As in all our sessions a major part of the day is spent communicating with Ann via the computer. Thoughts, suggestions and ideas are all recorded on our whiteboard. The children can write on the whiteboard and share photographs of their work with Ann. As our contact sessions have increased so has the children's confidence in using the Marratech software - sometimes they can even tell me what to do!!

Eventually all the little people began to gather at the front of the class and we now had a double!! All the bits had been glued back on and when we had our sharing session we were even able to pick out who owned some of the models without even having to look at the names. Some of them are so life like with similar looks and features. Again it was the attention to detail, which amazed me, but then that is why all our activities seem to take so much more time than anticipated.

The base coat allowed the final coat to be much stronger and it ensured that the final coat was a good strong colour with the grey from the clay not showing through.

All the children in the class thoroughly enjoyed the making of their clay models. Their attention to detail was incredible. The children wanted their models to be as exact as possible - this was also the case when it came to painting them.

The children mixed lots of different colours, not for their main uniform but for the extra detail needed for their shoes. This colour was mixed for stripes on shoes!

The children have loved mixing paint and it has been one of the areas we have been working with Ann that I can see the biggest improvements and one which the children are no longer hesitant and worried about.

Features needed to be added, no model would be complete without a pony-tail!

You can see the technique of the whole top of the body being from the one piece of clay from this model here. Our models became more and more like us as the morning progressed!

Body parts were definately hard to get attached, for this model the body was made from a triangular piece of clay, the arms were tracked and then separated to look like individual arms. The children were all very good at looking at the models and getting the different body parts in proportion.

Chloe decided she would make all her pieces individually and join them together. She added detail to hers as she went along as you can see from the shoes. When Chloe made the shoes she created a little hollow for the legs to sit into.

Some of the children moulded the body parts from the same piece of clay, this meant they did not have to join several pieces together. Very quickly the models began to take shape and began looking like Donaghey minitures.

The children were asked to make a model to represent themselves using clay. We talked about the size it should be and how to join the pieces together so that when the clay had dried the pieces wouldn't fall off. From past experiences I knew that this would be a problem!! We were sure to have arms and legs falling off, but maybe because Ann told them, this time it would be different.

For the first day of our new project we were able to make mini models of ourselves using clay. Ann gave us some instructions on how to go about making the different body parts and how to join the clay together so that when it dries out the pieces won't fall off.

Week one of our next session and our media was clay. Ann gave us clear instructions as to what she wanted us to do, how to make our model stand and more importantly how to ensure our models stayed attached!!

The children in America thought we could be friends as we had the same things in common, we ate the same food, played with the same toys and we liked the same TV programmes. It didn't matter that we were miles away from each other.

One of our highlights in our last session with Ann was a link which had been established with a school in America. We talked with the children in America with what we had in common and what was different about us. We asked questions about things they liked and things they disliked. We also shared all about our favourite objects.

Eyes - our eyes show how different and unique we are. Some with glasses, some without, some blue and some brown.

Finished portraits - shades of blue, skin colour and background.

We are all unique - look at our finished portraits, we painted them by looking closely at our closeup photographs.

During our art projects we get to work in pairs and in groups. We love using the whiteboards and here we got to work with our friend on the flip chart. We love communicating with Ann on the computer and showing her our work by taking pictures with the built in camera on our computer. Sam, Emma and Sophie.

Sam change his view for his portrait from drawing straight on to drawing a side profile. He tried really hard to show the light and the dark parts of the portrait by changing how he used his charcoal. He has shown here some heavier shading and some lighter shading.

Adam used lots of charcoal to show that Ann's face was light and that her background was much darker. He tried really hard to show Ann sitting at an angle to the camera, we can see this by the way he has drawn her left eye.

Some of the children found the concept of drawing on a side profile very difficult. They also found shading difficult. Patrick shaded around the back of his portrait to show the light reflecting on Ann's face.

Looking closely and shading our work is something we have been looking at over a number of weeks. The children found it hard when using paint and pencils, but they found it much easier when they were using the charcoal. From where Zoe was sitting in the classroom she could see a shadow over the right hand side of Ann's face.

During our sessions with Ann she encouraged the children to try using a variety of media to present their work. While we were using charcoal the children had to draw self portraits and portraits of Ann. We are getting better at looking closely!! This is John's charcoal drawing of Ann.

Our group were given a camera and an object and we recorded different ways of making the object move. We had fun doing this activity. My favourite piece of work was painting big from the last session with Ann. The hardest thing for me this session was finding my personal space. John Be

Colour mixing with red, blue and yellow was my favourite activity. I found finding new colours really interesting but it was really difficult to find my hair colour!! Chloe

Thinking about my personal space and trying to imagine what my personal space would be like was difficult. Ann made it so easy and so much fun when she handed us coloured chalk. This was my favourite thing to do. Jay

When our pictures were completed and photographs had been taken we stood back and had a look - we were very impressed with the finished pieces of work!! The children see their pictures as a product of their hard work with Ann.

Picture Title - Emma's Eye

If you look further down the page and find the image of the child working with the 3 camera poses you will be able to compare it with Adam's finished picture.

The children had to decide which photograph they wanted to draw in more detail. They were encouraged to look closely and fill their card. The children have been working on this idea for a while now and they have become more comfortable with 'filling' rather than a tiny image in the middle!

The children had to decide which photograph they wanted to draw in more detail. They were encouraged to look closely and fill their card. The children have been working on this idea for a while now and they have become more comfortable with 'filling' rather than a tiny image in the middle!

The children took a photograph of themselves and then were painting part of the photograph onto small pieces of card. They were looking for colour, tone, light and dark. As in previous sessions they were cautious when it came to the mixing of the colours - only the primary colours, white and black were provided. The colours on the testing pages are fantastic.

This is our first journal entry. We painted BIG. This picture is of our outdoor classroom.