This week in Year 2, we brought our History, English and Art learning together in a really exciting way!
As part of our history topic, we have been learning about Florence Nightingale and why she is remembered. We researched who she was, what hospitals were like before she made changes, and how she improved cleanliness and patient care. We used our iPads and BBC Bitesize to find key facts and made notes ready for our writing.
In English, we explored the features of a fact-file. We looked closely at headings, subheadings, labelled pictures and short factual sentences. We then planned and wrote our own fact-files about Florence Nightingale. We worked hard to turn our notes into clear sentences in our own words. At the end of the week, we published our finished work onto A3 paper, making sure our presentation was neat and eye-catching.
In Art, we linked our work to our artist study on Andy Warhol and Pop Art. We learnt that Pop Art uses bright colours, bold outlines and repeated images to make everyday people and objects stand out. Andy Warhol often repeated the same image in different colours to make it powerful and memorable.
We decided to present Florence Nightingale in a similar Pop Art style because she is an important historical figure who changed the world – just like the famous people Warhol chose to highlight. We created bright, bold portraits using repeated patterns and vibrant colours to make her image stand out. This helped us understand how artists can use colour and repetition to show importance.
To make it even more special, we invited Miss Coleman to come and see our finished work. We proudly shared our fact-files and even taught her some interesting facts about Florence Nightingale, including how she improved hospital cleanliness and helped reduce disease.
Did you know? Queen Victoria was so impressed with Florence Nightingale’s care of soldiers that she invited her to Balmoral Castle in 1856 and gave her a very special medal called the Royal Red Cross! Even today, nurses who do extraordinary work helping people in hospitals, especially in the army, can receive this medal too!
We are so proud of how we combined our research, writing and artistic skills this week.
