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…
Time to confess: I did not plan anything for the language for the final lesson. I did not want to start a new topic and I also knew that our creative stage will require a lot of time to plan, to organise and to execute. However, because of how our creative part was structured, this lesson created an opportunity for a conversation about our hobbies and preferences and anything favourite. We used ‘I like’ and ‘I love’ a lot and we were able to revise lots of vocabulary from different areas. That is why I have filed this lesson as something that I will be able to reuse with any ‘I like’ vocabulary, perhaps toys, food, sports or animals.
The artist
Since it was our final lesson of the year, I decided to invite some of our esteemed guests one more time, in a revision activity, bringing back their great masterpieces and their self-portraits. I was hoping to show different styles of a self-portrait to inspire the kids. I have also invited someone that should have had her lesson but somehow it had not happened until now. Perhaps maybe that was for a reason, because what Frida Kalho was great at was self-portraits))
Once again, we used a set of wordwall pictures and turned into a guessing game for the older kids and a short presentation for the younger ones. The main aim was to present the self-portrait as a concept and to show the children how many variations of it there are and how many there are possible. And, eventually, to help them make their own decisions about their own self-portraits. We have used these two wordwall sets: simple cards and matching.
The art
It was my decision from the very beginning for us not to draw and not to paint. Some of my students are very talented and great at drawing but even for them drawing a realistic depiction of a human face (their own!) and within one short lesson would not be easy and, in fact, would be way too stressful. Then, of course, there are many of my students for who, because of their age and a lack of practice, that would be an impossible task. For that reason, I decided to go for a collage, based on newspapers clippings.
The materials necessary for the lesson were still very basic: paper, glue, scissors and a pile of different journals, magazines and newspapers. That set might be extended by any illustrations, brochures, postcards and stickers and even drawings which is something that I already did in our space lessons which you will also see in that post.
I prepared my model beforehand and I showed it to my students. I said that I can’t draw very well and I chose my self-portrait to be made of all my favourite things which represent me! ‘This is me!’, I said, showing them the picture. We went together through all the bits and pieces, calling them out. When appropriate I added some additional information about these.
Afterwards, I gave out the sheets of paper, glue and scissors and some of the magazines. We started with looking through them to find something that we like and that could represent us. I was also looking through them, looking for interesting things and helping out (‘I’ve got strawberries. Do you need strawberries, anyone?’). When I taught this lesson again, we all sat around one table with magazines and this set-up was very useful. It was easier to exchange the magazines and pictures and it was easier to clean up later on as all the cuttings were on the same table. When we were ready, we took all the ready-to-glue cuttings back to our tables. That is the way to go.
It went great. It started slowly and with some doubt, but it was plain to see as the creative activity was taking momentum as we went on. The kids were getting a better idea of what to include, they were making choices, regarding what they like and don’t like enough, what else they need and they were making decisions about the composition as the colour and the size of certain cuttings had to be taken into consideration. Real artists at work!
The activity was also an excellent choice as regards mixed ability and the different levels of involvement. Some students decided to fill up both sides of their A4 and A3 paper, some others filled in half of the space on the front page but it still constituted a completed task. Which the creators were happy with.
A few days ago, I decided to revisit this task in a camp lesson devoted to space. I do admit, it was a bit of a stretch, trying to drag a self-portrait into that topic but we managed to pull it off. I wanted us to create our own planet which would represent everything that we like in order to revise all of the vocabulary from two units and to have a rounding-up creative task. I brought the magazines and journals but also stickers and just paper and markers. Because it was our space lesson, I prepared a planet / space background that I decided to use instead of a simple white piece of paper. That really made a difference.
Another variation was due to the fact that the batch of the newspapers that I got on the day was not the most exciting one and did not include many relevant pictures. I decided to include our drawings in order to make sure that our planets really do represent us. And guess what? BINGO! This widened the scope and it made our collages a lot more interesting. Just look at the photographs! They are beautiful!
After we were done with preparing the masterpieces, we went on to the presentation. All the students took turns to introduce themselves and then to talk about their pictures using very simple structures (I like…I love…I really like). In the end they asked their peers the question: ‘Do you like my planet?’
Even today, after a few days have passed since the day of the lesson, and with other lessons that have happened in-between, I am still simply, well, euphoric, about the lesson I taught and about the art we created. Cloud number 9.
I saw Bulatov in an exhibition more than ten years ago and, my oh my, what an inspiration he was. Really, I cannot think of anyone who had an impact comparable to him. And he stayed with me. For days on end did I draw letters and tried to make them work together. I even turned one of the pictures into a pillow case, in black and white.
A few weeks ago, I got to see his exhibition again and, once more, it was a blast, in every possible way and, naturally, I made an instant decision that we would do it in class, sooner or later.
A pizza!
The artistand the concept
It was with a real pleasure that I got to tell my students that our Artist of the Day is a contemporary artist who is almost 91 years old and who still lives in our city. They got really excited about it.
However, before we looked at Bulatov’s works, I wanted a proper lead-in. It seemed crucial to me that my students start to use the words as images, to have them look beyond the letters and to see the bigger picture. In order to do that I decided to use two tools or two tricks and I am so happy that what I came up with worked wonders.
The first, really easy exercise was to look at the colour words and to read them as words and as colours. There are plenty of resources that talk about the Stroop effect and pleny of resources to use: the online game, the article, the quiz video. I used a super simple visual, like this one here. The kids loved the challenge and I was having fun with them, quietly celebrating the fact that reading (all of a sudden) is an easy-peasy task for my almost-year-2 students.
For the following stage, I used my own illustrations of some of the Portuguese words which you can see the photographs. My students don’t speak Portuguese and I wanted to have them try to guess what they might mean just looking at the visuals. And they did so well here! Preparing those visuals took some time but I loved this kind of a homework and it made for a lovely evening for me. I chose ‘o sapo’, ‘a casa’, ‘o amor’ and ‘os olhos’ (without articles) simply because I had an idea for the illustration and I knew that my students will know these words in English. Obviously, any other words can be used and any other language that is appropriate in the context. I have already decided that when I teach this lesson again, I will use a wider range of words and a wider range of langauges.
At this point it was already obvious for the kids that words are more than ‘just words’ and we were ready to look at what Erik Bulatov created. I chose only five of the paintings. We looked at them and we briefly analysed why these particular words were presented in such a way. The main idea for this lesson was the sentence that I repeated a few times during the lesson and the one that is also the topic of that post: a word is also a picture.
Amor!
The language
The language input was minimal in this lesson as we only talked about the different words that the kids could use. As an example, I suggested using their names, animals, food, emotions and professions (the theme of our summer camp). The kids had time to think about it (as we were getting ready for the creative part, bringing water, getting on the aprons, giving out paints and brushes) and when they were ready, I wrote all the words they suggested on the board.
I was considering showing them a few examples of the English words that were also turned into images such as a few variations of ‘love’, ‘a cat’ and ‘a dog’ but I decided not to put them up, just to see what the students can come up themselves.
It is worth mentioning, however, that, depending the language input can be extended and there is a lot of potential for combining this lesson with a lesson on animals, colours, seasons or fruit and vegetables. I will definitely be going back to it and I am already excited about it. I want to be perfectly honest here, though. I focused on the artistic part because we are at the summer camp at the moment and there are separate English and Art lessons and, hooray, we have more time for English and for Art. Our Art lesson, however, was done entirely in English.
Sapo, casa, olhos!
The art
We used very basic materials: pencils and watercolours. We didn’t even have any real watercolour paper, because we ran out and we had to use the regular photocopying sheets. Not the best choice, but it didn’t stop us from creating.
I gave out the paper and pencils and we started to design our words. It is a good idea to keep a few spare pages of scrap paper for the kids to practice because it might be a bit complicated to get to the ‘acceptable’ level of quality of the letters or the picture, even with a good general idea, this does not happen naturally. I experienced that myself with my ‘casa’ picture and I was just so happy that I kept the drafts because I could show the kids that only practice makes perfect. Next time we are going to create Bulatov, I am also going to include different versions of his paintings that I saw at the exhibitions, either sketches (if they are at all available) or the same painting with various approches to the composition, size of letters or colours that I know exist. They will be a wonderful lesson into the creative process. Actually, here is another great idea for a lesson for me and for us, from the sketch to the masterpiece…Soon, I promise, soon!
A rabbit!
After the sketches were ready and the kids were happy with them, we started to paint. That’s it. The only thing to follow will be only my admiration, love, excitement, awe and multiple rounds of applause and high-fives. My kids did great.
Here is what went well / very well / amazingly well:
We went smoothly from the main idea, to Bulatov’s paintings and to our own creations
The kids did great, many of them knew straight away what idea they want to depict and they just went for it. They worked very well, they were focused and motivated. Many finished their first original idea and went on creating.
Designing the ideal visual was not easy for all the kids and not all of them got there from the first time. Keeping the additional sheets of paper was a good idea, showing my failed attempts was a good idea, too, and it did help some of the kids. I was really proud of those who got upset at the begininng but decided to go on and created real masterpieces.
It was interesting to work with this particular group of kids because they were a new bunch, a mix of my students and some new children who joined us only for those two weeks. All of them, however, apart from one, were new to the artistic activity, unlike everyone who took part in our regular Art Explorers activities that I normally write about here. And it was such a joy to teach them and to take them into the world of creativity.
We used the simplest resources, the pencil and the watercolours, but I have already started to wonder what else we could use. Perhaps gouache, perhaps acrylic paints or maybe a mix of techniques, paints and a collage, with the newspaper cut-outs…So many things to think about!
The only thing left now is to invite you to admire what my amazing artists have created!
This was the last episode in our series of Materials in May. The language input was a revision and limited to colours, emotions and animals which was also consistent with the vocabulary that featured in the photos I found online to inspire my students. Which, of course, means that the vocabulary can be adapted, adjusted and selected to match the topic that you are planning to focus on or the topic that the stone painting is supposed to accompany.
The artist
Since our main character was stone, I decided to choose a group Artist of the Day and look at the artistic creations across the centuries made specifically of stone (or, rather, different variations of it) such as the Sphinx of Giza, the Easter Islands monuments, Nike, the Greek goddess and Moscow lions, among others. The great thing about it was that many of these, the kids were already familiar with and they could relate to them on a slightly different level, for example, because they had a lot to share, although most of the time this was done in Russian, rather than in the target langauge.
The art
The art part was very simple and straightforward. We started with looking at a great variety of stone paintings that can be found online, with different smileys, fish, dogs, cats, elephants and what not. The kids were told that they would be able to paint whatever their want.
We proceeded to choosing the stones and handing out pieces of paper and pencils as we were to design our drawings. We traced our stones on the paper and spent some time trying to figure out the best picture or pattern for our stones. I tried to encourage them to be inspired by the shape, especially that we had stones of two different sources.
A word here on the stones themselves. They came from two main sources. Some of them were the ‘pretty’ craft stones, round and polished and I bought them in a craft store. The others were more organic, collected by me in the neighbourhood. These are irregular, ragged, rough but also more inspiring. I washed all of them with soap and hot water. In the end, they were left in a bowl with hot water, in order to sanitise them as much as possible.
When our designs were ready, we put on the aprons and started painting. Our paints were on a big table in the middle of the classroom so that all the kids could share all the resources. We used two types of the acrylic paints, I had some basic colours (but in lovely, rich shades) and some pearl colours (in other shades, as it happened). A part of the fun on the day was mixing of both in order to get the best of both. I am not sure if it can be seen in the photographs but it really worked out very well.
As for the design, as I said before, the kids had a free hand and they chose whatever they wanted. We had some smileys, we had some ‘favourite things’ such as the horses, the geese and Picachu, we also had some ‘magic stones’, which were only coloured and decorated. Because the acrylic paint dries relatively quickly, some of my students managed to decorate both sides of the stones.
I had the black markers ready for the follow-up decorating as it is also an option, especially useful for all the tiny elements of the drawing or the tracing, but it turned out not be necessary in the end. As with all the materials lessons in May, I announced that we would be leaving our creations to dry overnight but, guess what, that also didn’t happen. Almost everyone insisted on taking their stones home asap. I barely had time to take any photos. I suppose that means that the lesson was a success.
Magic stone, step 1Magic stone, step 2A series of emoticonsAnd another series of emoticons
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.
…were completely given up on in this particular lesson. I was considering looking for someone who created something that we would be creating but I quickly realised that the process will be the more important part of the lesson and, again, because of the materials and of the many stages, we will need time. I just wanted to make things out of the salty dough.
The art
While I was preparing for the lesson, I considered different scenarios, also the one in which we make our little things and leave them to dry for a week and decorating them during the following lesson. There are microwaves at the school but I did not want to use them. I wanted to keep everything as simple as possible and after experimenting at home at the weekend and testing the drying and colouring and I had a solution. I also tried to paint my dough while still wet and that went well, too.
I made the dough at the school, just before the lesson. I didn’t have any bowls there but I used one of the big plastic boxes and even though though it did get stuck to the box and dried up a bit, I washed it easily after the lesson. There are many recipes out there but I used this one here.
I prepared the working stations for my kids (a double spread of the newspaper scotched to the table) and got changed into our aprons.
I showed the children the dough, I explained the ingredients I used and I repeated my basic health and safety drill that is the title of this post. I showed them the tools that we had at our disposal (cookie cutters of random shapes and two small bottles to be used as rolling pins) and paintbrushes that were to be used in lieu of the little knives to shape up our creations.
I also showed the children the photos of different things that I made at home while trialling and testing: a letter A, a snail made out of one piece of rolled string of dough, a flower made out of blobs etc. I wanted the kids to get at least a vague idea of the opportunities that the dough presented.
On the board I wrote out the main stages of the lesson and they went as follows: 1. Look (at the model), 2. Make, 3. Paint, 4. Transfer to the window sill, 5. Dry. I wanted to make sure we are all on the same page and that we all finish in time.
I told the kids that since we are experimenting with a brand new material and technique, everyone can make whatever they want. ‘Anything?’, they asked, incredulously. ‘Anything! Go on, experiment and have a go!’ And they did!
The outcomes
It is possible to go through the whole process in 45 minutes, from instructions, through creation to painting and cleaning. Some of the students did finish early but we made sure everyone waited for everyone else to finish before moving on to the following stage.
The paint was dry within minutes but the cookies (that’s what the kids started to call them) were still to fragile to be transported so they were left on the window sill until the following day, when we packed them into plastic zip lock bags.
Once the creations were ready, we transfered them onto A5 pieces of cardboard, for painting, drying and safe travelling later on.
For colouring we used acrylic paints, with a pearl shine and that made them look even prettier. I was really proud of all my students because we took all the necessary precautions and there were no splatters or spatters. Our clothes, tables and chairs were safe.
The kids’ creations simply blow my mind. As usual, my amazing artists looked, thought and then went on creating in their own style. Most of them are simple cookies, cut out with a cookie cutter and painted. Some are decorative pieces, like the three hearts made for mum. One of my students thought of making a necklace and she even made a whole for the ribbon. Some students decided to create 3-D figures of their favourite things, some of them very elaborate. And of course they snatched them even before I could take a photo…
Guess, we are definitely doing this again! I am not sure when but we definitely are! Maybe they will be Christmas decorations, maybe little pumpkins for Halloween, maybe Easter egs! The salty dough will be back!
Even more things that can be done with salt dough (updated 18 August 2024)
I happen to have a 1-1 lesson with one of my students and, knowing that he loves making and creating, I decided to spend this time with craft and salty dough. Somehow, this was a very creative lesson as we could make, try and experiment and the ideas were bouncing off, back and forth. We have tried:
using shells and beads as decoration
applying beads onto an already painted surface (good idea!)
applying beads and shells, then painting with acrylic paint and wiping the surface gently with a wet tissue (good idea!)
constructing a piggy bank on a frame of a glass jar. Not sure what I can say about it, the shaping went well, but the piggy bank is still drying. The success of this one will be determined later)
Happy teaching!
Drying in the sun…
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.
I was looking for the inspration for our final month of Art. I did not start this year with a curriculum for all nine months, although probably, that would have been the recommended and adult course of action. Instead, I spent all these months just getting a theme for September, October, November…
Then came May and I needed something different, something interesting and something that starts with the letter M, just like this month.
Sunflower Mandala
The artists
This was an important part of the lesson to give the kids a chance to understand what a mandala is and many different techniques there are to create it. I focused on the simplest and the most basic and straighforward meaning of a mandala representing the Earth.
We looked at three different artists who are famous for their mandalas and the materials they used because I also wanted to have a representation of a variety of tools. That is why we looked at Jamie Locke who carves her mandalas, Damien Hirst who composes his out of butterflies (I still cannot get over the fact that these are real butterflies) and Stephen Meakin who painted his.
Rabbit ‘Mandala’
The language
Only after we looked at the artists, did we go through the language for the day, namely all of the materials to be used in class and, as usual, we used the wordwall cards. The cards and the vocabulary have been consistent with what I found at home and in my local supermarket and consistent with all the materials that I wanted to use. That is why have here beautifully green mungo beans and orange lentils.
I am aware of the fact that these are not the most commonly used words, especially by beginners but I did not want to extend the langauge slot because making a mandala takes time and we have only 45 minutes at our disposal.
Goose Mandala
The art
Mandalas are beyond beautiful and, esentially, very easy to make, albeit time-consuming. As regards materials, you only need a lot of PVA kids glue (I tried to use the regular glue stick but it is not that effective), cardboard (as the regular paper will not be able to keep up with the large amount of glue) and the seeds of your choice.
Cat Mandala
As usual, we prepared the working stations on kids’ separate desks and all of the materials were placed in boxes and in bags on the table at the front of the classroom. I also had a few separated containters (deep lids from plastic boxes). The students were told to come up, choose their material, one at a time, and either take the chosen box to their table or to take some of the material into a separate lid to move them around the room. We put on our aprons and I gave our small paintbrushes in order to move the pieces around to avoid touching the glue, as much as possible. I also gave a long, serious and boring speech in both languages about not eating anything on the table. ‘This is not food, these are materials right now. We don’t eat the materials’ could be the summary.
One missing pasta piece Mandala
The actual making of the mandala is super easy and, apart from showing the children the one I made at home, I also started another one in the classroom. There are three easy steps: attaching the paper to the table with painter’s scotch, squeezing out a large blob of glue and smearing it in a circle and starting the mandala from the centre, going out and around. If necessary, another layer of glue might be added as it dries out and another layer might be added at the end of the of the process, especially for the big bits, such as the pasta pieces. The PVA glue dries beautifully and it becomes transparent, without destroying the picture.
We left ours to dry on the window sill and on the following day, I put them up in the polly pockets and kids took them home.
Why we loved it?
Just like the tiny pictures, this activity does wonders for developing focus and concentration. Everyone stayed focused, everyone stayed silent and they were just working beautifully.
It is also a lovely task to develop cooperation skills because even though we had a selection of materials and boxes, the kids still had to wait, to share, to negotiate and I am very happy to say it went well.
The task involves a lot of self-control as, despite the fact that all of these were hard, raw and not very tasty grains, some of my students were still asking for the permission to eat them, just to try. One of the boys even left the room because he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist but then he came back and worked well, only talking about eating our materials. I am trying to say that I was happy that I waited with such a task until the end of the year, when we had already our routines and rules developed and in place. I would not recommend doing it in September or until the group is ready for it.
The kids loved the work, too and, as you can see in the photos, the majority of them went for a traditional mandala, some decided to create chaos which is also beautifully represented in the world. Some of my Super Artistic Stars went for their signature items such as the rabbit and the goose or the cat which Alex, laboriously, constructed out of the buckwheat pieces. We had a few flowers, too.
This was one of the rare cases when I did not plan on displaying the art on the wall and all kids took their pieces home. I was worried that on the wall, unsupervised, the pieces might be picked up by some of the students and consumed. I really didn’t want to risk that and we do not have closed cases in our school in which the mandalas could be safely displayed. Plus, of course, everyone wanted to take their creations home, as soon as possible.
I was thinking of the ESL / EFL classes in which this kind of craft could be used and here are some of the ideas (although I feel obliged to mention that I have not used them in class myself, not in that format): a lesson on the natural world, a space lesson craft, with everyone creating their own planet, a lesson on big numbers in which we could count all the pieces used and, in a Science lesson – on grains and seeds.
The realistic representation of the world in a mandala
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.
‘Anka with fireworks’, my name card by one of my artists
Let’s go alternative in April!
We did! In every possible way.
The size
This was the final lesson in our beautiful and exciting series of the Alternative April series. I really wanted to experiment with the size of the paper. Initially, I wanted us to paint something really big and then something really small in order to really experience the difference first hand. However, based on how the lesson with the older kids was going (in one word: too slow), I changed that for the lesson with the younger kids and opted for the A7 only. We were working well but the creative process, the decisions and the composition, takes time and I didn’t want to rush us and in the second lesson I decided to keep things simple: just the little picture.
The materials
Initially, I had the wild idea of letting the kids choose the medium that they want to work with. It is not a bad idea but, I will be honest, the preparations for its implementation need to be more detailed and organised in a slightly different way to what I did. Next time I will and next time will be better.
In the end, my older students went for the simplest and the most basic, pencils and black markers, and with my younger group I chose for all of us and we worked with watercolours.
The Zebra Heart. Print.
The artist of the day…
didn’t come. The first reason for that was that I did not want to choose one and I felt conflicted about it. On the one hand, I really wanted to stick to the framework that I created for our course and we had always had at least one Master to inspire us. On the other hand, the topic that I chose for the lesson, namely ‘Spring’, is such an open-ended and all-embracing topic, that looking for the one was a task doomed to a failure. Plus, I knew that the format would be enough of a challenge and I wanted to give the children the comfort of working with it. I was worried that I would be limiting them too much, with the artist, the format, the topic and the resource. I decided against it. We sang the song, said hello, brainstormed all the associations with the word ‘spring’ and looked very briefly at a selection of paintings showing spring, without singling anyone out.
And then sat down to work.
How it all went
I know that I sound like a broken record when I say it but I will do it again: This was one of my favourite lessons ever and the reason for that is that, again, we set off on an amazing, 45-minute creative journey.
We all had to be very careful with choosing the topic for our work. The A7 format is a very small one and you have to take into account how small certain elements are and how much effort it would take to execute them.
All kids had three pieces of the A7 paper, attached to the table with the painter’s scotch (necessary!) so they could experiment with different approaches and they really did. The first pictures were usually the most cautious ones, the easiest ones and the least experimentative. However, since there were more pieces available, I could see how much braver and more confident they became in their following steps. Even today, while looking at the pictures, I can tell the order in which they were painted by particular kids. And it is amazing. For example, the triptych in red by Egorka, who started with a scene from Mars, all in red, then moved on to a superhero’s portrait and finished with what he called ‘a zebra heart’, in black and red that ended up being a print. Why? Because he noticed that the paper towels we had on the tables had an interesting pattern and he decided to experiment. Precious.
Three of my students painted only one picture but it is because they decided to make it more detailed and, naturally, these required more time, effort and attention. The other children went for a triptych and, one way or another, these three were connected by a common theme.
One of those three is the first in the world case of the Snail Art in which the artist traces the slime trail left on paper by her pet snail. Which, of course, was her own idea. No snails were harm in the production of this piece.
It turned out that this kind of art is a perfect exercise for improving focus and concentration. It worked like magic. For that reason it might be an interesting activity to improve in the general English classes, for example. I can easily picture it in our ESL / EFL courses, especially that the topic can be easily adapted to match the curriculum and it does not eat up a large part of your lesson. And if you don’t want to get into the whole watercolour mess, the same can be done with markers or coloured pencils.
For the time ever, I had not painted my picture before the lesson to show the kids. I wanted to experience the change of focus myself and I told them about it. This was also something that we did for the first time ever.
Having three pieces of paper came in handy with one more thing. As soon as I announced the topic of our lesson, the same question was asked, almost immediately. ‘Can we paint something we want?’ I mean, I always say yes in the end and inside of me there is one happy teacher celebrating the independence and the artistic freedom that my little kids want to exercise. But we did negotiate a tiny little bit, too and, in the end, they agreed that since we have three bits of paper, a lot can be done. Something that the teacher suggests, something that we really, really want to do…
It is beyond fascinating how much impact the A7 format had on our art, composition and work. Five stars, highly recommended. I hope you enjoy visiting our little gallery in this post.
The sunThe skyThe snail letters
The Snail Art
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.
This was to be our final lesson in the topic of body parts and, once more, after singing the hello and going over ‘How do you feel today?’, we went for our spinner game. I was really worried that we would not have enough time for anything else as I wanted not only introduce a new artist but also a new tool.
The artist
This was the second time we invited Pablo Picasso to our lesson. And the kids remembered! They were a little bit surprised because they met him as a one-line artist with the amazing animals (post here) and, at least some of them, a little bit taken aback by the sheer contrast between the two. I showed them a few portraits and we highlighted the main pointers of cubism (which we also talked about before). We also tried to find all the figures (shapes) in the portraits.
The art
This was a day when we would be experimenting with a new took – oil pastels and that is why I decided to demonstrated some of the basic blending techniques. You can find the ideas in the videos here and here.
Afterwards I demonstrated the double portrait that I made while getting ready for the lesson and we talked about its main features (shapes and colours). I also showed them the simplest way for achieving the Picasso effect by drawing one more face: a shape for the face, divided into halves, smile (ideally misshapen, mismatching halves) and shapes for eyes, nose and hair.The next step went according to the plan one of my students wrote on the board once: ‘3. Miss Anka Paint, 4. We paint’. We started to work.
The kids chose different ways of working with the oil pastels. Some combined them with pencil, some with markers and for some they were just a crayons replacement. But we also had a few properly experimenting with the new tool.
Some of my students refused to see the world through Picasso’s eyes. They really didn’t like his approach and asked if it is possible to draw their friends the way they want. It was more common in the older group, the younger kids just went for it.
Some of the students also asked if they can draw ‘something they choose’, not faces and I also said yes. Obviously, Kolya had his own idea for the interpretation of the topic and for cubism and I am happy I did not object. The house of spades, hearts, dimonds and cards is just beautiful. ‘One house in the city’, as he called it.
Some of them loved it, though, and the best piece of evidence is that they snatched the paintings as soon as possible, to take them home. I barely managed to take my photographs.
We also had one character sitting for a portrait, my new portrait and a few other precious creations.
The Star Girl that you can see below is a joint effort between me and one of my youngest student who decided to help me with the colour. I decided to save it here not only because I am happy with my design but mostly because it shows how the kid’s creativity develops as they go through the task. I drew the face and started to colour it, in the most boring of ways but soon I was joined by my student who took over and decisively so. It was fascinating to see how many different ways of colouring, blending, shading and working with oil pastels he came up with during that task. The final product – below.
Watching the kids work was a real pleasure. One of my students was working on something hard that, from afar, looked like her trying to create one big, colourful, many-layered blob of pastel that some, less patient, might label as ‘trying to destroy all my pastels in five minutes’ but the final product, the girl with a horse, proved me wrong. Experimentation was just experimentation, and one of the many steps towards beauty.
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.
We continue the topic of body parts. It might not be the first topic that comes to mind when you think about the alternative art or our artist of the week but I body vocabulary is exactly what we need now. This is why we continue practising body parts in songs and in our favourite game with the body action verbs that I described before here. All in all, the language was not our main focus in this lesson and only one of the sub-plots. But it will come in handy in the following month when we are going to concentrate on the human body in art.
‘Oooooo’ (A confused one)
The artist
I have decided that this month will be our Alternative April. I would like to take the Monochrome March a little bit further and after experimenting with the colour, we are going to play with the formats and approaches and this was our first lesson in the series.
Shantell Martin is the artist that I have found only recently because she popped up on my social media but it feels like I have known her for ages. I might have. After all, her prints and patterns are everywhere and it is quite likely that I saw her on t-shirts or walls. Now I got to put a name and a face to it.
I was very curious how my students would react to her and they did not disappoint. They were curious, they looked at all the works with interest trying to interpret them and to find the words (a bonus task for reading in English!) and they really liked the fact that she is so young and that she is still alive and active. I think it is a signal for me to try to include more contemporary artists that we can connect with on one more level.
We looked at a variety of her works and talked about them a little bit, about these that we liked or really liked. We looked at different formats and modes she creates in and about her many interests that have an impact on the visual art.
However, our lessons last week had one more guest who made a cameo appearance and that was Paul Klee since he was the author of one of my favourite art quotes, namely, ‘A line is a dot that went for a walk’. I brought this up, together with the Bird and the Cat (that we re-created as a stained glass and that still makes our windows prettier). I also put a on display a lot of different types of lines as a source of inspiration.
‘A cat’
The art
Last week we worked on the A4 paper because I wanted to make sure that children have enough time to fill in the entire page. We also got a new tool – a black permanent marker, with two ends, a thick and a thin one for better results. The children were told to choose their own subject, their own types of lines and that they could combine words and lines, too.
As usual, I also showed the children how I experimented with Shantell’s style as I brought three small pieces of mine. Afterwards, we got down to work.
I know that it is easy for my readers to perhaps get an idea that I get excited for no reason or that I make everything look picture perfect for every post. I don’t. I get excited because my kids are so responsive and every lesson is a hit. It is not for everyone in the same way, it is not for everyone to the same extent but I sew and I reap.
The most interesting thing is that the basic materials did not hinder my students’ creativity. We only had the black pen and the white paper but everyone got very creative and some of my students managed to create a few different pieces. We worked on ours, moved around the room a bit to look at what other students created and once something was ready, we would give it a title. You can see the amazing pieces all around the post here. The lesson took place about a while ago but only now could I take photos of everything. I am revisiting this lesson after three weeks, I am looking at their pieces and, again, I am amazed and I am proud.
Shantell’s lesson was one of those days when I ‘lose’ most of the artwork. Not because I am forgetful or clumsy but because my students behave like real artists and they find it hard to part with their precious creations. It is easy to spot when it is about to happen because they carry them around everywhere and then, when I ask ‘Can I put it on display?’, the answer is short and simple: ‘No!’. On a good day I get to photograph what they have created and I am head over heels that I can do that, at least.
What I like about this particular artist and activity is that it could be easily adapted to any of the topics in a regular EFL kids lessons and now I have a lot of evidence to prove that from my students since they created their pieces on the topic of emotions, places in the city, fairy tales, animals and transport. And the materials are very easy to get)))
Here are some pieces created by my students:
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.
