictures of beautiful necklaces made and worn by the Masai peoples of Kenya. We used runny paint and wet paper to create the background and cut out paper to show the “Twin Towers.” The artwork for 14 Cows for America is in recognition of the artwork of different cultures. We used paint and our fingers to make simple dotted, colourful, circles to represent the beautiful, beaded necklaces, made and worn by the Masai on special occasions.

We found some coloured scrap paper in our scrap bin and thought about ways to use it because it was too pretty to throw out.

We collaged it into balloon images after reading Oh the Places You’ll Go! We wish all of our students the best in their future endeavors: Oh the places you’ll go!

The “Jabberwocky” poem is about a boy slaying a dragon. This is what gave us the idea to create a “Dragon’s Egg.” We decided that paper mâché, using a blown-up balloon, would allow us to create our individual shapes and characteristics for the eggs.

Following Sorry Day, 2023, we looked at a National Gallery of Victoria book showcasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists. Reko Rennie was the most popular artist among Airly students, and while he inspired us to identify our own symbols, we liked that his own work was inspired by Howard Arkley.

‘He taught me to let the art out of me!’

‘It’s kind of a cycle, Rennie was inspired by Arkley, we were inspired by Rennie.’