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!