#teachingenglishthroughart Archives - Page 2 of 6

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

July 21, 2024 by Anka Zapart

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!

Hokusai, waves and watercolours!

July 21, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language

This particular lesson was a part of our summer camp programme devoted to colours and that day was dedicated to ‘blue’ and all the blue associations, namely the sky, the water and the peace. For that reason, the language of the lesson was dictated and aligned with everything that we do in the other days of the session: talking about the things that are blue, miming and guessing, writing a poem about the colour blue and singing songs of which my favourite one is this one here, from Kiboomers, with a catchy tune and the repetition.

The artist

That particular lesson had a whole party of artists as I wanted the children to see a few different ways of depicting water in Art, with Turner, Hockney, Monet, Levitan and, of course, Hokusai. I live by the river and I have piles of photographs of the water and, as a joke, I decided to include one of my own photographs in the presentation. We looked through all of those, depicting a wild sea, a swimming pool, a pond with lillies, a wave and a river. Very briefly, we talked about the water being either calm or in movement and the children noticed themselves that there were no people in the paintings.

The art

For the creative part of our lesson, I chose Hokusai. He has been on my mind for a while, just waiting for the most opportune moment and this moment came. I also wanted something that my mixed age group would be able to handle and recreate. Calling Hokusai ‘simple’ would be offensive but it is a print, with lots of intricate elements but the power of the water can is really shown by the line and that is something that even the little kids can relate to and to act upon. And they did!

The other thing that I wanted to do in this lesson is the use of a variety of watercolour techniques. It was very tempting to go overboard and experiment on a large scale, using everything we worked with before (a post here), but my students are the moment are still beginners in Art and very young, so I decided to be a clever teacher and I chose only three: crayons and watercolours, salty water and what we called ‘a broken brush’.

Before the lesson, I cut up the paper and all the students got three pieces of paper (A5) which I attached to the tables with the paints scotch. This really helped to set up the activity as it was clear, from the very beginning that we are going to paint three pieces. The size of the paper made it possible as they easily fit on the small table and it was perfect as it would not require too much colouring and painting. Three were a feasible number in one 45-min lesson. We reinforeced that by counting the pieces of paper and matching them to ‘technique 1’, ‘technique 2’ and ‘technique 3’ which I wrote on the board.

At the same time, the most important piece of instruction for this lesson was ‘step by step’ that I kept repeating throughout the lesson. I wanted to make sure that no one will draw on all three pieces at the same time or just destroy the paper. Or anything else that a creative pre-schooler can come up with.

I demonstrated each technique for the kids, step by step and we went on to create. I left the salty water for the very end.

There are the techniques that we use:

crayons and watercolours: give out crayons, one per child, a crayon of any colour as it really does not matter and any colour will look good and then colour the picture with watercolours which will not affect the drawing.
the broken brush: give out crayons, one per child, draw the wave, proceed with colouring the picture but instead of smooth strokes use the broken paintbrush: pick some paint and make small stamps with the paintbrush, mistreating it and leaving prints similar what a duck would leave. When there are many of them, the wave get a wonderful texture, especially when different colours and shades are used. Even if the prints are done inexpertly, the wave is covered in blotches of colour and it looks lovely, too!
salty water: I walked around the room, adding water to the pots that all the kids had (in some cases we had to pour some fresh water as it was very dirty) and I asked them to stir it properly and then we used the water to dampen the paper as it is a wet-on-wet technique and then drawing waves and applying little drops of colour and watching how it spreads beautifully. Here, the crayon can be used, too, to sketch the wave but last week we decided not to.

It was a great lesson and I am very happy with the outcomes. The task was easy enough even for the youngest kids, especially that they had three chances and even if some of them did not feel very confident at the first step and the first wave, they all got a chance to do it again and it was visible how their confidence grew. Technically, it was not complicated so the kids could focus on the creativity and on enjoying the process. Which they really did, both my youngest ones and my oldest ones (that’s 5 and 8 y.o.).

We got a set of amazing pictures for all of them. It was interesting to leave the pictures for the lunchbreak to dry and to come back later to check, together, what changed and what they looked like in the end.

It is the camp so, of course, we had some new children joining the group and it turned out that this kind of a task had a lot of potential for the mixed ability groups, who had done nothing of the kind before and the combination of three techniques helps to build the routine even within one lesson. What’s more, this type of a task works very well for staging and getting the kids to listen, simply because we go ‘step by step’ and doing that is the crucial part of the process. It is good to have this kind of an activity at hand.

Sitting here, thinking that Hokusai was a great choice, for the kids and for the teacher, too! Now, I can dreaming of making a real Hokusai-inspired print. And of writing a few more posts that he accidentally inspired.

Welcome to our gallery!

Happy teaching!

Upside down art. White on black!

July 12, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The artist

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.

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…

Here are some of our creations:

Happy teaching!

Self-portraits or the final Art Lesson of the academic year

July 2, 2024July 1, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language

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?’

Happy teaching!

Erik Bulatov. A word that is also a picture

June 29, 2024 by Anka Zapart

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.

The artist and 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.

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.

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!

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!

Happy teaching!

Materials May: stone painting!

June 22, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language

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.

Happy teaching!

Materials May: Dreamcatchers! Our first Native American Art lesson

May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 by Anka Zapart

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 Catcher in 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.

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.

Hence the survey.

Don’t eat the materials! Salty dough creations

August 18, 2024May 18, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language and the artist…

…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!

P.S. A request!

It is very simple.

Hence the survey.

Materials May and Mandalas!

May 19, 2024May 18, 2024 by Anka Zapart

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hence the survey.

Tiny pictures. Alternative April #4

May 4, 2024May 4, 2024 by Anka Zapart

‘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 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.

Happy teaching!

P.S. A request!

It is very simple.

Hence the survey.