Here are some facts about M. C. Escher, the famous graphic artist from the Netherlands.
M. C. Escher was born on 17th June 1898 in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.
The M. C. stands for Maurits Cornelis.
Escher was a poor student at school. He didn’t get very good grades, but he was excellent at drawing.
In 1922, Escher visited Italy and Spain. He was particularly inspired by the patterns and mathematical designs which decorated the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.
Escher’s work was focused on the idea of impossible reality – artwork which was inspired by mathematics and explored infinity and optical illusion.
He also produced a lot of artwork which involved tessellation.
M. C. Escher did not have any formal mathematical education, his understanding of the subject is plain to see in his artwork.
Escher died on 27th March 1972 in a retirement home for artists. He was 73.
He was awarded the Knighthood of the Order of Orange Nassau in 1955.
We were inspired to try to create patterns and tesselations.
We carried out some experiments using seeds that British astronaut Tim Peake has sent back from the International Space Station.
We will be finding out if the seeds grow differently as a result of the lower gravity and increased radiation of space. The seeds are a variety of lettuce called "Rocket"!
We received two packets of seeds, one red packets and one blue packet. One of these contains the seeds that have been in space and the other packet contains seeds that haven't. We don't know yet which is which - this is to keep the experiment fair.
We have made our predictions and now we will have to wait and see!
On the last day of Spring term we had a fantastic time at the museum. We all enjoyed learning about life in Dorset in roman times: real roman artefacts, mosaics, the roman town house (including toilets and underfloor heating), fighting Celtic warriors, jewellery, graffiti and more!
Year 5 enjoyed an afternoon working with Martin Maudsley, a story teller who uses the environment to inspire creativity. We spent time looking for signs of spring and exploring our local environment. Poems and song lyrics were written to describe what we could see all around us. We then created wildlife sculptures using clay and natural objects which inspired more writing to describe the creatures created.
In science we have been learning about forces, including air resistance, water resistance, gears and pulleys. We used Knex to make a pulley system similar to an elevator/lift.