Teaching English through Art

A story of one picture. Starry Night

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The lesson aka the context

This is a lesson that I put together for last year’s Shapes in October series. This year I decided to recycle it during our Autumn Camp and the Yellow Day. The basic version of it is super simple and it involves making a collage of the van Gogh Starry Night background and stickers or drawings. You can read about it here. However, my colleague, miss Victoria, decided to upgrade the lesson and instead of the ready-made background, she asked her preschoolers to paint the the background first and then decorate it with stickers and drawings.

I went to their classroom during the break to check how the pictures have turned out and to take photos and I was amazed. Especially with this one. It did stand out because it used mixed media but not the stickers and the sky was like none other.

A little bit later in the day, one of the younger students wandered into my classroom to chat. She saw the collage my group made and shouted: ‘We made those, too!’ I showed her the photos I took and we finally identified hers. I was surprised and I was not surprised at all!

The student aka the artist

Sasha is seven and she is in year 1 of primary. She attended my Art Explorers last year regularly and she comes every week this year, too. She is one of my really creative students. On some days, she is reluctant to get started, on some others she takes her time but then takes off and on some other days, she just dives in at the deep end and creates as crazy. She is also the student who, most frequently, snatches her work as soon as we say ‘Good-bye’ and I am lucky to take a photo. I love it.

Whenever she starts to create, however, it is always of the highest standard, with a fresh look and a new angle.

The work and the creative process

Because it was miss Victoria’s lesson (according to my lesson plan), I did not have a chance to see the artist in action but because it was the autumn camp, we had more time and me and Miss Artist had a very interesting conversation discussing her painting.

First of all, I was surprised with the technique that Sasha decided to use and the results that she arrived at because it was so absolutely different from what all the other children created. This is when Sasha explained that ‘I did what you taught us last year’, namely painting water on water (a technique that we experimented with last October and somehow she remember, mind blown!). This is how she got the beautiful background, the sky and the stars that blend into each other.

Sasha also explained that, looking at what her classmates were doing, she decided to add the drawings, the houses and the umbrellas, all that instead of using the stickers, showing that she has a lot of potential to become an independent artist capable of making her own creative decisions.

The teacher in awe

I guess every teacher is at the risk of getting emotional and touch whenever we can see that our work bears fruit and that our students learn and remember something that we are trying to teach them. I know I do.

That is why this day and this conversation were so important, because, in a way, this painting is the outcome of the time in the classroom. Sasha demonstrated that she remembered how to use a specific technique she learnt from me and she also showed that she picked up on the values that I am trying to promote in class such as keeping your eyes open, allowing yourself to be inspired by your teacher or peers, the curiosity and the open-mindedness that leads to experimentation and new outcomes…

I was a very happy teacher that day.

Happy teaching!

A story of one picture. The next Jackson Pollock, 8 y.o.

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I decided to run this mini-series, as a part of my Teaching English Through Art thread, in order to preserve the memories and the creative process in a child as observed in my classes. Just stories from the classroom.

The lesson aka the context

It was one of our colour lessons, a colour-themed days on the autumn camp, White on Black, in which we used a mixed media technique to create ‘what you want’ which means that they could draw whatever and however.

It was one of those lessons that start with my students going ‘Whaaat?!’ looking at me taking out the resources of my bag (black paper, white chalk markers, white pencils, white tissue and glue and toothpaste and cotton buds) to ‘Look, miss Anka, look!’ because they have just discovered something more about the potential of all of these resources.

The kids could use one of these or all of these, in practically any way.

The student aka the artist

My student, Sasha, is eight, very clever, very creative and struggling with staying focused in our regular classes. And yet, in this lesson, Sasha stayed completely involved and on the task for about three hours straight (the lesson time and then the long lunch break). I was sitting there, monitoring and keeping an eye, trying to keep a straight face and my jaw from dropping. This expression, ‘I could not believe my own eyes’, it was created for this very situation.

The work and the creative process

The story started with a blank piece of black paper, A5. I noticed before that this very resource, so different from what we usually use, and so potent in its presence, just lying on the table, basically lots of Malevich’s black squares (well, rectangles) strewn all over the classroom, this very resource is already a statement in itself. It sets the mood for the lesson and it sparks creativity and inspiration instantly. The kids get their sheets and they immediately start interacting with them, turning them over, looking at the texture and turning it over and over again. This one never requires any tricks to get the kids into the task, the piece of paper does it.

As soon as we started, Sasha, without much hesitation, reached out for the chalk marker. I presume, it was all due to the fact that this one particular resource used to be out of bounds, ‘teacher only’, in the old classroom where we used to have a traditional board. Since we moved into the new classroom, with the electronic board and whiteboards, I have no use for them and I decided to use them in that Art lesson. Actually, those chalk markers apart from being a great tool for the teacher, they are also fascinating as a drawing or writing tool. They produce a neat, even line, you don’t need to apply to much pressure and, as my students quickly discovered, if you shake it, you can also produce splashes and spatters. In one word: lots of potential.

Splashes is what Sasha started with. He would shake the marker, look at the smudges that appeared and then he started to move the sheet, turning it upside down, shaking it, turning it around to help the liquid paint move further. To be honest, at this point, I did not think that ‘anything real’ would come out of but he was so engrossed in the process and he was enjoying it so much that I decided to let it be, instead of insisting on creating ‘something’. But, it really did remind me of another aritst, so I decided to show him a few works of Jackson Pollock and a few photographs from his studio and he was impressed. We looked but we also talked about finding your own style. Sasha was asking how you find it and whether I can suggest something to help him with defining his own style and I suggested ‘just working’ because things are defined and discovered in progress and at work.

Perhaps it was in an attempt to find your own style or perhaps only the next step in experimenting with the marker, but, all of a sudden, Sasha became really interested in dots and started to fill in the whole picture with them, all of the missing spaces, methodically, bit by bit. He even said ‘This really calms me down, these dots’. I decided to use it as an opportunity to bring up another concept, namely horror vacui and, again, we looked at some examples in the ancient Egypt paintings. And Sasha kept working.

It was somewhere at this point that I asked him to consider thinking of a name for his painting and at first he declined (‘I don’t know!’) and then he did what my students often do and go for the obvious (‘Crazy mess’). But it was not the end of it.

The painting was already quite something. I really liked the dots and splashes but the artist himself was still not happy and he kept experimenting. He realised that the chalk marker behaves like a proper chalk and leaves smudges on your hands or clothes and he decided to use it in a conscious way and he wiped the whole picture with his hand, not destroying it or rubbing off the lines or dots but covering it with a thin and delicate layer of white, kind of a mist.

This must have been the thing that gave him the idea for the actual name of the painting, namely ‘Hedgehog in the Fog’, after a famous cartoon (and a book) by Yuri Nornstein, one of the most beautiful things ever made and my personal favourite. It was so fitting that I simply started to laugh.

Sasha continued to tweak the whole picture and then he left for lunch and when he came back, he showed me the finished painting. He also explained that he decided to add ‘the hedgehog’, a red dot, in the centre of the painting, to add one more reference, to Bansky, since that is the aritst and the concept that we did a few days earlier.

The teacher in awe

That is what I was. It is one of the many amazing things that happened in class that day but I love this story and this piece in particular because it beautifully illustrates how one child embarked on a journey of creative discovery and how he arrived at his finished product which, I have no doubt, is a masterpiece. All the hard work, all the focus, all the references and the curiosity that he demonstrated…I am proud of him and what he created and I am beyond happy that I could be a part of it.

Happy teaching!

Banksy. Red says: ‘Look!’

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The language

This lesson was a part of our autumn camp, with each day dedicated to a colour. For that reason, in the language part of the day, we worked with the things that are red. We revised and learnt new words and we talked about things that we like and we don’t like. We did some literacy work, too.

The artist

I actually have no idea why it has taken so long for me to invite Banksy into our lessons but it was definitely worth the wait because this lesson turned out to be great.

I introduced the artist and showed the kids a few of his works. We also talked about the graffiti that can be art and the graffiti that is just vandalism (as brought up by the kids). Then we looked at the Girl with the Balloon and we talked about its different interpretations, sad or happy, and variations, with the balloon in red and in black.

I decided to present this work from the point of view of the red balloon and how the artist used it for the contrast and to draw our attention to the most important element. We also looked at the same effect that can be achieved in photography. For all of those stages I used a powerpoint. You can access it here.

The art

The task was very simple: white paper, black marker and a drawing of your choice, with one element of it in red. I suggested using a collage for the red but, in the end, most of my students went for the red marker.

I am really in awe with the results. The simplicity of the task and the basic resources gave the kids an opportunity to focus on the theme and the content (because, let’s be honest, sometimes, the resource and the method can be a bit disruptive) and they all chose their own way of dealing with it.

Among all the pictures created on the day, we have one copy of Banksy (with the author’s decision to make it a sad picture), we have a name logo (Halloween-style), a scene from the forest (in two copies because my student finished earlier and wanted to do the same picture on black paper), a map and a cartoon, on red paper.

It was lovely to see how involved my students were and how their creativity was taking flight, with every next step of the process as our lesson proceeded, how they moved from black on white to white on black or from black on white to black on red.

If you are looking for an easy lesson, with minimal resources and lots of opportunities, here is one for you!

Happy teaching!

One colour, many colours. Teaching English through Art

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The language

The language in this lesson was not quite our priority. We did not introduce any new language items and I really wanted to focus on working with the colour and help the students see the variety of colours at their disposal. We sang the song, talked about how we are and we revised the colours, briefly.

We looked at different colours and their shades to understand that each colour is, in fact, a number of colours. My younger students counted the shades and the older ones had a lot of fun reading the names of the different shades of blue, red and pink. You can find my presentation here.

The artist

In this particular lesson we had a group of artists, to introduce a range of different paintings with one leading colour. We looked at van Gogh’s Starry Night (blue) and Sunflowers (yellow), we had Kandinsky’s Mit und Gegen (red), Levitan’s Forest Gave (green) and Sue Williams’ Pink Pentagon (pink). We called out the main colours in every painting and we called out the contrasting colours, too.

The art

I taught this lesson twice, with my younger group and my older group, with some differences.

The younger kids, pre-K and year 1, were working at a much slower pace. They needed more revision, they took longer to get into the task and they were

Everyone got a strip of paper, a mixing palette and a box of watercolours. The task was to create ten different shades of different colours. I showed them what I created for red at home and we also sat around my table for a moment to see in real time what happens if you mix yellow with brown and yellow with white or black.

They were involved in the task and they kept coming up with more and more unusual combination. Even those few kids who entered the room with ‘I will not paint today’ (there is always someone!) eventually got down to work and started to create. They kept calling me over and over again, to come over to check out the new shade. And we actually managed to get lots of language out of it. They were either telling me what they had mixed or I was trying to guess, judging by the final product.

The older students managed to complete two tasks: creating ten different shades of their chosen colour and then also creating a picture in their chosen colour. Looking at how it was going on, I decided not to speed them up and to focus and mixing the colours.

I think that next time I teach this particular lesson to the older students, I am going to focus more on the language and after creating our ten shades of X, we are going to come up with some interesting names for them. That will require preparing a slightly different page, with some room to write but it looks like a fun activity with a lot of potential. Especially that they already really enjoyed finding out about the official shades of different colours.

Afterwards, we went on to painting a picture with our chosen colour as the main theme. My model made at home was a picture of rowan, to showcase red. The one I did in class was a sunflower ready to bloom, to showcase green. We also talked about focusing on the main colour and choosing something of a different colour for contrast. My students decided to paint pumpkins (orange) and the forest (green).

The exercise of 10 Shades can be used as a warm-up activity to many other lessons. We used in our Turner lesson and in our green lesson, too. I am planning to do a lesson on red and still-life and I will include that element, too.

The funny thing is the mismatch between the actual lesson and how good it was and the photos and creations that we have to show. In case of my younger group, we ended up only with a few ‘dirty’ pieces of paper and nobody would even be able to guess that they were the result of experimentation and creative discovery. I wanted to display them on our noticeboard but what happened was that they were taken away from me, as soon as possible. Meaning? They were dear to the budding artists. As was the lesson, hopefully.

Happy teaching!

Georgia O’Keeffe and her leaves

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The language

The language aim for this lesson was autumn and, after we sang our hello song and talked about how we feel, we went on to learn about the different autumn symbols using the cards. With my younger group we also revised the colours and, for the first time ever, we talked about our favourite colours. With my older group we focused more on talking about our favourite autumn symbols.

The artist

Georgia has a very special place in my heart because she was one of the first artists that I brought to my English class, with her beautiful moon in NY. She often makes a cameo apperance in our group lessons but she has never had her own day, until last week.

Her painting ‘Fall Leaves’ is so simple but so beautiful and rich in colour that it simply had to become the headliner, eventually. And it was a perfect choice for our first real autumn lesson, not only because of the season outside of the window but for our art in the first month of the new season, I needed a simple enough shape that would give us an opportunity to focus on and to experiment with the technique, namely: watercolours. Previously, for the same lesson, I chose a heart, this time, I wanted leaves.

The art

Since we are in the first month of the new academic year and I have many new students who are also beginner artists (or beginner artists in English), I decided to devote the month of September to a series of lessons that focus on different aspects of being an artist. We have already talked about what it means to be an artist and in this lesson, I wanted to show the kids that there are many things that we do with our paints. Make sure you also check out the other two lessons in the series: about a colour and the texture (still to come).

Before the lesson, I prepared three A5 pieces for each student (watercolour paper, painters scotch) on the table to signal how we are going to work, three pictures and three techniques. Drawing a leaf was a good choice because I wanted the children to focus on the technique, rather than on the drawing itself.

There are many watercolour techniques (you can find the links in the previous post here) but for this lesson I chose the following ones: wet on wet, salty water as the base and ‘a broken brush’, I prepared my own pictures at home, to show the children a finished product and I sketched a few shapes of different leaves on the board for the students to copy. If they needed it.

I wanted to use the three techqniues also to get the students ready to following my instructions and learning to go step by step as some of them still struggle with it and we will definitely need this skill for more complex projects in the future.

Every stage went in the following way: showing my example on the board, explaining and demonstrating the technique and the kids trying their hand at it. We used crayons to sketch the leaves (as they help to keep the paint ‘in order’) and we continued with the watercolours.

One of the first questions that I heard from two of my students in the older group was ‘But do we have to draw leaves? Can we draw something else, please?’ and, as luck would have it, only a day before I bumped into a post about free choice in the Art Class (like these here The Art of Education and Power Wood) and I just had to say ‘Yes’. I only asked them to stick to the main theme, ‘Autumn’. And they did.

It was a great lesson. The leaves look great as you can see in the photos (at least those that I had time to photograph before they were snatched and carried home by the proud artists) and as for the joy of experimenting and discovering, well, you just have to take my word for it. It was just beautiful.

It also worked well as an activity in learning how to work in the Art classroom. I was happy with the choice. The three techqniues – activities created a framework and they helped with staging. We made one step forward as a group.

I am also very happy that I agreed to my kids making their own choice as regards the topic of the painting. I am happy because it made them more motivated and they created the most amazing pieces. I would have hated it if my being strict would have prevented these from happening. Which is going to be something that I will definitely think about every single time now anyone asks for a slice of freedom in the classroom!

One of my students, painting one of his leaves, said ‘It is a magic leaf!’ And, you know, it looks like one!

Happy teaching!

P.S. Here is a bonus! A new thing that can be done with a leaf. We have not done it in class, only experimented but there is a lot of potential here and it takes only a leaf and some glitter glue!

‘I am an artist!’ The first Art lesson of the year

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Ha! ‘This was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof!‘ as Hamlet would say. Why? Because first I spend time preparing a post about the good first lessons in the Art Explorers world (which, by the way, is here) and then, the start of the academic year comes and my own first lesson, too and what is it that I do? That’s right, I start from scratch and do something else entirely. Because I had an idea, because I found a cool resource and because I really wanted to do it. But it was a good lesson so I am more than happy to share it here!

The language

This was the first lesson of the year and for a variety of reasons, I got both age groups in one lesson, my second graders and the pre-schoolers and year 1 kids, too, all together now, 15 children, 30 hands. Some of them I know very well, some are new to the school and they are of different ages and, naturally, of different level of language skills. Instead of trying to adjust it to any specific level or age, I just went for ‘let’s do what I want and see what happens’.

For that reason, I did not aim for practising any specific language point, not this time anyway.

The artists

The aim of this lesson was to introduce the students to the world of art and to try to understand and to brainstrom ideas of what it is to be an artist. I based this part of the lesson on the powerpoint which you can find here.

  • we looked at what different artists do
  • we tried to define what makes someone an artists, including my ideas and my students’ ideas
  • we looked at what ‘I’ve got an idea’ was for five of the artists: Picasso, Acrimboldo, Malevich, Vlaminck and Klein in the format of ‘everyone says…’ and ‘the artist says…’
  • I also found a funny cartoon based on Marta Alves storybook but we didn’t have to watch it. We will definitely use it in the following week.

The art

The creative activity in this week was based on a very special notebook that I found in my local stationery shop: a sticker paper notebook. I saw it, fell in love with it and decided to use it.

  • I prepared my own stickers berfore the lesson to show the students the finished product
  • I also made one more, simple sticker during the lesson, to walk them through the process: make a decision about the design, draw with a pencil, trace and colour with the markers and cut out, peel it of and stick (this part was optional and the idea was that the kids might also choose to take their stickers home)
  • We brainstormed a few ideas for stickers. ‘You can make what you like. What do you like?’
  • We got down to work.

It went well and, indeed, there was a huge variety of ideas and the kids understood the assignment, they went for expressing themselves. Among the designs there were: stick people, cards, animals, hearts, stars, a rainbow, a sticker bracelet and a beautiful character from one of the favourite cartoons.

Regardless of how big or how intricate the drawings were, they all worked as they can be cut out in many different ways. Even if the picture itself is very small, the sticker can have a form of a square which is easy to handle.

This kind of a task is also perfect for mixed ability groups in terms of motor skills. Some of the students managed to make one sticker, some went on and created more stickers. It also happened that one or two students were picked up by their parents half-way through the lesson and it did not get in the way of the creative process. They simply picked up their sheets and took them home to finish work.

I am really happy with how it all went. The kids liked working on the stickers, as they were both easy and exciting to make. A perfect choice for a new group, too!

Happy teaching!

Dilemmas of an Art teacher. Choosing the task

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I was typing of my latest posts, devoted to Katsushika Hokusai and it must have been a real inspiration blast, not only for my kids and not only for me as a teacher but also as a trainer or a blog author because it was exactly when I got an idea for this particular post.

I thought it might be a good idea to share how I make decisions about the artist, the materials, the language and the resources, with the hope that it might be useful for those of my readers and colleagues who are only taking their first steps in the area of Art (or teaching English through Art). This way this particular post will be a kind of a directory for anyone who might need one.

First of all, here are the starter kit posts that I have already posted here:

Starting with a new group

What you need is a simple task with very basic resources and, if possible, a tiny wow effect.Here are the topics that I like to use:

  • Claude Monet and the lillies garden, because of the little magic that the painting with watercolours over crayons without destroying the drawing does. Funnily enough, this lesson has never been described and added here, on the blog, although this is my first favourite lesson. For now you can read about it here but I promise to add it as soon as September comes and we do it again.
  • Hokusai and the wave, because the students draw something easy (a wave) three times and three different but simple techniques are used, too
  • Upgraded Picasso (if the template is used, in the offline classes) and it salty water with watercolour does its magic, too
  • Andy Warhol and Mickey Mouse or learning about the associations we have with different colours and emotions. It is based on a template and basically involves colouring but that is why it is an achievable task for everyone, the younger and the older students.
  • Joan Miro and the elephant collage (with a template) because it is a great opportunity to connect literature (Elmer! by David McKee) and the technique itself is very easy and achievable both for younger and older children

Step by step aka learning to listen

Getting the group to listen and to follow the teacher’s instructions, staying on the ball, pausing when necessary, waiting and managing your time, skills and materials is absolutely crucial for Art classes (although not only) and, of course, with a new group, this is also something that cannot be taken for granted and something that will have to be introduced, practised and worked on. Here are some activities that might be helpful with a new group:

  • Turner and the sky, the sea and the sun: this lesson has three main stages: talking about the paintings, mixing the colours to obtain 10 shades of blue and, finally, painting a landscape and because all three are relatively easy and achievable and require different types of materials, the teacher can give them out step-by-step and this way control the flow of the lesson.
  • Bubble painting because the art is abstract and everyone can accomplish it and it definitely has the wow factor and we had a very specific list of step-by-step instructions for us and it was a perfect example for the process painting.
  • Hokusai and the waves, mentioned above is also an activity that helps the children focus on the particular stages of the lesson
  • Salt dough because it is one more activity with obvious and easy to manage stages: looking at examples, creating, painting, decorating and cleaning up.
  • A heart and one hundred different watercolour techniques is easy and manageable because the number of the techniques can be adapted to the age of the students and the length of the lesson. The whole lesson is built around the teacher demonstrating a technique and the children trying it out themselves.

Bringing up little artists

Teaching Art is also about showing children the new opportunities and the new ways of doing things. Here are five beginner lessons that would help achieve that:

  • Salt dough is easy to make and easy to work with and it opens up the door to a brand new world of 3-D creations.
  • Tiny pictures was one of the real eye-openers of the previous academic year, for me and for the children.
  • White on black is another easy flip and doing something different. The resources might not be those that are always lying around (black paper and white marker) but they are not very hard to find.
  • Yayoi Kusama and the pumpkin because even though the first pumpkin is created exactly like the teacher’s, anything can be sitting inside and after the initial T-focused part, the kids can go on recreating the pumpkin and filling it with whatever they want. ‘You are the artist. You make a decision!’
  • Eric Bulatov and a word that is also a picture, one of my favourite lessons in the previous academic year and the one that I taught to a beginner artists group and that was effective aka it is appropriate.

Happy teaching!

Romero Britto and very happy animals. Teaching English through Art

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The language

This was a part of a wonderful Brazil Day in our summer camp. We started the day with learning how to say hello in Portuguese and looking for Brazil on the map. Afterwards, we looked all the things Brazilian and we expressed our opinion using ‘I like’, ‘I don’t like’, ‘I love’ and ‘I don’t know’. I wanted the beginners to focus on the basic structure but I also have some more advanced kids and I encouraged them to also say why or why not. We used the the wordwall cards, we played pelmanism and a miming game. I found the video about the country, too, but we didn’t even have time for that as we still had to complete our passport page.

The artist

There is a special place in my heart for Romero Britto and his animals and he was a perfect match for this lesson. We talked about colours and which ones are happy or sad for us and then I introduced the artist and his works. I prepared a presentation in which parts of the animals were hidden and the kids had to guess their names.

We talked about the colours that the real animals have and the colours that Romero Britto used. Initially, I was considering extending the ‘analysis’ to shapes, too, but eventually, I decided to keep it simple and focus on the colour only.

The art

The task was essentially very simple: a colouring picture of one of the Romero Britto animals and working on including happy colours. I showed them a selection of animals (they are available on different sites) and everyone chose one and we printed those.

I decided to use watercolours because they are easy to mix and they dry relatively easy and we could add my secret ingredients: the glitter markers. The kids found some old ones in my box and they got wildly excited about them and that is why I decided to use them properly in class. I am not a huge glitter fan (reads as: I avoid it like the plague) but the marker version, mixed with paints is a bit more manageable and it does not spill as easily, unlike the powder.

We started to paint with the watercolours and as soon as we finished, the kids could pick up the glitter glue. I suggested using it as yet another paint as even a small amount can be spread over an already painted surface (even if it is not entirely dry) and it adds the glow and makes the picture even more beautiful and joyful. We had three different types of those glitter glue markers with different type of a sparkle, everyone got their two in the beginning and then they exchanged and shared.

Some kids worked a bit more slowly and completed only one picture, some others, the older ones, went on a bit faster and managed to finish two or even three of them. And they sparkled so beautifully in the sun!

For some time I thought that perhaps that kind of an activity will be too easy and too boring for the children but there were two elements that helped to prevent it. On the one hand, the complexity of the original picture and all the little shapes and patterns made the kids work in concentration and focused, they really wanted to do a good job. On the other hand, the glitter definitelly did add to the WOW factor.

All in all, I think Romero Britto in that format will be a great choice for one of the first lessons with a new group of young artists.

Happy teaching!

The sun, the sea, the sky. J.M.W. Turner with kids

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J.M.W. Turner is, hands down, one of my favourite painters and, definitely, one of the first ones that I fell in love with and it has taken way too long for me to introduce him to my students. But, finally, this day came. We are now in our summer camp ‘Travelling around the world’ session and we planned an England Day, there could be no other painter to bring to class. ‘It had to be you’, Turner, sir.

The language

On the day, we had to lessons which we could devote to England. The first one was a vocabulary lesson in which we learnt about the different things we can see and do in England, food, sports, symbols and sights. We also talked about the things we like and don’t like and we played a pelmanism game. We filled in another page in our ‘passport’ (every day we do one) we watched a short video about the top attractions in London to compare it with our city.

The artist

Introducing J.M.W. Turner was easy as we could compare him with Claude Monet and it went along the lines of ‘Claude Monet had a garden and there he went to paint and Turner lived in Margate, by the sea, so he went to the beach to paint the sea’. That is, of course, a huge simplification but it worked for my 6-8-year-old audience.

We looked at a few of paintings and talked about the colours and the sea (‘Is it day or night?’, ‘Is the sea calm / quiet or angry?’, ‘What colours can you see?’).

The art

This was the first lesson in which we had two separate creative exercises.

The first one focused on mixing the colours as I wanted the children to experiment with the paints we had in order to achieve a wide variety of blues which, later, would be used to paint the main picture. Everyone got a narrow strip of watercolour paper attached to the table, a box of watercolours, water, and a paintbrush. And the task: mix the colours in any way they want in ten different ways. I asked them to try out the paints on the paper.

Before we started, I showed them what I did for homework, namely about 20 different shades in my sketchbook. While I was monitoring and watching the kids, I realised that it was a great idea and that this could be a separate lesson. I just need to stage it in a slightly different way.

Turner in three short words

When everyone completed the task, ten different shades of blue, we got down to a real Turner. I drew a simple plan of what a Turner painting is (with all the love there is in the world): the sun, the sea, the sky and I asked the children to decide if it is a day or night, if the sea is quiet or angry, what colours they want to use and whether there is going to be a boat or not at all…

And we got down to work.

In methodology you call it ‘teacher monitoring the work of the students‘ and I do a lot of that but the truth is that I adore watching my kids work, take time to think, handle the materials, make decisions and focus on the beauty that they are creating. I cannot post the photos which feature my students, we take them only for the parents, but they are all so involved, so in the process, so concentrated, each in their own way.

What I noticed:

  • the 10 shades of blue was a great idea and it helped them see how many options there are and I could that they were using it later. One of our youngest ones also applied the same technique in the following day, with another teacher. He really learnt something!
  • everyone interpreted the topic in their own invidividual way
  • one of our oldest students was a beginner painter and looking at the way he held and moved the brush, I could tell that there hadn’t been much of painting in his life until our lesson. For him, this kind of an easy task was a good introduction into the world of Art and by the end of the lesson he seemed a bit more relaxed and confident.
  • the simple Turner was introduced to help the kids see the pattern in his paintings and to include all three elements.
  • it was an achievable task for the youngest (5 y.o.) and the oldest of my students (9 y.o.)

Happy teaching!

Painting with vegetables! Teaching English through Art

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The language

The English language in this lesson was the absolute hero, leader, priority and star! We did a lot of practice with food, talking about food, discussing preferences and likes. We played with the flashcards, we made very simple riddles and we did the song (‘Do you like broccoli ice-cream?‘) and the broccoli ice-cream game (aka making up your own food combinations).

We also did the magic bag with all the vegetables later to be used in the creative part and this was yet another opportunity to drill the key words. These were not all the fruit and all the vegatables that I wanted the kids to learn. For this particular activity I chose the set that would help us get interesting patterns, even if they might not be the most necessary vegetables for the beginner students to learn, namely: corn, broccoli, onion, carrot, bell pepper and potatoe.

It is also worth adding that this particular lesson was followed up by one more creative activity, a lesson in which we made monster sandwiches which, actually, is also some kind of food art. This gave our day a lovely frame. You can read about the sandwiches here.

Unfortunately, this time, we did not have any artist of the day. Initially I planned to go for a ‘no-artist’ lesson and then when I remembered about Giuseppe Acrimboldo, it was already kind of too late. It would be lovely to show this way of using fruit and vegetables to create paintings and then to switch to a more direct and obvious vegetable art making…Nevermind, there is always going to a ‘next time’!

The art

As for the set-up, this was another lesson in which we used shared resources. I put a paper-covered table in the middle of the room and all the vegetables and all the paints would be there. The kids were directed to walk around the room, pick up the vegetables, collect some paint and move on to their tables to print.

The artist

I was considering using different types of paints but decided to go for the fingerpaint. We have only four colours but it is easy to wash, it has the perfect texture and it dries fast.

All the pages were fastened to the kids’ tables with painter’s scotch to keep them from moving around. I have also noticed that it helps to prevent the paint from being all over the place. We still need to clean the tables, of course, but the immovable page keeps it down a bit.

I gathered all the children around the table in the middle of the room and I prepared the vegetables: I cut the potatoes into different pieces, halves and blocks, I cut the onion into halves and bell pepper into slices. We used the carrot and the corn as it was and kids came up with the idea of rolling even before I managed to to demonstrate anything myself. With the kids still around, I experimented with all the pieces, on my page, just to show the kids all the different patterns that can be created. Everyone got a few wet tisses and we started to work.

If I had to choose one word to describe this lesson, I would go for ‘discovery’ because that’s what we all did, discovering and finding out what could possible be achieved with the pieces of vegetables and paint, how you can print, roll, press, dab, drop and how different patterns work together with different colours or different prints.

On the day, I had a mixed ability group, a four-year-old, an eight-year-old and everyone in-between, some ‘advanced’ English speakers and some beginners. Linguistically, we had different aims for all of the kids. I was hoping that for my beginners it will be an opportunity to use the words once more. With my older and more advanced kids, we just chatted about the creative process.

Artistically, everyone created what they wanted. Some of the paintings are more advanced and show imagination put to good use (this from my youngest student!), some are a result of a more careful experimentation with different patterns and prints. I am happy to say that all the kids were involved and they loved exploring the new resource. Throughout the lesson I could hear the surprised and joyful ‘Oh, look’ from different corners of the classroom. And, then, looking at all the photos we took in class is a different kind of a pleasure and they can be divided into two different types: type A: kids being beyond focused and concentrated on the process and type B: kids being in awe at the outcome.

The one issue that we had (as usual, if I may) were the repeated questions from the students. The first one was ‘Are they real vegetables?‘ and the other, immediately right afterwards, ‘Can we eat it?’ To be honest, it does not cease to surprise me that, again and again, I have to deal with that. I would have thought that raw veggies, usually eaten boiled or baked, will be so exciting and tempting but they still are! Despite the fact that I keep repeating my mantra ‘These are materials. We don’t eat materials’…

On the day, I was actually beyond happy that I had my third lesson in store (Monster Sandwiches) and that I could promise that, yes, there is a surprise and yes, we are going to eat something eventually. It might be something to consider while planning a lesson with food. It would be good to have something to snack on in the end…

I also wanted to mention three sources that inspired this lesson. Two were articles from my fellow bloggers. Here they are: food painting from Parents Club and harvest food painting from New Horizon Academy. There was also a video (which I cannot find now) about painting with nature whose author did a lovely picture with leaves and sticks and who, used only the fallen leaves and sticks, not to destroy any living plants, and who, at the end, washed everything and took things back to the garden.

This brings me to another point that I wanted to make here. I had real doubts about using real fruit and vegetables in such an activity because I didn’t want to promote the idea of wasting food. Something that my students also brought up. For that reason, I chose the oldest vegetables in the supermarket, all the almost dead potatoes, carrots and corn and to cut down on waste, we only had one of each that the children were sharing. This is definitely something to consider while planning a lesson like that.

Now, welcome to Our Gallery!

Happy teaching!