#teachingenglishthroughart Archives - Page 5 of 7

Crumbs #73 Winter, winter and cheering up Mr Levitan

March 30, 2024December 9, 2023 by Anka Zapart

This is a double lesson, actually. Right now my Art Class has been divided into two, the younger and the older. Sometimes they take part in the same project, graded to their level, sometimes the project takes two different directions. This is what happened to Isaac Levitan this week. Here are all the ingredients and all the activities. Feel free to mix and match as you see fit.

Raised Salt Paintings. Santa. No watercolours.

Raised Salt Paintings. With watercolours.

Ingredients

Winter vocabulary: we used the following Art Winter, as the theme for the entire month.
A recording of Vivaldi’s winter, the first few minutes.
The winter scene craft: glue, scissors, pencil and paper: one big square for the box, green for the trees, white for snowman, colourful for presents and white tissue for the snow. I was considering the following version here but it was too complex for my kids. Instead I recycled what I did last year. You can read about it here.
The raised salt painting: pencil, cardboard, pvc glue, salt, watercolours. You can see the tutorial here.
And, of course, a few of the copies of the winter wonderland according to Isaac Levitan.

Procedures

The lesson for the younger kids started with the vocabulary introduction and practice. We did a bit of drilling and some miming. We are going to be working on these in the weeks to come. So far we have only used the simplest ‘it is’ and ‘they are’ but I am hoping to take it further as regards description (It is big / small. It is hot / cold) and Present Continuous (Santa is running, reindeer are jumping) and hopefully towards picture description.
With the older kids, I wanted to introduce a new element, namely music. I told them about Vivaldi and his ‘Four Seasons’ and then we listened to the first two minutes of ‘Winter’. The kids were asked to listen and to think about their associations with the music. Afterwards, in the open class discussion, we talked about their impressions (Do you like the music? Vivaldi thought that it show what winter is like. Do you agree with his vision?).
Afterwards, we introduced the Artist of the Day and both groups looked at a few examples of the winter landscapes painted by Levitan. As usual, we talked about our impressions (Do you like it? Is it sad / happy? What colours can you see?)
Next, I presented the finished product to the kids. I showed them how the winter scene can be changed by adding kids’ toys, with whatever the kids had on their tables and in their bags.
With the older group, I showed the kids the final product and showed all the materials needed to complete the task.
We made the scene in the following stages: drawing and cutting out the snowman, drawing and cutting out two Christmas trees (aka triangles), drawing and cutting out the presents (aka squares). We prepared the pyramid (cut and glue) and started glueing in the figures. The task finished with tearing up the tissue to glue it on the floor.
The older kids were given a complete freedom as regards the choice of the design. I prepared a snowflake but they were more interested in representing their favourite things in this drawing, and I allowed for that. We did everything in a few simple stages: giving out the cardboard, drawing the design in pencil, covering the lines with the glue, sprinkling it with salt, using watercolours to add colour and leaving them to dry.

Why we like it

Both lessons were successful and, again, we managed to combine English, creativity and some interesting techniques. I used two different approaches with both age groups but I am actually very curious how the younger ones might react to Vivaldi and what kind of winter wonderland my older students might create. There is the following week, so who knows? And, naturally, when my little kids saw the drying salt paintings on the window sill, they immediately started to demand that we do it, too so we will have to. I have already promised.
The winter wonderland is relatively easy to prepare. To make it more achievable for my younger kids, some of whom are preschoolers, I prepared and folded the squares before the lesson. All of the parts of the picture are simple shapes (circles, squares and triangles) and, if the kids are ready, they can add the little elements themselves or just draw them with a pencil, for example the ribbons on presents. We didn’t do it but snowflakes can be added to the picture, too, for example with a white marker or a pencil. That has to be done before assembling the pyramid, though, otherwise it is a bit tricky to draw on and it can be destroyed by accident.
I was demonstrating the activity, step by step and we took our time, to make sure that everyone could finish their cutting, before moving on. If the kids are younger, the task can be made much simpler by limiting the number of trees, the teacher preparing a simple snowman cut-out beforehand. If the kids are ready, Santa or the reindeer can be added to it.
The raised salt painting was a lot of fun to create. No matter what you draw, the colours seeping through the salt make it all look amazing.
The process is easy to stage and to manage as the teacher gives out and collects materials needed for every stage and kids themselves can grade it to their level by drawing something very basic or something more intricate. They drew their favourite animals, they wrote their names or prepared signs with their favourite things.
There is a danger that the salt will make it a bit messy but if you have a big box, a bit bigger than the size of carboard you are using, everything will be great. With the older kids, we used paper plates, from which we took the salt and where it shook off the excess. Please don’t remember that it is not a good idea to touch the paint and the salt, turning the paper upside down and gently patting on it will make the excess salt fall off without destroying the picture.
The watercolours can be added before the glue dries which makes it all feasible within a lesson time. The pictures can be left to dry overnight and taken home or put up on the following day.
Upd: I did the activity with the younger kids, too and I simply loved how teacher friendly it is. Because of the number of the materials needed and the process, the activity practically stages itself.: cardboard and pencils for everyone, pencils away, glue for everyone, glue away, salt for the kids, one by one (I did use a big box! See the photos.), watercolours for everyone, watercolours away.
The finished product (especially if done on the recycled carboard) looks like gingerbread cookies. So pretty!
I really liked how the older kids interacted with the art and the artist. I have a very creative group and some independent kids who already have developed a taste for Warhol and Malevich. For that reason, I was a bit worried that they might find Levitan, well, boring and too unimaginative. However, that’s not what happened. My kids were stunned that a painting so realistic could even be created and some of them came up to the screen to check and to confirm that it was, indeed, a painting and not just a photo.
I was also very happy that we added music to our lesson. They listened with interest and they were involved in the discussion later on, sharing their views, although, actually, they did not agree with Vivaldi’s interpretation of the winter-themed music. Apparently, it is too energetic and too loud and winter requires peace and silence. I will be experimenting with adding music to our lessons. The younger group first, with Vivaldi himself, and then some other tunes for the older group, too. I hope that, eventually, we will be able to find someone who wrote the good winter music that matches my students’ tastes. I will be very curious to find out who that is, because I, myself, love Vivaldi’s winter.

Happy teaching!

Paul Klee, the cat, the bird and the accidental stained glass. Teaching English through Art

March 30, 2024November 1, 2023 by Anka Zapart

All the stained glass pictures on the window

The language

I have decided that November will be the month of animals, apparently, for no apparent reason whatsover, just because because. This week was our first lesson and we only focused on introducing and revising the vocabulary using the wordwall cards and playing a great animal sounds quiz that I found on youtube. This is my favourite because it has some less obvious animal sounds and it offers three options, with the visuals and the written words on the screen. It makes it quite challenging, even for the adults who play it the first time but it also offers some support so the kids can learn the new language from the game. There is also a feedback aka the answer, a short video with the animal making the same sound. We have played it with a few groups and it has always been fun.

NY Moma klee cat and bird – Cat and Bird – Wikipedia

The artist

Our artist of the day was Paul Klee and his Cat and Bird, but, somehow, although I have taught this lesson before and I had all the materials ready, this time round, we did not spend any time on talking about the original picture. I was planning on describing different birds and describing different cats using photographs and then on revising the shapes in the paintings which would be a nice connection between the Month of Shapes (October) and the Month of Animals (November)…But it just didn’t happen. We started a bit later (autumn camp and a general mayhem in the school) and I was really preoccupied with the logistics of the technique. However, now that all our cats are on display, I am going to use this idea in the following lesson.

The art

I have used this painting in class but previously we went for simple watercolour and the cats turned out beautiful, too. This was the main aim and the main preoccupation of this lesson because we were to try and to experiment with a completely new technique. I have been on the lookout for new things yesterday and that is how I found out about the melted crayons. My main source was the post on the Artful Parent (which is one of my favourite creative directories) although I adapted it to the needs of our bigger group with a slightly different objectives.

I used the same technique for preparing the crayons, the grater worked just fine (and then all the tiny, unusuable crayons stubs went home to be recycled and melted into brand new crayons, the link to the instructions can be found here) but instead of plates or muffin cups I decided to use sheets of baking parchments. Once I had enough shavings, I simply folded each colour separately and it worked very well during the lesson itself. The kids were passing different little packets to each other, opening them, taking the colour they needed and passing them on.

Preparing the picture was super simple, it is easy to find the Klee’s painting as a colouring page and to make copies. We were sitting at a large table (aka all the small desks huddled together) and each child had a large sheet of the baking parchement and a copy of the picture on it, in my attempt to contain the mess.

We started with colouring in the smallest shapes (the diamonds in the eyes, the heart nose and the bird). Afterwards, everyone was just picking up the shavings in pinches and putting them on the picture. I also gave out paintbrushes which we used as brooms to sweep the shavings off the lines and unnecessary places. The packets with colours were travelling around the table.

As soon as someone was ready, I showed them how to cover the picture with a sheet of baking parchment (we had to use the one that was under the picture but, ideally, I would have had another one for each child, to keep the tables even cleaner) and I walked around with my iron, ironing one picture after another. The kids peeled off the baking parchment right away and put the pictures away for drying and cooling down. I think, overall, we got better results with covering the picture with the baking parchment the matte side down but there is some room for experiments there.

In the following day, I framed all the pictures in simple frames made from the coloured paper and I put them up in the window. I used all the pictures, those that we intended to be pretty and also the baking parchment prints which turned out to be interesting, too!

It needs to be mentioned that I did not intend these as stained glass, despite the fact that this is how I found them. I only wanted a new and interesting technique but the thin layer of crayons really looks beautiful on the window so this is how I decided to display them in the end.

Overall, I think that it is better to be economical with the shavings. First of all, the pictures seem to be more interesting and, what is more, too much shaving creates a thick layer that might crack while drying and it is also quite likely to stick to the parchment more. I still recycled those (as stained glass pictures and for the second ironing round) and I love how they look but, initially, some kids were a bit disappointed with the outcome.

When I am using the technique again, I will definitely start with drawings, either done by the kids or photocopied, just for the framwork. Unless, of course, we decide to create some melting crayons Jackson Pollock…I would also love to try following that up with the drawings or a simple collage…

P.S. Here are my new cool, chunky crayons from the recycled crayons stubs and the leftover shavings…

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 69 A heart, a heart! I can see a heart! A slightly different approach to Art in English

March 30, 2024October 28, 2023 by Anka Zapart

This was our final October Art Explorers lesson. I was preparing for using Paul Klee’s The Bird and the Cat because the painting does include two hearts as well as other shapes, a perfect final lesson. However, in the middle of the preparations and my trying squeeze everything in one academic hour, I decided to go easy on all of us, myself and the kids. I changed the concept entirely and chose to focus on the technique, for the first time ever in my Art Teacher history.

Ingredients

A pile of cards, A5, enough for everyone to try a few techniques.
Pencils, crayons, watercolours, salt, tissues, hand sanitizer, a paper clip.
For the older learners: a heart as a symbol in brands.
Videos for the teacher to learn about different watercolour techniques. I have taken my ideas from these: here, here, here and here. Thank you)))

Procedures

First of all, I watched all the videos to learn about different techniques and to choose those that will be feasible in the classroom with my kids. The next step was creating my own hearts, a whole set, with different techqniues before the lesson time, in order to be able to show the students the final product. I kept to the same colour for the kids to be able to see the different effect and the impact on the texture and not to be distracted by the colours.
We started the lesson in our usual way, with the hello song, taking the roll call, singing the song about the shapes and looking for the shapes around us. With the older students we also did the heart in brands quiz.
Afterwards, we looked at all the techniques to try in all my samples. While we were doing it, I was also demonstrating the most important tools ie the cloth, the plastic, the salt, the paper clip (for scratching).
Then we just started to create. All the kids would take the cards, draw the heart and then try the new technique. We would look at the final product, talk about it a bit and move on to the following technique.

Why we like it?

It was a lesson like one big experiment, in which we were moving, from one stage to the other, with a lot of curiosity and excitement.
This time we have done the following: salt on the finished picture, salty water as the base, scratching the surface with a paperclip, drawing the patterns with wax crayons and painting over, finishing the picture with a cloth, splattered paint, the broken brush (aka printing with a split brush). I also had the plastic bag for the final touches and the alcohol prepared (aka the hand sanitizer) but we did not have time to use it in the end.
I have to admit, it was not the most productive lesson that I have ever taught but it was an wonderful opportunity for all of us to do something different.
I was very happy to see how the kids were allowing themselves to try something else, something new. At first, they were just following my instructions closely, using the same tools and the same techniques and then they were leaving all that behind and taking one more step further, with a particular technique or with a mixture of different techniques. At this point, we were all looking with curiosity at the outcomes. It was a very beautiful moment.
If this is an option, I would like to recommend looking at the final product on the following day (or in the following lesson). The drying time really does make an impact and the creative lesson might be followed up by gallery walk, expressing opinion and choosing the most interesting heart and technique.
This activity would be a perfect Valentine’s Day celebration in Art Explorers and I was almost sorry that I used it in October. I might be coming back, actually, with more techqniues!

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art: Malevich

March 30, 2024October 21, 2023 by Anka Zapart

The language

Malevich was the hero of the first October lesson but somehow, it landed in the wrong order on the blog. This whole month we are learning about shapes and you can read about some of the ideas for these here. Thanks to Super Simple Songs we have two cool songs about shapes, this one and this one, and they can easily be turned into a game as we go on singing and looking for shapes around the classroom, on the walls, in the alphabet and on our clothes. I don’t.

The artist

There could be only one painter to be invited to this particular lesson, of course, Kasimir Malevich and the Black Square. We started with introducing him and we looked a few of his paintings. I rarely include a lot o detail from the artist’s biography but here it might be quite interesting to see how his creativity went from ‘just realistic paintings’, through many intermediary stages, casting off realism and colours, to the Square.

Because at the time, we also had the mixed age groups and levels group, we could discuss symbol in general and what symbols exist in our everyday life for example the symbols that are logos of different brands or the symbols that we have in the streets or in the public transportation. This is how we arrived at the square that could be a symbol, too. We also looked at some of the parodies of Malevich.

The art

The preparations for this lesson were quite limited: markers, glue and scissors and a lot of coloured paper. I had white and coloured paper for the background and some bigger and smaller black squares for the main protagonist.
I showed the students my example and the kids were asked to pick a square and the colour of the background. Then, they went on to glue, to cut and to create.
I was monitoring and discussing the choices. I also helped them translate the titles for their creations.
As can be seen, not everyone was very concerned about the perfection of their squares. It is my fault because I gave them relatively big squares and rectangles for them to make their own decisions regarding size. Some of the kids decided to glue them as they were. It is ok. i don’t think Malevich would have minded.
I loved the creative process and I was so proud of them for having created all these lovely pieces. The Camera by Nikita is just briliant and it was actually a 2D creation. The Labirynths by Kostia are out of this world and, although I don’t understand them, there is some link to some computer game. Apparently. One of my students, Sasha, kept walking around the room and trying out the square against different background and, surprise, surprise, she ended up choosing the black one, taking Malevich one step further. With the older students we also had a great discussion in which we shared why we like the square so much. ‘It is like the silence in a picture’, was one of the lines in that conversation.
I can’t wait to teach this lesson again)

Happy teaching!

Teaching English through Art: Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night

November 9, 2024October 21, 2023 by Anka Zapart

The language

October is for us a month of shapes and every week gets a different shape hero. Because of that at the start of the lesson we revise shapes, sing songs, look for shapes around us and talk about shapes as symbols and our associations with this particular shape which last week was a star.

The only trick is to prepare a great variety of activities to make sure that everyone stays interested but, beginning October, at my school we introduced a new element to the format of our Art Explorers classes. Our group used to meet twice a week and we had quite a few students, younger and older, from pre-school to grade 4. It was not the best solution as there was a huge gap as regards the lingustic skills and abilities, motor skills and abilities and creative skills and abilities. Luckily, we were able to divide the group into two, the older and the younger and this way adapt the course and the activities. The lesson I am describing here was taught with the older group. The younger kids practised the same vocabulary but their focused task was different, the one that I did before with the same lesson (see below).

The artist

In a way, I was waiting for this lesson. Starry Night by van Gogh is this one painting that immediately puts me in a good mood (although I cannot help but think about the paradox of how such a troubled soul managed to create such a peaceful image) and it is probably one of the most easily recognised paintings and kids respond to it immediately. I have already used it in the magic wand lesson, with the younger kids and I was looking forward to taking it to another level with a more advanced group.

As usual, we introduced the artist, together with his country and his favourite things. We also looked at different interpretations or parodies of the painting which can be easily found online. They all feature the amazing background of the starry night and…anything: Batman, Snoopy, birds, cats, ghosts, Santa, Mona Lisa and a city of your choice. This is what became the inspriation for the art part of the lesson.

The art

It was relatively easy. The main ingredient to prepare was the starry night background that we printed in colour, one per child. I was considering preparing it ourselves, from scratch and it would have been amazing but our lessons are too short and there was no chance that I could do it over two different classes. For that reason, I decided to print.
I also brought a lot of coloured paper and just some regular white paper. The main idea was to draw the shapes, figures, objects for your picture, to cut them out and to glue them back on the starry night background.
The images that you can see in this post were created by my students and as you can see, they represent different directions that the kids decided to take. There is another Halloween van Gogh, inspired probably by my example, a Starry Night Malevich that got carried over from the previous lesson devoted to a square (and Malevich, see the post here) and we had a starry night that became the setting for a meeting…
The best thing about this kind of an approach is that any student can produce something according to their abilities, either something very intricate, beautifully drawn and cut out or, on the contrary, something very simple if they don’t feel confident about their drawing skills. I have also decided that next time I am teaching this lesson, I will be also bringing newspapers and magazines for the students to be able to make the collage even more fun and feasible. This will be also beneficial for the students who are not very confident about their drawing skills.

With my younger group, preschoolers and year 1 of primary, I decided to do something that I have done before and something that was a huge success. Instead of creating a picture, we created out own magic wand with the use of two stars (printed, cut out, decorated, glued together), a chopsticks (although a wooden stirrer will do, too) and some ribbons. The regular glue stick will do the job well, you just need to apply a lot of glue on both stars. Don’t worry if they look a bit damp and unappealing, they dry well and if they are given a chance to spend a night among the pages of a big book, they will also be flat and just perfect.
Oh, and one more thing, with my regular English classes, we create wands whenever we need a tool to practise Present Continuous (‘Abracadabra, 123, you are…) or just whenever we learn something that can be mimed, for example pets or toys.
As you can see the last few pictures come from this year’s Autumn Camp which we taught in two groups. I decided to go for a proper collage whereas my colleague, miss Victoria, decided to upgrade it and use mixed media methods: a picture painted by the children themselves and then decorated with stickers. I simply love the idea and how it turned out. With preschoolers, btw.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #63 Musical Challenge meets Andy Warhol

March 30, 2024July 29, 2023 by Anka Zapart

Ingredients

A set of markers and a simple handout (eight circles and numbers)
A video with different music samples. I have used this one here, devoted to the unusual instruments.

Procedures

In our case (City Camp), the whole day was devoted to music and in the first half of the day we: learnt the names of the instruments, played different games with the vocabulary such as miming, guessing the name of the instrument by the sound and we made our own shakers. I came up with the idea for the musical challenge to follow-up on all of that.
First of all, we revised all the colours and we talked about the associations between colours and emotions. We used those that the kids were familiar with (happy, sad, angry, tired, sleepy, hungry, crazy, scared, energetic).
I showed the kids the handout, with the eight empty circles and numbers and asked ‘How is number 1?’ and the other numbers. It was clear that they had no colours and no emotions.
I told the kids that we would listen to music. ‘Is it a happy music?’ ‘A sad music?’ ‘Are you scared?’. I asked them to close their eyes and played the first part of the video. It is important to mention that I used my laptop here and the kids were not able to see the screen and the instrument. I did not want them to get distracted by the image and I was hoping that we would be able to focus only on the sound and the associations.
When the music stopped we talked about out emotions and the best colour for them. Afterwards we coloured the first face.
Later on, we proceeded with all the other pieces of music in the same way.
In the end we watched the video again, this time properly but we also paused and talked about the emotions and the colours, comparing our pictures.

Why we like it

This activity is a variation of the Musical Challenge that I often use with my older students. Initially, I was considering using it in its original format but later decided against it as some of the kids in the group were too young and I was worried that I would not be able to explain in English that they can draw anything they want, that they should be quick and avoid adding too much detail and that we would not really be able to talk about the results properly as the children do not really have enough langauge for that. Instead, I mixed the Musical Challenge with the Andy Warhol lesson.
I loved the way the activity worked. As an English teacher, I should probably start with the fact that it gave us an opportunity to produce a lot of langauge because kids started to make some comments even during the listening part and continued later, while making decisions about the colours and while presenting their smiley to the teacher and the group.
The same video and handout can be used with older and more advanced students because the music samples / emotions can be used in an extension acticivity i.e. group the samples/ emotions, choose your favourite, create your own instrument and play some music, choose one sample / emotion and tell a story etc.
It was also amazing that everyone could produce as much as they were capable of. Since it is a city camp group, we have some mix of abilities but since it is an open-ended task, kids can produce a little bit, the bare miminum (‘It is sad. It is green and yellow’) or a lot more, fully justifying their choices.
As an Art teacher (and yes, I dare call myself that), it was absolutely amazing to see how well kids responeded to an opportunity to look at the world from a slightly different perspective, making the connections between the colour, the music and the emotions and representing it on paper. During the entire activity, it was easy to see how the kids actually did take time to think about their impressions and how to express them best through langauge and through colour. Sometimes, they would make an immediate decision, while listening and then rethink it and change it. And the conviction with which they did it was a wonder to behold.
As a teacher of children, I loved this activity because it gave us all an opportunity to express our own personal views and opinions and to learn that everyone, the kids and the adults may have a completely different opinion and that there are no right or wrong answers. So at the same time, it was also a lesson on learning how to respect other people.
A busy/lazy teacher loves this kind of an activity because it takes about 5 minutes to prepare and to set up.
For us the activity was the final project but it can also be used, in a shortened version, as an introduction or a lead-in activity to any lesson related to music.

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art. Jeff Koons and his rabbit

July 28, 2024June 3, 2023 by Anka Zapart

The language

The activities mentioned here were a part of the final lesson of the month and in the unit on animals. We practised the names of animals and we tried to make very simple riddles about animals (‘It is big. It is green. It can swim’). In this particular lesson, for the first time ever, I invited the children to make their own riddles and, with the help of the teacher, they managed.
I also introduced the forest version of ‘Walking in the jungle’, which very conveniently, includes a rabbit.
We used the finished product for practising the target langauge (Rabbit, can you jump? Yes, I can). We created a few questions (and I say ‘we’ because I only needed to start and the kids took over), answered them and then followed that with singing the song that we learnt in this unit (Little bird, can you clap, from Super Simple Songs) which turned into our own conversation and / or a version of a song (‘Anka, Anka, can you dance?’) which is now one of our favourite parts of the lesson. Kids took a lot of pleasure in answering the questions about themselves.

Porcelain edition Jeff Koons | Bernardaud Porcelain

The artist

Jeff Koons was chosen to be the artist of the day only because he was what came up as a result of the google search along the lines of ‘modern artists who drew animals’. His most famous animal is, of course, the balloon dog but I really could not think of a way of turning it into a fun craft activity in the online environment, without asking parents to purchase some unique resources. Plus, we made a puppy craft only a few weeks earlier and I wanted something else. Luckily, Jeff Koons created more than just one dog and a balloon rabbit was one of his creations.
We introduced the artist (name, country, favourite things) and we looked at his animals and tried to guess what they are.

The art

We started with checking all the materials: an A4 piece of paper (either the drawing album paper or just regular photocopying paper), scissors, glue and marker. I also sent the photo of the finished product to the parents so that they could help, if necessary.
As usual, I was modelling every step, then waiting for the kids to complete the action before moving on to the following stage.
First we drew two lines along the long side of the piece of paper and we cut along them.
Then I put the two strips together into a letter L (although in class I used the references from Russian and we made a capital letter G) and glued the ends together. Then came the time for the most challenging step, making the harmonica (or the spring (the reference that came from the student who had a slinky and called it a spring). I used the phrase ‘on the top, on the top’ while demonstrating how I was folding the paper. We glued the ends, too.
On the remaning piece of paper we drew a circle and drew the face of the rabbit on it. Afterwards we drew ‘two letters A’ for the ears and cut them out. We glued them together and then we glued them on the top of the spring.
Next, we drew ‘4 zeros’ for the paws and we also cut them out and glued them on the pieces of spring, two at the base and two somewhere in the middle. The glue here can be applied on the top or at the bottom of the piece and glued on, it does not really matter.
The rabbit was adapted from the original version from DIYArtPins to make it feasible in an online class but, still, it is the most complex and the most challenging craft that we have done in our online class. I had experiemented with it before the lesson, making my own copy, checking whether the quality of paper will or will not have an impact on the final product, visualising the stages and instructions. I was ready but I still got cold feel once we started to make it. However, my amazing kids who have been creative for two years and who have been creative online for one year managed. The youngest artist was supported by her mum and she managed, too. I would not recommend this activity for beginner online artists of beginner offline artists, either.
Without doubt, the rabbit is just cool. It is a real toy, made of paper and when you press it, it springs back or, we could and we did say, ‘the rabbit can jump’.

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art: Upgrading Picasso

July 28, 2024May 24, 2023 by Anka Zapart

The artist

This is not Pablo Picasso’s first appearance in our lesson because last week, in our unit on animals, we looked at elephants by different artists and among them was also the most amazing and the most beautiful elephant by Pablo Picasso (see below). Even then I knew that it would not be the last we see of it.

I was planning to introduce Pablo Picasso in our traditional way, with the country and his favourite things (faces, shapes and line drawings) and I have prepared our gallery for it, but, as it sometimes happens, there was no time for that in the lesson. We are going to catch up on that next time, in our final lesson in this academic year.

In this lesson, we only looked at different one line animals created by Picasso and we tried to guess which ones they are using this set of visuals on wordwall.

The language

This lesson was a part of our Animals unit and the langauge that we have been working on and this was one more chance for us to use and to practise the following langauge: names of animals, categorising animals (big and small, I like and I don’t like) and, most importantly, talking about what animals and what we can do, using I can and I can’t and a series of verbs. We have based it on the song from Super Simple Songs, Little Bird, and we have been working on extending the list of verbs beyond the song.

We have already been playing with the spinner, asking the question: ‘Can you jump?’ and doing the actions to prove that, yes, we can but not as much language came out of it, even though it has been one of our favourite activities recently. This Monday, however, we started to adapt the song and sing it for all the kids, one by one (‘Sasha, Sasha, can you clap?’) and, finally, the langauge came out it. The girls were either singing or singing-reciting their answers, in full sentences. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

The art

In the last few lessons, we have done a lot of work with paper, scissors and glue, creating various toys. It was fun and lots of it but, at the same time, I was getting ready to introduce a new technique in our lessons. That is how the idea of upgrading Picasso came about.

I have looked through all the amazing line drawings that Picasso created and I was experimenting with the animals that we could all draw in class, online. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to give up on the chameleon (although that would have been the animal to upgrade with colours!) but I will leave it for another occasion. The flamingo and the horse were the other ones that I was considering but decided against, in the end, because they would be a bit too complicated for the younger students.

Eventually, I have chosen the elephant, the fish and the owl because they are simple and they represent three different actions and animals from the song which was also used during the craft activity. The verses of the song helped us to punctuate the activity as we sang it at the end of every stage of the craft, that is, after we completed the fish, after the completed the elephant and after we completed the elephant.

Before the lesson I experimented with the technique and checked with the parents that all the resources were available at home. In class, we went through all the resources, showing them to the camera, as usual: an A4 piece of paper, a pencil, paintbrushes, watercolours and two pots with water, one with the regular water and one with the water with salt.

First we drew the fish, step by step. I was drawaing one element, the kids followed and I waited for them to finish. This was not our first drawing dictation so the kids are now very good at following, showing the piece of paper to the camera after each step. Normally, I hold the piece of paper on a clipboard and I show it to the camera. This time, however, I decided to hold the camera over the paper because of the watercolours and I did it consistently throughout the activity. We drew three animals, one by one and put the pencils away.

The idea for upgrading Picasso I got from this great video on youtube. First, we prepared the based and covered the drawing of the owl with the water mixed with salt. The we put it away and started to apply the paints, first one colour, then the other. It is necessary to take some paint with the paintbrush and delicately touch the paper. The colour should spill and seep into the paper beautiful, opening like a flower. It has to be done slowly and carefully in order to be able to observe how that happens. After the first colour is applied in such a way, we repeat with the other or with the others, depending on what the kids choose.

In the end of the stage, I announced ‘I am ready. My owl is blue, red and pink’ and elicited the same from the kids. Afterwards, we sang the verse for the owl. This gave the kids a little bit more time to complete their birds.

Later on, we moved on the the other two animals and repeated the steps. I told the parents to leave the animals somewhere to let them dry completely.

My students were really involved and they had a lot of fun. One of them even used the animals to play a game with her dad and grandma (‘What animal is it? Can you guess?’). They drew their own Picasso animals themselves and they upgraded them beautifully. I was a very proud teacher that day!

And the most amazing of one line drawings and the most amazing of elephants that actually made me fall in love with Picasso…

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #59 Hello Elephant!

May 20, 2023 by Anka Zapart

Ingredients

One piece of A4 paper per child. It can be the regular photocopying paper or a sheet of the drawing paper, of regular texture, from a drawing album that kids use at school.
Markers or pencils, scissors and glue.
My elephant was inspired by the design I found at Creative Family Fun website, which I adapted to the needs to my group.

Procedures

Show the kids the finished product. I do not always do it but in case of this craft it seemed important to help the kids see the final product and to visualise how they are going to proceed during the entire activity.
Check that everyone has all the materials by going through the list, picking the items up and showing them to the camera, asking ‘Have you got…?’
Fold the A4 paper into halves, crosswise. Open the paper and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two.
Put one of these halves aside. It will be used later for the trunk and the ears.
Take the other piece of paper, hold it lengthways (with the longer edge on the top), draw a line along one of the shorter edges
Closer to the top edge draw two eyes. It might be a good time to decide if the elephant is a boy or a girl and add eyelashes and / or a bow on the forehead.
Open the glue and apply some glue along the line that has just been drawn along one of the shorter edges. Roll and glue into a tube. Put it on the side.
Take the other piece of paper. Draw a circle. Cut it out. It is ok if it is not a perfect circle.
Fold the circle into half and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two semi-circles.
Draw the line along the diameter of the circle, on both semi-circles.
Apply the glue on the line, on one of the semi-circle and attach it to the side of the head of the elephant. Press. It might be a good idea to show the kids how to press it here – with the fingers inside the tube and the fingers outside of it.
Repeat with the other one.
Prepare the strip of paper that will be used as the trunk. It will be glued under the eyes and it might be a good idea to check its length and perhaps cut off a bit.
Roll one of the ends of the strip around a marker or a pencil. It will twist it a little bit and it will make it look a little bit more like a trunk. Apply the glue under the eyes of the elephant, attach the top of the trunk and press.

Why we like it

This is a relatively easy craft that can be completed by children online, although I would not choose this particular activity as the first craft of the year. However, it is appropriate for five-year-old children, half-way through the academic year or the children who have taken part in some craft activities before.
It is a simplified version of the original craft and it requires less preparation on the part of the teacher. It was ‘designed’ and tested with regular A4 photocopying or drawing paper, without any real templates or special resources such as the cardboard tubes and goggly eyes.
If the students are younger, the teacher might choose to cut up the paper before the lesson (one big rectangle for the body, one small rectangle for the trunk and a circle for the ears).
It is an online-friendly activity.
The finished product can be easily used as a puppet (if it is put on the two or three fingers of a hand). One of my students also turned it into a bracelet, only because she chose to use a bigger square and, in the end, it was big enough to be worn on the wrist. As such, it can be used in simple role-plays.
It definitely has the WOW element and kids get very excited to be able to make a real toy out of a piece of paper.
It can be used to accompany a story, for example ‘Elmer’ or ‘Dear Zoo’ as one of the animals.
Our elephants were very simple and white but they can be made colourful, very much in the theme of the elephant party we know from Elmer in which all the grey elephants ‘get dressed’ for the occasion. The teacher can use the colourful paper or the kids can decorate their squares before glueing them together into a tube. If there are some leftover stickers available, these can be used to decorate the elephants in the end.
We used the elephant as a part of our unit Animals in Art and English classes and apart from making the elephant we also looked and talked about different elephants created by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, among others.
We also had a lot of fun playing with the semi-circles. We used them as our mouse’s ears, cat’s ears, sunglasses, monkey’s ears and wings. ‘I am a butterfly’ as a lot of fun!

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art: Water! (and the Jellyfish craft!)

July 28, 2024April 1, 2023 by Anka Zapart

The artist

This is an unusual situation for me and for my course designer experience. This time the artist is not one person but a whole bunch and they are only connected by the theme of their paintings and this is water.

In class, I introduced a whole set of all the water words, in photograhps and in paintings, such as Turner, Hokusai, Monet and Levitan. We mimed all the words, we drank the water because when the picture of the bottle came up, we all realised that we were thirsty and we mimed all the words. We also started to talk a little bit about all the pictures i.e. I like it / I don’t like it. It is big and quiet, stormy, beautiful etc. There is definitely more to come here.

The language

There were two language aims in this lesson and, because there two, I am planning on the kids to be able to use them with ease after a series of lessons only.

The more important set were the ocean animals. I am planning to study ocean animals and then take it towards verbs movement and ‘I can’, ‘I can’t’ and ‘it can’, ‘it can’t’. We practised the names of the ocean animals and played different vocabulary games, such as One, Two or Many. We also sang ‘Baby Shark’, how else? We also categorised the animals into big and small on the Miro board.

The other set, for now on the back burner, are all the words related to water, which I described above.

The craft

It had to be a jellyfish, as the first of many life aquatic craft activities and the reason for that was the generally low level of challenge. Plus I have done this kind of craft before because it is easy and a great opportunity for the practise of colours and it can be done even with the youngest of students. Frequently, this has been the first craft in many of my year 1 pre-school classes. This is what it looks like.

This is a lovely jellyfish but I was worried whether it would be appealing enough for my already craft-advanced kids. I needed something to spice things up although without any fireworks because my lessons are online at the moment and I could not ask my online parents to buy something extremely fancy. I have to admit that I spent the whole morning last Monday, teaching my C1 English and my financial English classes, fully devoted to the lesson in progress minus the 10% of the brain that was trying to come up with ways of making the jellyfish more exciting. Effectively, because I remembered the tinfoil in my drawer. Bingo.

This part of the lesson started with us going over the list of all the materials ready for the activity (white paper, glue, scissors, tinfoil, markers) by showing them to the camera.

First step was to draw a big circle on the A4 paper. I modelled, of course, but the kids were supposed to do it themselves, without any stencil. It can be done this way because even if the circle is not quite perfect, the jellyfish is going to be a success. Afterwards, we cut the circle. Afterwards we fold the circle in half and we draw a line on the fold. In the end, we cut the circle in half, along the line.

The next step was to draw the jellyfish face on one of the halves. We drew the eyes and the smile and then the kids decorated their in any way they wanted. Some jellyfish ended up being princesses. I made sure we put them away, on the side, to make sure that we don’t glue anything on it until it’s time.

Next, we took the roll of the tinfoil and we tore off a sheet. Afterwards I demonstrated how to tear it into strips. It can be done with scissors but I tried before the lesson and it didn’t work very well, actually. Tearing strips off is more fun and, more or less naturally, kids choose how thin or how thick the strips are.

We take the additional half-circle and put the glue all over the half and then arrange the strips along the edge. In the end, we put more glue on the back of the jellyfish princess’s face and we put one on top of the other. Stick and press.

The jellyfish can be hung in the window or anywhere in the sun to let it reflect the sunrays or in the doorway to let it float in the air. If you can permanent markers, the tentacles can be decorated (inspired by Our Beautifully Messy House). My friend Michael also had a nice idea for an adaptation (being in need of a jellyfish carft but with not tinfoil in sight). He prepared a very simple template of a jellyfish (imagine not a half-circle but a half-oval) that the kids can cut out and simply cut the bottom part into strips this way practising their scissors skills.

Finally, and traditionally, we talked a bit as our jellyfish and we sang the final song.

Happy teaching!