The Erik Bulatov jungle-themed lesson is here. The Henri Rousseau – here.
The language
We continued with our January theme and the jungle, and we continued to focus on the animal vocabulary and the phrases with ‘I can’. We revised the animals and we played the animal riddles based on a video, guessing the animals by the sound (I can hear).
The artist
Our Artist of the Day this time came from Australia. We looked at his paintings and I told the kids a story of his travels to Europe and how him being far away from his own country made him realise that this is where the real beauty is. This was ‘the favourite thing’ for John Olsen – Australia. We looked at a few of his paintings to see the unique style; we compared the paintings and the same objects in photographs. This year, this was our first meeting with abstract paintings.
We also looked at different pictures of the jungle, to see what it looks like from the perspective of a bird (or as John Olsen would see it, if he painted jungle) and to see what colour palette we need (green!).
The art
I have prepared my own version of the jungle picture, a la John Olsen, but I quickly realised that my kids were not quite interested in the abstract, non-figurative painting. For that reason, my painting was used only as a curiosity but everyone were allowed to paint the jungle in any way they wanted.
I demonstrated the technique that I have chosen for this lesson (crayons and watercolours, wet on wet or dry on wet) and we started to work. And, as usual, it was a joy to see them choose ideas, make decisions and work.
As could be predicted from their initial reactions, not one of my kids chose the abstract, not in the younger group, not in the older, either. Most kids worked with the technique I chose but I also had one student who asked for acrylic pens and one who only did crayons.
They were all invested in the process and I am really happy that we got so many beautiful and so many different paintings out of this lesson. I cannot even choose one picture that really ‘stole my heart’, although there usually is one. They are all special, each in their own way.
Every week, I have a few opportunities to interact with my students’ creations. First, when they are creating them – I am looking, then when I am editing the photos, then, when I am writing the post and then, usually after a few days, when I am uploading them here and posting. Every week, it is a chance to revisit and to notice something new. Initially, I thought that they did not really take John Olsen in, but now, on the 4th interaction, I can see that in those jungle of ours, the sun does play a very important part and, even when it is not always the centerpiece, it is very much present in their paintings. So, they did look and they did see!
Now, I am just wondering how to get them like the abstract art a tiny little bit more…
January is our jungle month (Jungle January!) and that is why we are talking about everything related. The first lesson can be found is here.
In this lesson we continued working with the verb ‘can’, still only with ‘I can see’ but we changed the focus a little bit. I wanted us to revise and to learn the names of the jungle animals, especially on their distinctive features. That is why we played a guessing game with the wordwall cards. In order to help us guess, I chose not one specific body parts, like in other games we played, but a very distinctive feature for each particular animal.
The tiger
The artist
We invited Henri Rousseu to join us in class again, this time as the main guest. We looked at his paintings (presentation slides 8 – 15), just calling out the names of the things we can see.
I also wanted to show the kids different ways of depicting a tiger, a painting, a drawing, a child’s drawing, a photo, a logo and the Chinese symbol that represents this animal. We looked at how they are different and how they are similar and we tried to outline their distinctive features: black and orange, stripes, four legs and a tail.
I also told the kids that Rousseau never travelled to the jungle or even out of the country and that, still, he decided to paint the jungle because he wanted to do and he did, the best he could. We talked a bit where he could have got his ideas from. I realised that he is a really good role model for us, the budding artists.
The anaconda and the peacock
The art
We started with describing what the task was: to choose one animal and to try to paint it using finger and handprint and our paints, focusing on these distinctive features that we would be able to tell that it is a flamingo, a tiger or whichever animal we choose.
I showed them a few examples of the finished tasks from the internet (see the presentation) as well as my model. Before the lesson, I printed a green hand on a piece of paper (also to check again how much time we will need to wait before drawing on the paint) and I showed it to kids. While they were watching I added the little bits with a marker and ended up with an elephant.
My attempt at an elephant
I also showed them how we would be working, moving from the paints station in one corner of the room, to the tables where I attached the paper for printing, I gave out the tissue paper and the wet tissues to clean our hands, too. I also showed them how we don’t need to smear the paint on the table (covered with paper) but that we can also spread it on the palm of the hand with a paintbrush. I prepared a paintbrush per colour and a few extras for the colours that we would mix.
And then we got down to work. The results, as usual are all over this post…
The tigerThe beaverThe peacock
What I loved about this lesson was:
how the kids were discovering the material and the technique, thinking about and developing ideas as we went along
how they were learning from each other
how they experimented with the colours, mixing them and asking me to try getting new colours for them
how they made their decisions about the distinctive features of the animals they chose
and how sometimes they asked me to google the animals to check that they were doing a good job with certain body parts
how we discovered that even our dirty tissues were pretty and that they could be Art. ‘Miss Anka, can we do some more tissue Art?’
how children were making their own decisions. Some decided to choose very un-jungle animals, some loved the fingerpaint so much they they decided to use it in a more traditional way, with paintbrushes for colouring. And, as Pete the cat says, ‘It’s all good!’
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!
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!
We did have a set of paintings ready for this lesson as I taught it before, as part of our Monochrome March but we haven’t really used it. The reason for that was the fact that our lesson was brought about by the theme of the Camp Week 3 and that was: Wednesday Addams. Not my favourite topic and, definitely, not my choice but that was the brief, as it were, and I decided to go through with it, thinking of the ways in which the dots could be connected. And I found one as I am pretty sure that miss Addams would be a huge fan of the upside down, drawing with white on black.
Inspired by real events. Artist aged 8.
The language
This lesson was a series of four lessons on the day and that is why we could devote each of them to a specific topic and activities. Our ‘strictly English’ lesson focused on ‘I’ve got’ and pets and we really did lots and lots in terms of practice and speaking. We had a proper craft lesson, in which we created our own unusal pets and we talked about them, too and that is who we could easily devote our Art lesson to just creating and experimenting with all the new materials.
The art
I simply loved the look on my students’ faces when I showed them the materials that we would work with in class, on the slide and on my desk, a pile of tiessues, chalk, white pencils, cotton pads, cotton buds, toothpaste and black sheets of paper. It was an amazing and beautifully executed surprised ‘WHAT?! You want us to use THAT?’ When I joyfully announced ‘And tootpaste!’, someone even echoed ‘Toothpaste?’, without any conviction whatsoever in their voice.
We went to the carpet to experiment a little bit with the white pencils and the blending stump pencils. Everyone had a go. I also showed the children a few pictures that I made at home to show them how it is possible to mix a variety of materials in a collage painting.
Then we put on our aprons and sat down to work and I distributed all the materials, the paper, the pencils, the cardboard plates with some tootpaste on them, the tissue, the cotton pads and the cotton buds (to dip in the paste to draw). The kids were told that they could choose any topic for their painting.
Once the paintings were ready we came up with the titles, we cleaned up and we put up the paintings on the board, to dry.
As usual, I was surprised and amazed how my students, of different ages, took to the task. We went from disbelief through first dabs at the new resources and materials to creating all the beautiful masterpieces that you can see in this post. Everyone made their own creative decisions and, as a group, we ended up creating such a variety of themes and approaches. The kids were absolutely thrilled with the process and happy with the result. What more would you want from an Art lesson?
Naturally, we are going to do it again, for sure, and now I am only wondering what else I could add to the list of the white resources to use on the black sheet of paper…
This lesson has been on my mind for a loooooong time. Perhaps, on some level, the whole theme for the month’s theme was somehow fueled by the fact that I wanted to make some dreamcatchers.
The most challenging part in the lesson planning here was figuring out the logistics and the techniques and their adaptation for the use in the young learners Art class. There are the professional level videos, there are the adaptations with the use of paper plates or wooden sticks. There is also this one, that I found just now, just for inspiration for you all. The problem was that they did not match what I already had in my head: I needed a simple solution for the frame and I needed a simple weave that my kids would be able to deal with. From the very start I excluded the option of using any metal frames, I wanted our dreamcatchers to be as natural and organic as possible.
To sort out this problem and to get inspired, I simply went for a walk to see what my neighbourhood can offer, a real naturalist wondering along the river. And I found a solution thanks to the birch tree spinney (a word I learnt today:)) that I have here. It turns out that birch twigs are strong enough and flexible enough after lying for a few days on the ground and can be used for dreamcatchers. Mother Nature helped out! NB I only collected those twigs that were lying on the ground. No tree was harmed during the making of this art.
The artists
The lesson itself started with the presentation of the art piece that I made at home. We talked about its literal meaning which I explained with clip art and we talked about its origin as the artefacts produced by the members of different tribes in the USA and Canada. We talked a bit about the symbolism, just a little bit (my kids are quite young so we can focus only on the simple concepts but if you have more time, you can find a lot of material here) and we had two guest artists.
Our first guest was Marisa Dube, an Algonquin and Mohawk, an artist from Ontario, who specialises in making beautiful dreamcatchers in the traditional way. The other artist is Janet Echelman that you may know from her Ted Talk, who created a huge Dream Catcherin 2017 in California. I do recommend watching the video with the dreamcatcher in action!
The language
As with all the lessons in May, the language input is minimal and limited to the materials we use in class on the day. This week it was the following set: twigs, beads, feathers, ribbons, string, PVA glue, glitter markers and shells. This set can be adapted, depending on what is available. We went through the cards and through the contents of my bag and started to appear on the table.
The art
Making a dreamcatcher involves a detailed plan for the pre-, while- and post-production stages. Here is how we did it
Pre-production
I went for a walk and brought enough twigs for all my kids. It was absolutely necessary to check and to confirm that they were flexible enough to be formed into circles.
I created the circles (aka the frames) by bending them into circles and tying them with twine. I also wound a piece of twine around each frame because I knew that we would not have enough time to do that in class although it is an easy task and my kids would be able to complete it all by themselves.
I also decided to wash the twigs, just in case, I washed them with the cold water and hang them on the balcony to dry. We are in the summer, a streak of beautiful sunny days and that was easy to do. Plus, an unexpected olfactory bonus came out of it, the circles started to give out the smell, a mix of twine and twigs, very pleasant. The kids commented on that in class.
While-production
I gave out the frames and the kids could choose the first material they wanted to use, the ribbons and or the twine. Initially, I wanted to give out long piece of each but that didn’t work out very well, it turned out to be to difficult to managed. I should have thought of that (!!!) but we were able to adapt on the spot. I showed the kids how the cobweb can be made more easily by simply tying a piece of string (or ribbon) across the frame, tying it down on both ends to the frame and cutting off the ends. This way the kids are in charge, they can use three or five ribbons, making their cobweb as simple or as complex as they choose. My youngest pre-schoolers needed some help with tying, especially in the beginning so that is definitely something to thing about. Next time I am doing it with the pre-school group, I am going to include just a warm-up stage, tying ribbons around pencils or sticks, just to practise.
The second step was attaching the hanging strings which called the tails and the feathers. The students picked up two of three of each and tied them at the bottom of the dreamcatcher.
The third step was the decoration of the dreamcatcher. I decided to simply glue the beads and the shells with the PVA. I tested the method: it is enough to put a large blob of the glue on the frame covered with the twine or on the ribbons in the cobweb and to leave it to dry for a few hours. The glue will hold the shells and beads and it will become transparent.
Then, as the final touch, the dreamcatchers can be decorated with the glitter markers and carefully transferred to the window sill for drying.
Mine
Why we liked it
As all the classes and creations in May, this was a lovely journey of discovery, as regards the technique, the materials and the Native American culture, too. Some of the students were a bit withdrawn because of the seemingly high level of complexity of the task but we went quickly from ‘I can’t do it!’ to ‘Look, miss Anka!’. I am not going to lie, this is the greatest outcome ever!
It was amazing to observe, again, how different students interpreted the task and personalised their dreamcatchers. We all had the same set materials but some students decided to make the cobweb thicker, some others went just for two strings. Some used the twine, some opted for the colourful ribbons. Some prefered the shells, the others really liked the beads. Some used only the organic materials, some couldn’t help but add some glitter. One of my students decided to tie a ribbon, too and it looked great so she added some more, too! Some of my kids aslo found a way of weaving the shells into the twine on the frame and that looks really pretty, too!
All of the dreamcatchers were left on the window sill to dry and this time I had no difficulty convincing kids to agree to part with their creations. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was our third Materials May lesson and we have already done it before. However, as soon as we arrived at the school on Tuesday morning, after or even before the first lesson, they kept coming to enquire if they were ready to be taken away. And they were really, really happy with the final product. One of my little ones said, to himself or to the class, ‘Finally I will stop getting the nightmares!’
There are many ways of making this task a lot more challenging and the more tempting of them is the option of the beads heddled onto the twine or the string which would make the cobweb really pretty. I managed to do it with mine but it was not easy and I didn’t have a thinner twine. If the kids are old enough, they can also try weaving the cobweb in a more conventional dreamcatcher way. The older kids could also potentially use a more reliable glue or perhaps a glue gun. I didn’t want to bring those into the classroom but that is an option that will help you speed up the whole process.
Admittedly, the activity involved some preparation on the part of the teacher, some more than usual and I understand that not everyone will have enough energy and time to get involved in that. However, it was all SO worth it! Everyone was fully involved, they personalised their work and they considered it important. And their dreamcatchers just make me go ‘Awnn!’ Just have a look yourself!
Happy teaching!
P.S. A request!
It is very simple.
I would like to know a tiny little bit more about my readers. There are so many of you, popping in here, again and again, and the numbers of visitors and visits are going up and make my heart sweel with joy. But I realised I don’t know anything about my readers and I would love to know, a tiny little bit more.
‘Calm night’ that started as an apple, if I remember correctly…
I am happy. As a teacher of English and a teacher of Art – I am happy. I have my Art Explorers classes twice a week, there are two groups so every lesson is not only taught twice and every idea trialled and trialled again. I am happy because I am getting better at coming up with ideas and with combining all the elements and finding the links between the artist, the language and the technique. And I can see how my kids are reacting to it and becoming more familiar with the paintings and more confident as artists.
I have also realised that all of us, we are more involved in the process and we are enjoying it more. The final product is important, of course, but so is the journey. It is all very rewarding and I am just happy that it is a part of my weekly schedule.
‘You destroyed my food’Sasha’s favourite food
The art
As usual, out of the three components, one had to be prioritised and, this time, it was the art itself. I wanted to give my students an opportunity to experience the process of creating a non-figurative art piece. We tried doing it a little bit in our Jackson Pollock lesson but there the lead was taken by the very specific technique. The outcomes, amazing as they are, were absolutely accidental, and only at the very end of the lesson, we gave our paintings their names.
This time, I wanted it to be fully conscious, purposeful and planned, from A to Z for the kids to understand how a figurative painting may become a non-figurative piece and the artist (aka US!) takes the responsibility for that.
The goose after the wind blew it awayThe goose
In order to achieve it we did the following:
we decided what to paint. I suggested a fruit and veg still life since it was still our Fruit February but I allowed the kids to opt out of it if they really wanted to. Some did.
we made decisions about the composition and started to drip draw with the paints. I had a set of paints that I bought for the stained glass lessons but they turned out to be of a very bad quality, too watery, to liquidy and I could not use them for stained glass. They spent about five months in the drawer and last week I had already taken them out to bin them when the hoarder in me hesitated and decided to use them somehow. Since they were so good at dripping, dripping was what I chose to be their destiny. We used a technique we experimented with before, spread painting.
we drew the contours with drips of the paint (sharing the one set of paints, hooray to the social skills development!)
we photographed the ready picture
we used pieces of thick cardboard to spread the paint and a decision had to be made here to, regarding the movement (or movements) of the hand.
we gave the paintings a name. In most cases, it was a list of the items of the picture but some of the children came up with different names, not related to what the painting first was. Real artists, I am telling you!
As usual, the creation started with a quick modelling session during which I produced a painting of a watermelon and then turned it into a non-figurative item.
A watermelon and a horseSame watermelon and same horse
The artist
This was one of the lessons in which we did not have one superhero but a whole dinner party. I divided them into two groups to illustrate what figurative and non-figurative art is. Our definitions were very simply, in order to convey the message even to my youngest students. ‘Figurative’ was defined as ‘I can see real things’ and represented by a still-life by Cezanne, by Rene Magritte’s Son of Man, by an apply by Yayoi Kusama and a still-life by Ilya Mashkov. ‘Non-figurative’ was defined as ‘I can see shapes and colours’ and represented by a piece by Jackson Pollock, Kandinsky’s circles, Mark Rothko and Yves Klein that I have just discovered for myself.
I also brought two pictures that I created at home and I asked the students to guess what fruit I tried to paint by the colours that they could see or the shapes that were still visible, just to highlight the fact that the fruit might be only represented by a fruit, not necessarily by shape.
Lemon, orange, chocolate, banana……and when they still resembled themselves a bit more
The language
The langauge in this lesson was, as in every lesson of this month – fruit and vegetables. Apart from that I wanted to play with the language and to reinforce the idea of looking at the world from a different perspective. In order to do that, we looked at a set of pictures of the everyday objects and fruit and vegetables, seen either under a microscope or in a close up. We did it as a guessing game, using the set of wordwall cards I put together. This was a lot of fun and I am definitely going to use this resource again!
A selection of favourite things…And a favourite blur
Outcomes
It’s not going to be the first time I say it, here or in the real life, but this, indeed, was one of my favourite Art lessons ever. The rest you can see in the paintings my students created.
We continue to work on expressing our opinions and on justifying them. Since the Unusual Colours was a huge success with both groups, I decided to continue with a different set of visuals. We revised all the basic structures to express opinions, we looked at all the pictures in the set with the group and we said what we thought of them and why. As usual, it was great to see the growing confidence and the courage to express your preferences even if they are different from your friend’s or the group.
This time round I went more slowly, pausing after each picture, to share ideas. I was also trying to encourage the kids to produce a little bit more than just ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’, with questions such as ‘Why?’, ‘How does it make you feel about it?’, ‘What are you thinking about?’ etc.
The artist
Beginning October, my Art classes have been divided into two groups, the younger (pre-school and year 1) and the older (year 2 -4) and the decision to do so was a real game changer because I can adapt the level of the language and the Art input sessions to the age and the language level of the students. Each group has only one lesson a week but they are more meaningful, more focued and more child-friendly.
Because of the holidays and the calendar, the lesson with the older kids comes up first right now and it is also very important and handy. I can prepare for the more group with more advanced language skills, motor skills and with more life expience and do what I really want to do and then just adapt to what my younger kids are able to do. I really like it this way.
In our Jackson Pollock lesson, I introduced the artist of the day (name, country, favourite things) and the fact that he is, most likely, the most renowned modern artist today or, at least, the painter that most people associate with modern art.
Later on, we looked at five of his paintings, in different colours, with different titles, from ‘real’ names (‘Summer’) through ‘Number 5’, to the beautiful ‘Untitled’ and we talked about what we think about them and how they make us feel. In the end, we watched a clip from the video ‘How to paint like Jackson Pollock’ to show the students the real process. I also decided to include a short slot devoted to the main characteristics and I called it ‘What Jackson Pollock would tell us’.
The art
Well, this has to be the first thing to say out loud: Jackson Pollock is a serious logicstical challenge for an Art teacher. Especially if this Art teacher works with young kids and in a room that is a regular classroom which lends its square meters to all the creative activities and then goes back again to being ‘just a classroom’, used and shared with other students and teachers. To be prefectly honest, I am not sure I am entirely happy with how I dealt with it.
Things that need to be taken into consideration are as follows: the technique is a mess-generating one and it requires serious preparations. It is supposed to be done on the floor (which is refreshing and exciting) and the floor needs to be protected. So do the walls, the desks, the chairs and the kids’ clothes, because, surprise surprise, the paint spatter is a powerful force and you will find it in the most unexpected places.
The classroom was almost completely reorganised – the tables and the chairs were put aside, to make room on the floor. I perpared the working station for each of my students (an A3 piece of cardboard, on a much larger piece of newspaper, scotched to the floor) as well as the station with all the paints, brushes, water and tissues. Apart from that we had a semi-circle of chairs in front of the TV where we were to sit during the first, theoretical part of the lesson. We spent here around 20 minutes and later on, we moved to our work stations, to create.
The task was really simple – choose your favourite colours, think what idea you want to convey, take the water and the paints and start creating and experimenting with the technique. This part was great. The kids were trying out different hand movements, they were also observing each other and sharing ideas and opinions. The creativity was slow and a bit inhibited at the beginning but, as we moved on, the kids really got into it. Things were coming together. In the end, we talked about the possible titles for our paintings and how we felt during the entire process. This part was amazing. The paintings were left on shelves to dry overnight and some of my students came on the following day to pick up theirs and to take them home. They did enjoy and they did treasure their creations. Aims – met.
However, I have to admit – these preparations were not enough. The stations were too close to each other, the pieces protecting the floor were too small and, overall, the students’ clothes were not protected. We talked about being careful and respecting the other artists’ space, but I could have done better but mostly because I was lucky, with my older group of only seven students. I am to do the same lesson on Monday, with the younger group and I am working on adapting the ideas and the set-up or, also, entirely giving up on Jackson. I will also be adapting the number of resources used, giving up on the acrylic paints and the guache, because only the watercolours are relatively easy to wash and to clean.
The Pollock lesson – round two. Pre-K and year 1
There were a few things that I had to change for the lesson with the younger kids.
I took over a much bigger space on the floor, with the smaller pieces of cardboard (A4) on much bigger pieces of newspapers and with much bigger distance between them. I also marked the place on the floor where the kids were supposed to be sitting, to ensure that they are not facing each other but sitting back to back to minimise the paint spatter.
I also gave out the painting aprons that we apparently had at the school. However, I had my plan B – bin liners with holes for arms and head.
I was more selective as regards the types of paints, limiting them to watercolours only. Watercolours lend themselves to splashing and spattering, too if more water is added. Acrylic and guache paints are more thicker and more difficult to wash. What is more, a box of watercolours is a box of watercolours, with each child working on their own, at their station, without the need to get up, walk around and exchange jars with friends. Hence – fewer opportunities for stepping into splashes and dirty footprints around the room.
I am happy to say that it all worked very well!
Apart from that, I have to say that, somehow, my little students were somehow more open-minded and ready to dive into the modern art world. They were eager to discuss what they could see in the paintings I showed them and I really could not calm them down here. They wanted to talk and talk, although, because of their level of language, they could do it in English and in L1. They were also very eager to come up with titles for their own creations. These were really artistic discussions. I was really proud of them and some of these paintings are just precious!
This was our final October Art Explorers lesson. I was preparing for using Paul Klee’s The Bird and the Cat because the painting does include two hearts as well as other shapes, a perfect final lesson. However, in the middle of the preparations and my trying squeeze everything in one academic hour, I decided to go easy on all of us, myself and the kids. I changed the concept entirely and chose to focus on the technique, for the first time ever in my Art Teacher history.
Ingredients
A pile of cards, A5, enough for everyone to try a few techniques.
Pencils, crayons, watercolours, salt, tissues, hand sanitizer, a paper clip.
Videos for the teacher to learn about different watercolour techniques. I have taken my ideas from these: here, here, here and here. Thank you)))
Procedures
First of all, I watched all the videos to learn about different techniques and to choose those that will be feasible in the classroom with my kids. The next step was creating my own hearts, a whole set, with different techqniues before the lesson time, in order to be able to show the students the final product. I kept to the same colour for the kids to be able to see the different effect and the impact on the texture and not to be distracted by the colours.
We started the lesson in our usual way, with the hello song, taking the roll call, singing the song about the shapes and looking for the shapes around us. With the older students we also did the heart in brands quiz.
Afterwards, we looked at all the techniques to try in all my samples. While we were doing it, I was also demonstrating the most important tools ie the cloth, the plastic, the salt, the paper clip (for scratching).
Then we just started to create. All the kids would take the cards, draw the heart and then try the new technique. We would look at the final product, talk about it a bit and move on to the following technique.
Why we like it?
It was a lesson like one big experiment, in which we were moving, from one stage to the other, with a lot of curiosity and excitement.
This time we have done the following: salt on the finished picture, salty water as the base, scratching the surface with a paperclip, drawing the patterns with wax crayons and painting over, finishing the picture with a cloth, splattered paint, the broken brush (aka printing with a split brush). I also had the plastic bag for the final touches and the alcohol prepared (aka the hand sanitizer) but we did not have time to use it in the end.
I have to admit, it was not the most productive lesson that I have ever taught but it was an wonderful opportunity for all of us to do something different.
I was very happy to see how the kids were allowing themselves to try something else, something new. At first, they were just following my instructions closely, using the same tools and the same techniques and then they were leaving all that behind and taking one more step further, with a particular technique or with a mixture of different techniques. At this point, we were all looking with curiosity at the outcomes. It was a very beautiful moment.
If this is an option, I would like to recommend looking at the final product on the following day (or in the following lesson). The drying time really does make an impact and the creative lesson might be followed up by gallery walk, expressing opinion and choosing the most interesting heart and technique.
This activity would be a perfect Valentine’s Day celebration in Art Explorers and I was almost sorry that I used it in October. I might be coming back, actually, with more techqniues!
A set of shapes of your choice, cut out of paper before the lesson
An A4 piece of paper with the list of figures that will be included in the activity.
A glue stick for every child, a pencil to take notes
Procedures
Naturally, this project involved some pre-lesson preparation: the handout, the glue and, most of all, all the shapes which needed to be cut up and sorted out. I used 5 separate boxes to make sure that they don’t mixed and are easy to select and to abandon.
We had two lessons devoted to shapes and so we could do all of the following as a preparation for the project: introducing the shapes, looking for the shapes in the classroom, song Can you see a circle? from Super Simple Songs, looking at Shapes Monsters from Twinkl, to recognise and to count them, making shapes from pipe cleaners (the example of which you can see above), working on the sequence (‘circle, square, circle, square’) and, as a direct example for our creativity, looking at some transport made of shapes (also found on Twinkl).
The next step was a set of instructions. At the moment I work with a teacher assistant and I saw it as an opportunity to use this resource in setting up the project. I prepared my instructions to use the simplest language possible but I still asked my TA to translate sentence by sentence. The main elements were these: We are doing a project. We have five shapes (displayed on the board). You can make something for yourself. Maybe a flower, maybe a car, maybe a monster (referring to everything that we saw in class). All ideas are good ideas. You can use 10 shapes (gesture). Please sit down and think. I will call one student to come here and choose shapes. Sasha, come here, choose 10 shapes. etc.
Afterwards, with Sasha choosing her shapes, two students helped with giving out the handouts and the glue.
Everyone kept working on their shapes, I was walking among them, helping and monitoring and as soon as they were finishing, I would come up and ask them to count all the shapes they have used.
In the end, the kids were showing their projects to each other but it was not a formal stage of the lesson. Ideally, we should have finished with everyone showing their work and presenting ti with a simple ‘I’ve got…’ but, unfortunately, in our case, we ran out of time.
Why we like it
In general, it is a simple project with a lot of potential and it can be used in a variety of lessons.
In a Maths lesson, like ours, it is a an opportunity to see the practical use of shapes and to balance the serious studying with a more creative task. It also involves shapes recognition and counting. It was also an interesting follow-up and development on the previous lessons in yet another way: we looked at shapes, we counted shapes in shapes pictures, we looked for shapes in the classroom and we made shapes out of pipe cleaners. These last two activities were especially exciting for the kids and that was my cue for a more hands-on activities.
In an English lesson on shapes, this activity could also work very well, especially that there is the early literacy activity which, potentially, can be extended. The kids can be asked to copy the words from the board and, in this case, the ‘handout’ will not be necessary. The kids can also be asked to write the name of the picture they created, especially if they work within a vocabulary framework, for example toys, pets, animals or transport, although, admittedly, this would put a kind of a harness on the creative thinking here.
In an Art lesson, this activity can be connected with any artist who liked shapes for example Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, El Lissitzky or even Picasso. Apart from the main art project, there would also be an input session devoted to the Artist of the Day. If you are looking for ideas, please have a look here, at Teaching English Through Art.
As a first project, this lesson was a wonder (and please forgive me blowing my own trumpet here!). The kids got the idea and they really took to it. Everyone interpreted the task in their own way and created some lovely pictures, some of which are an inspiration for me as a teacher, for example to draw the shape first and use the shapes to create a proper collage or to make a list of all the shapes necessary beforehand, in order to facilitate and to promite the Thinking Time stage of the project. Please make sure you have a look at the examples below.
The kids got involved in the project, even though there were a few who were slightly reluctant in the beginning. However, as soon as it became obvious that, really, all ideas are good ideas, they started to work on their projects.
The next time I do this project, I will make sure I prepare my own model. I was planning to do it but then the teaching day started and I simply forgot. It would have helped with the instructions and the whole project, including the counting of the numbers and the final presentation.
As regards the choice of the resources, it seems that it was also a good idea to go for a more exciting type of craft paper, as regards the gloss, the texture, the print or a mixture of these. It really adds up to the success of the project. It might be also a good idea to consider an A3 paper for the base, the A4 might be a bit limiting, although A3 is definitely a more tricky size to carry around, to take home or, even, to put up on the wall.
It really was a way for all the kids to exercise their creativity and I am very proud of my students. Some of the creations are simply brilliant and they helped me learn something new about my students. It is also a signal for me to use more of these activities.
Some noteworthy examples of creativity from my kids
This is Lena who was the student to plan her project properly, out of her own accord. She prepared a list of ingredients necessary and, as you can see it does not quite match the number of the shapes used. We fixed it later, after the photo was taken, by writing: circles: 3 + 3 etc.
This is Sergey who decided to take a completely different route and to create a proper work of art, made of hearts only and with a red pencil which is also glued to the paper.
This is Sasha, who was initially very uninspired by the task as he prefers listening. However, after a while, he figured out how to combine the two. He drew an ice-cream cone and then, once it was ready, he came to choose his shapes. This is a lovely approach and I will definitely be using it in the future!
This is a beautiful example of how creative kids can get. Sasha, whose most favourite thing in the world are horses, found a way of creating a horse with the shapes we had. It shows a high level of development of symbolic representation as well as creativity. We see a horse in it hence it is a horse.
This is a picture by Nicol, quite simple one, just a house, we might say, but it is just wonderful because of the paper used and because of the consistent use of hears as windows.
And another wonderful picture, a bear, in which Sasha, decided to use a variety of techniques, including drawing and elements of origami to create a 3D eyes and muzzle for the bear.
This example comes from Sasha, who decided to go for a seemingly simple design of a structure, made of only four shapes. However, it was nothing but simple! The big blue square is in fact glued expertly along three edges to create a pocket into which the small blue rectangle could be put in and taken out. Sasha was extremely proud of his example and I was proud of him.
