#eflkids

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!

‘It’s tricky! It’s tricky!’ Back to school classroom management

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About some ridiculous expectations

Well, it is not my first rodeo and, actually, it might be actually a good point in life to count properly how many rodeos aka Septembers there have been so far (I really don’t know) but, it turned out that I had been a bit naive about what to expect in the classroom on the 3rd of September. Or, in other words, my students managed to suprise me once more! Hooray to that. I suppose)

I knew that my students would come back having forgotten a lot and that we would not be able to pick it up where we left off, not after three months of no-school life. However, naively, I was hoping that they will remember something and that our September life will not involve starting off a brand new blank page. I was wrong!

The funny thing about it is that a few minutes into a lesson that was not necessarily bad but also not my dream come true, I kind of split my attention. There was a part of my brain that was solely responsible for the lesson taking place and the other one stepped back and started to look at the events the way a trainer would, connecting the dots and making mental notes about ‘the things to improve’. That was an interesting experience, I have to say.

This post today will have a format different to every other post in this series. I will try to analyse the things that did not go to plan and the solutions I already decided to put in place.

Things that I liked on the first real day

  • We talked about the things we did on holiday and it was great
  • We kept our Months Improvisation Song and now we are singing about ‘September’, I did my verse and the kids did theirs.
  • We did an introductory reading task and I was really happy with how it went. The kids really wanted to read (already a reason to celebrate) and to find the mistakes in the song.
  • We played our numbers spinner Maths game (‘I want…’) and it was very productive.
  • We made a mural about our favourite things that we will put up on the wall, Our Solar System. We sat together on the floor around a sheet of paper and we went on creating.
  • Even in the first lesson we had a good variety of interaction patterns: whole class, individual work, activities led by kids, collaboration on the project.
  • We have a special board where we keep the plan for the lesson.

Things that I didn’t like on the first real day

  • In one line, the kids were over-stimulated and out of control.
  • It was the first lesson in our new classroom, out of the previous set-up, associated with good habits and routines and there were too many new elements.
  • I allowed the kids to sit the way they wanted, with the friends they wanted to be around.
  • I decided to include the rules revision during the second lesson (for a reason) but I had to pay for that
  • I decided to include one of our favourite Maths games, to balance ‘the new’ with ‘the familiar’ but, I have to admit, there were better solutions, something else than a game would work better.
  • We used some of the favourite songs but I also included a new song, ‘Back to school’ but, in hindsight, I think it was not really necessary. It could have been left for a bit later.

What has changed since the first day aka Solutions

  • Nobody is sitting where they want anymore. This was my plan and I announced it in the first lesson that during the month of September we are going to have a different seating arrangement every single day. I prepared some September vocabulary cards and glued them onto the desks and a set of cards with the same words. Everyone coming into the room picks up one card and then looks for their place to sit. I want to experiment with different seating arrangements (especially that I am still working on the arrangements of the desks, too) and I want to check which combination works the best. There are some dangers involved, some tricky combinations to be avoided at all cost, but I am willing to take that risk, in order to learn. It was only yesterday that I saw a meme or a video on the social media in which teachers were saying that they let everyone to sit the way they want on day 1 specifically in order to find out who shouldn’t sit with whom. Plus we are also going to learn some cool September words)
  • Our rules have not been printed, laminated and displayed on the wall above the board. We have been reading and revising them at the start of every lesson. There are only few, my basic set: I sit nicely, I listen to the teacher, I speak quietly, I raise my friend, we are friends and Russian is beautiful but I speak English here. If we need, we will add to the list.
  • I have also decided to add another poster ‘How are we working today?‘ to help kids understand the different interaction patterns and modes of work. You can see all of them in the poster underneath and these are the terms that I am using to describe what the lesson is going to be about. They also help a lot with giving instructions to particular tasks. The most important differentiation at the moment is the one between ‘follow the teacher step by step’ and ‘you can make your own decisions’.
  • I reinstated the tool that we already abandoned, namely, the final stage of the lesson with the official announcements of the grades for the lesson, for work and for behaviour. We did not quite abandon them because I still needed my notes to add comments to the electronic journal for all my students but making formal announcements of praise and of not-so-good feedback was not necessary at the end of the previous academic year. This is back and it helps to summarise the lesson, to highlight once more the superstar behaviour and to explain why some grades are not very good.
  • We have a new call – response and last we used ;Autum leaves’ (teacher) – ‘falling down’ (students). They have already customised it and some of them respond ‘falling up’, just because it is funny. I need one more of those.
  • We sang a lot of our favourite songs during the other two days and I am planning to keep that trend for another week, without repeating, until we go through everything in our Songbook.
  • With one of my groups, I have put the games on hold for now, we are not ready yet. With the other one, the games are at the end of the lesson plan, in the ‘if time’ section. We need to get back into the school mode, back into the focus, before we start doing something more entertaining.

What’s next?

Not much, just the everyday and helping my adorable monster get back to the proper working mode. We will sing our songs, we will definitely do a story next week. We are still working without our books, rationing resources. We already have the beautiful notebooks, though, so there is a place to keep all the notes. Step by step!

Happy teaching!

‘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!

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!

We don’t need no…enthusiastic teachers. The dangers of enthusiasm

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Do I hear gasps of horror in the audience? Good. That is how I reacted when I said these words out loud, in a conversation with a teacher friend, retelling her some of the ‘recent events’…

Bear with me, dear reader and let’s see if you still gasp at the end of this post. Or maybe I will get you to at least look at the world through my eyes and give me a tiny little nod of agreement…

The ideal teacher?

‘Enthusiastic‘ is this one term that frequently appears on the list of words to describe an ideal teacher. Qin Zhang goes as far as saying that it is ‘generally recognised as one of the most essential and desirable qualities and characteristics of effective teachers‘ as one almost synonymous with energy or passion. What’s more, it is often presented as key to students’ motivation and engagement and, if you look long enough, you can even find advice how to be enthusiastic about what you teach (and in case you need it – use your voice and gestures, never admit that you don’t like your subject or topic or that it is not important). Enthusiasm then – a key factor in teaching.

Or is it?

Reading all these articles made me want to jump up and shout ‘Objection, Your Honour!’

My definition of a teacher, and especially a YL teacher, is slightly different and, surprise surprise, enthusiasm does not feature there as one of the necessary qualities. I put this list together based on years of mentoring and training of teachers who were either novices in general or novice teachers in the early years ESL/ EFL world. I based it on my own experience, the things that worked and the things that didn’t. I read about it, too, of course.

On my list, I have resilience and stamina and a variety of skills, I have resourcefulness and patience, I have creativity, energy and calmness and all three elements mentioned by my gurus such as Sandie Mourao (2018): the level of language, the knowledge of child development and of the appropriate methodology. A YL teacher is also someone who can teacher up or teacher down. But ‘enthusiastic’, well, somehow I didn’t think of including it. Truth be told, only recently did I begin to understand why.

Case studies

To illustrate that, I will use three case studies, from my professional life as a teacher, a trainer, an educational manager in all the contexts, countries and schools where I have worked and, at the same time, in none of them. The stories may have happened but in the way you think, not in the place you can guess and not with the people you know. No identification with actual persons or places is intended or should be inferred.

Case study 1: A senior teacher is asked to prepare a programme for the summer camp session. This senior teacher does not really have a lot of experience in the area and with this age group and, somehow, they do not bother to ask for advice, recommendations or support from more experienced colleagues. They just put it together, as best as they can because they really, really want to and they believe that something’s gotta give.

The programme has more holes than a slab of some Swiss cheese. There are no real ideas, no lesson plans, no support for the teacher or any attention or knowledge of any methodological principles. The only thing that there is – the enthusiasm and the Wow Factor . The camp lags from one day to the other, the teachers are confused and lost and just doing their best. But, because they are dedicated and passionate, they pull it through.

Execution mode: atrocious and unecessarily exhausting.

Aims: met as in: the world did not fall apart.

Case study 2: A teacher orgnises an excursion for her students, to the cafe, to celebrate. It is not a big group of students, there are four adults accompanying the kids, the paperwork is ready. However, the teacher doe not bother to check and to plan the route, there and back, because they are in the city city, not far from the school and the place is reacheable on foot. On the way there and on the way back, the group wanders around, they have to stop a few time to check the google maps, everything takes forever and on the way back, they take yet another shortcut and, to add insult to injury, they are caught in a blizzard.

Execution mode: messy and unnecessarily exhausting.

Aims: met (meaning: the world did not fall apart and there were a lot of lovely photographs)

Case study 3: An adult student stays after a lesson to talk about a relative who would like to work as a teacher. The contacts are exchanged and the potential applicant is advised to get in touch with the recruitment department of the school. She does and only later doe it become obvious that the enthusiastic would-be teacher has not graduated from the university yet, her studies are not even remotely related to education, she has never every taught in any capacity and does not even have any official confirmation of her language level. For all these reasons, naturally, the school does not hire her. However, she is advised to take a language test and consider starting the basic teaching qualification course. The potential applicant does not reply to these in any way and, her relative, the adult student who comes to the following lesson iss obviously disappointed and she tries to plead, with her teacher. ‘But she is so eager to start teaching. She really, really wants to be a teacher of English. It would be a dream come true...’

Execution mode: a great range of mixed feelings.

Aims: not met. I hope this person found her path.

Put the enthusiasm on the back burner!

It is easy to image that all of the directors, all of the managers, all of the parents and all of the trainers would love to see their teachers full of energy, stars in their eyes, joy in their gait, impatient to start doing their favourite thing, teaching! To impart knowledge, to help the kids learn, to help their students grow! That’s absolutely important and I hope that all my teachers, readers, colleagues have a chance to experience it on daily basis, this passion for what you do. I, personally, cannot imagine a life in which you to work without a tiny spark of happiness, just to do something in exchange for the salary. There are lots and lots of things that I do, solely out of pure enthusiasm and there are lots and lots of things that my colleagues and teacher friends do, on daily basis, that are not reimbursed financially.

But.

Enthusiasm cannot be the only resource available to a teacher. If it is and if it is there to cover up and to make up for all the other adjectives (such as organised, supportive, qualified, skilled, realistic, methodologically sane, planned, reasonable and professional), then I would like to make an objection and a strong one, too!

If we were talking about a different profession, nobody would even consider hiring a person to do the job of a doctor, a driver or a hair-dresser if the only thing they had to show for themselves was their enthusiasm or serving a disgusting cake on a pretty plate and claiming a Michelin star or two. It would not be a good idea to organise a festival without checking all of the bits, pieces and options and going for it just because we really, really want to have it.

No because it does not work like that in other areas and we should not have to deal with that in teaching, either.

Personally, I find it very, very tiring, as a teacher, as a trainer and as an educational manager. Mostly, because, in most cases, it translates into mess, confusion, teaching and learning below standard and last minute preparations and fixing problems as we (happily) go along. Perhaps, on my part, it is some kind of professional OCD but I like things to be in order.

This is not a post against enthusiasm and pession. Let’s not take it off the list, let’s just put it on the back burner, please.

Happy teaching!

References

Instructor’s Corner #3: Teaching with Enthusiasm: Engaging Students, Sparking Curiosity, and Jumpstarting Motivation | National Communication Association (natcom.org)

An enthusiastic teacher of English – How I see it now (wordpress.com)

Being an Enthusiastic Teacher – Swansea Academy of Learning and Teaching

What makes teachers enthusiastic: The interplay of positive affect, self-efficacy and job satisfaction – ScienceDirect

Sandie Mourao (2018), Research into the teaching of English as a foreign language in early childhood education and care, In: S.Garton, F.Copeland, The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners, Routledge, p. 429.

Crumbs #81 Making sandwiches aka a different type of Food Art

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Ingredients

  • anything that you want to use to make sandwiches, we used: toast bread, blueberries, cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, cheese slices
  • a few pictures to get the inspiration from, for yourself and for your students. There are lots of websites with creative sandwiches for kids but I wanted something simple that we could all make and that is why I just looked for illustrations on google. If you are looking for something more intricate, you can have a look here and here.
  • two plates for each child and a small plastic knife
  • we made the sandwiches in our lunch room

Procedures

  • We started with the picture that I created during our previous lesson, my own vegetable print and I asked the kids to guess which vegetables I used in another lesson on the same day (here) and we connected them to the flashcards of vegetables we had on the board. Before the lesson I also put up more flashcards, of all the other items to be used in our sandwiches, and we spend some time working on those, drilling and playing a game.
  • Important: before the lesson, I sent the list of ingredients to my administrators to ask them to buy everything we needed and to inquire with the parents if everything was ok and to check against the allergies that our students might have.
  • I told the kids that we would be making sandwiches and I showed them a few different patterns but I also stressed that everyone would be making their own monsters.
  • We relocated to the lunchroom, washed hands and sat down. The vegetables had already been washed and cut up: cucumbers into julienne and slices, carrots into julienne and slices, cheese into slices. Cherry tomatoes and berries were only washed and dried.
  • I was making my own sandwich, modelling what can be done and my T.A. was bringing plates with more and more veggies. I did my best to encourage the kids to ask for certain vegetables and we did it))
  • At the end, we went through all of the veggies to check that everyone used everything. (“Have you got any carrots?’)
  • Then, we went on to eat!

Why we like it

  • It was the most ideal follow-up of our lesson 1 (vocabulary) and lesson 2 (making print art with vegetables) and, finally, we could eat in class.
  • It was a great way of practising our target vocabulary, practical, hands-on, productive because we really, really used the language.
  • Apart from what I planned for this lesson, namely using the functional language in the context (‘Bread, please’), we also started to sing a new version of the Broccoli Ice-cream, using the combination of the things on the table and then tasting to check what we really think. And, guess what, it turns out that carrot cheese, blueberries cheese and blueberry carrot are all yummy!
  • The kids worked very well together, they reacted well to changing the set-up and the type of an activity. Nobody got overwhelmed or overexcited, they were patient and waited for their turn and they used the langauge. I was really proud of them.
  • Last but not least, we made sandwiches (some kids more than 1) and we ate A LOT of vegetables. I was worried for a while that dry bread might not be the most popular item but I did not want to include any spreads of any kind and it turned out not to be necessary. Actually, during the previous stages of the lesson, I asked whether the kids liked all of the items we had ready and I was lucky – everyone liked everything! But, even if not, they were not required to use or to eat all of the ingredients.
  • As for the creative element, I was laughing a lot during this lesson because my students and their monsters were just amazing and very creative. I showed just a model but I didn’t want them to follow directly in my footsteps. We all looked at our plates and everyone, clearly, had their own idea of what the monster should look like.

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!

A study in purple and pink! Summer still-life #1

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Last week, we had an opportunity to still-life twice, with the same group. Make sure you check out the other post, too. You can find it here.

The language

Having a summer camp planned well and planned by yourself (yes, a bit of blowing my own trumpet here) is great not only because it is done well but also because every day, for ten days, you know exactly what is happening and you have the same lesson routine. The pink and purple day was no different. The langauge had its own separate lesson in which we sang songs about purple and pink and we talked about our preferences, whether we like certain things in pink or colourful or purple or not. We also wrote a poem about these two colours, very losely inspired by the poems I found in the Little Learning Corner.

The artist

This was the day of two Frenchmen, Monet and Manet and I had to invite both because I wasn’t sure which way the lesson is going to go. Initially I was hoping we could go to the nearby park to paint there but I had to take the weather conditions and the potential summer showers into consideration and prepare two options. But, in the end, that brought up an idea for a lesson.

We looked at two paintings, Water Lillies by Monet and Bouquet of Flowers by Manet and looked for similarities and differences. We also looked at some more flowers paintings and answered a set of a questions about all of them, in order to understand a little bit about composition. Among the questions we had: Can you see all the flowers? The flowers at the front are they big or small? The flowere at the back, are they big or small? What’s the biggest flower? What’s the smallest? etc.

I had a set of photographs prepared, in order to focus either on the flowers in the garden or those in vases and, in the end, we had give up on the idea of painting in the park and we focused on the vase that I filled with flowers.

The art

As you can see from the paintings accompanying this post, everyone chose their own approach to a flower still-life. My students painted anything and everything they could see and yes, they saw different things. This was to some extent a surprise but a pleasant one and I did not want to intervene or to ensure at all cost that they all focus on the realism and try to recreate the image. Perhaps one day we will get there but even when we do, it will require its own separate technique, planning and staging.

Another (not unpleasant) surprise was the fact that all of my students took time to start, more than they had ever done before. At first I was alarmed but it was only until I realised that they were just taking it in, and that looking at the flowers, looking at the page, and processing the task is all a very important part of it and that we should make it official, our creative Thinking Time.

I added the daisy just for the contrast but it turned out to be a very clever decision (albeit it was not planned, I am still learning!) but it helped us a lot. We started with a vase and with a ribbon but then, moving on to the flowers, the daisy was a good starting point. All the other flowers were arranged around the daisy, in the vase and on the paper. At least with my older students and with those who needed guidance. With all the other ones, who were already at work, I just let things be.

One more thing that I learnt on that day was that, perhaps, for a first flower still-life, it would be good to have a simpler set, with a variety of colours and flowers, to help the children see them and to help the children draw them, too.

Two of my students started to sketch the plants and while they were doing that, they asked for permission to keep it black and white. I agreed, of course. How could I not, when the question was asked like that: ‘Miss Anka, can I do it in the style of a 19th century photograph?‘ (though it was asked in the L1). And they are beautiful.

One of my students chose to focus on the daisy and went for it, very much, in the style of Georgia O’Keeffe (who, by the way, was one of the painters who featured in my presentation) and it is just wonderfully magnificent.

As usual, I am looking at all the photos while getting them ready for the post and it is amazing to see how the realism and the bouquet I created shows in them. Sometimes it is a ribbon and a vase, sometimes it is the daisy and the flowers, sometimes the little roses. Sometimes, though rarely, it is everything. And as says one of my favourite superheroes, Pete the Cat, ‘Because it’s all good!’

Welcome to the gallery!

Happy teaching!

How we watched the paint dry. Bubble painting! Teaching English through Art

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This was not a typical Art lesson for many reasons. First of all, it was a part of the camp programme, so I had a mixed ability group, with many children who have not created a lot with me. Then, it was an Art lesson that did not involve the Artist of the Day and, also, a lesson which was fully and thoroughly devoted to the process, perhaps more than any other lesson that I taught.

The language

This particular lesson was taught as a part of the summer camp programme which meant a lot more time for all of us, we had one lesson for the language practice and one separate lesson for creation. And one whole lesson for Science and experiments! It was a part of the Black and White day so in our English lesson, we talked about the things that are black and white, we did some acting, we talked about our preferences (Do you prefer a black and white zebra or a colourful zebra? based on the illustrations I found) and we wrote a poem about our favourite black and white things. We also had a fantastic Science lesson in which we were learning about what the colour black is made of and what the colour white (aka the light) is made of.

The art

Initially, I had a different idea for this lesson and I wanted to create two drawings (black on white and white on black) but we did something like that very recently and I needed something a lot more inspiring.

I did ‘waste’ some time thinking about the ways of making the connection between the colours and the art (something that is one of my favourite things, this kind of a brain-breaker) but, luckily, a few days earlier I was also researching new watercolour techniques and this is how I found a video on Lemon Creation ‘The most relaxing watercolour technique ever!‘. Then it was easy for the grey cells to make a connection: bubbles = white, bubbles = light, bubbles = colours.

I tried and tested the technique on myself, the day before. It helped me to understand the process better and to plan and stage it for the classroom full of kids. Not to mention that I had lots and lots of fun with it, as an adult. A delightful process that I really wanted to share with my kids.

In the classroom, the next day, it went like that:

  • I showed the kids all of the materials (plates, spoons, straws, washing up liquid, watercolours, paper, paintbrushes) and I explained that we are going to make bubble paintings.
  • I showed the kids my creations, already dry and ready for all of us to see the final product.
  • The next step was the list on the board, all the stages with simple verbs, for each of them because, again, this is an activity whose success depends a lot on the careful following in the footsteps of the teacher, one at a time.
  • And, to further underline it, I produced one more picture in real time, with us following the instructions on the board and the kids watching the process, from the beginning until the end. Initially, I wanted to colour the bubbles only with the black paint, in order to keep in line with the theme of the day but I quickly gave up on the idea. Not because it is a bad idea but because adding more and more colour and looking at how they seep into each other and mix and dry was way too much fun to skip it.
  • Giving out cups and straws to all the kids and making out own foam would be a lot of fun but I didn’t want to risk anyone taking a sip of the soapy water by accident (and, mind you, that is very easy, even for an adult, I did it myself while in class, oups) so I decided that there will be only two Foam Makers, myself and my TA.
  • After we have given out resources, put on aprons and prepared the paper, we started to walk around the room with my teacher assistant giving out the foam to kids. At home I used a piece of cardboard but a spoon is a much better solution (Miss Nigina’s idea:-).
  • Children went on to infuse their bubbles with colour and only now and again someone would should ‘Miss Anka, more foam, please!’
  • Some of the kids named their paintings in the same lesson, some decided to leave it for later (‘Miss Anka, I haven’t finished yet’ as my 5 y.o. artist told me).
  • When we came back after the lunch break, we unpeeled all of the pictures, signed them, named them and decided who is taking theirs home and who is keeping theirs on the noticeboard.

If you haven’t figured that out yet from the first 500 words of the post, I am here to tell you that we absolutely enjoyed this activity.

Yet again, we had an opportunity to learn to keep the pace and to follow detailed (but carefully-staged) instructions. We created these beautiful pieces that you can see in the photos and the kids were fully engaged. It is almost difficult to call it ‘painting’, it seems that ‘a show’ would be a more appropriate term as it was a whole performance that we created with the help of the bubbles and the watercolour. Observing how the paint seeps down, through the bubbles, colouring them and then drying and changing slowly…We literally watched the paint dry and it was an absolutely fascinating experience.

It was only after the lesson when I had a chance to look at the photos that we took during the lesson and the kids in all the photos are so focused, so engrossed, so into it…A beauty to behold!

The study in pink that is the title photo of this post was created by my 5 y.o. firestarter who, when ‘forced’, stops plotting how to destroy the world and sits down to paint and ends up putting together the most amazing pieces. Like that one. I have already had a chance to witness it 6 times and every single time it is a wonder.

There many things that can be done with the finished paintings, with the use of markers or colours or even collage and we will definitely be coming back to it! Bubbles for everyone!

Happy teaching!