Different kinds of work

From the creative mind of one of our students, who also tackled her YLE Movers Test last weekend. Had to share her skills!

Monstress self-portrait!

Monstrous self-portrait!

Self-portraits & self-awareness

As I was trying to explain the personalities in our classes last week, I realised we don't have much to go on in the school! We do a lot of stuff with the children but don't display enough of the their work in the classrooms.

I saw a blog post by a new twitterer & frog collector I like called Juan Alberto Lopez Uribe @jaluribe
on this topic recently, and it made me decide we need to do a bit better this year. I strongly recommend following Juan on twitter, and giving his blog a good read.

So today in classes we made a nice poster of ourselves, and the things we like - favourite animals, food, our height etc. I am also going to print a small picture of each of the kids so we can compare our artwork! I think this is a very nice way to get back into the English mood without being too much of a shock to the system :) It will be cool to compare self-impressions too, as students get older! I was glad we did not get any stylised pictures - often very 'manga' images become prevailant in Japanese kids' drawings.

I have recently started using Class Dojo on my phone to try & keep track of students at the kindy I go to, but the problem I have with the app is that I cannot add personalised icons or avatars for each child. As there are about 200 there, I can never remember more than a few names (but I do recognise all faces!) I would like to exploit this app more, as there are cool parental functions as well...for now we stick with Edmodo (which I wish parents would engage with more!)

Grumble over - come & see our new wall art!

Friday artists & body parts

I can't draw to save my life (left part of my brain seems to be used for other things) and I think my students in Japan break down into two schools of art - boys and the 'let's make this look like a car crash' and the girls 'identikit manga with 7 million erase moments'. Very general observation (me? I am thinking about using my feet to save embarrassment).

I prefer the rough and ready approach, but with a mixed class was interested to see which would be dominant, as I asked my crew to draw each other (and tasked them to draw someone not their buddy - and  not reciprocal, as that can lead to 'retaliation' if someone's head is 'too big' or they suddenly grow a beard etc). This immediately provoked gales of laughter, and reaching for erasers (me - confiscated all of them), before some actually serious efforts. Interesting to see their perceptions of each other, and their reactions to their own portraits.

Language aim was to nudge them to draw in more bits, as I wanted them to label their body parts (new vocab, after the head & shoulders usual suspects). I added a line to certain parts and underlined how many letters they needed, mission was to go find on a wall poster & identify/spell it nicely.

This was a nice (and noisy) activity with the summer heat making book work too uncomfortable to think about. Should make nice decorations at home as well - nothing sticks to our walls we've discovered. And who knows, maybe we have a famous artist in our midst!

King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table

I’ve read this story when I was a child. Now that I almost don’t remember the story, I enjoyed it. I found the story has not only adventures, battles but also love, romance, unfaithfulness and so on. When I was a child, maybe I couldn’t understand all of the stories.

Image by litmuse via Flickr

My favorite story is chapter 6, ‘The Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. One day, a green knight came to Camelot and said ‘Cut my head by my axe and then I cut your head.’ If you hear it, it might sound awful or strange, but Sir Gawain tried to cut the green knight’s head. After the green knight’s head rolled onto the floor, surprisingly the green knight was not dead! Then he picked up his head and held it by the hair. Next turn, Gawain should be cut his head by the green knight. He had to made a long journey to a castle where the green knight lived in order to die, but he didn’t escape from deadly event. I found it knighthood like Bushido. (I will stop explaining this continuation because I don’t want to disturb someone who didn’t read it.)

I like adventure like this. For example, ‘The load of the ring’, I became to want to see the movie. I think the final battle between Arthur and Mordred would be very exciting if I watch it on a movie. I also want to see exciting scene which Morgana changed her figure to dragon. I searched the movie on the web site and I found some. I want to watch it some day.

Posted for Masao K.

dictadraw - art direction

I had an interesting lesson yesterday with one of my classes practicing their use of prepositions and the present continuous tense to describe a picture or scene. Perception is an important part of the whole process as the artists' partners had to look at a picture and describe it for their partner (who couldn't see it). The students could only draw what they were told - so it really was not a test of 'art' or drawing skills!

The three pictures on the left are based on exactly the same picture, so you can compare and contrast the details - where is the glass? What is the man doing? Is he thin? Likewise, the three pictures on the right were also based on the same picture.

The key to describing a scene is getting the main, key points described simply, and naming them/establishing their role in the middle of the picture. After the skeleton has been set, the details can be added easily in relation to the base and each other, or compared/contrasted with them.

This was a lot of fun, so thanks artists and describers for your hard work and pictures.

Anybody can draw

If you have kids - if you teach - if you think you can't.....click here

I always thought I was rubbish at art. When I read today that Tony Hart had died I was genuinely sad. I am still crap at art, but maybe, just maybe, some of you following this link will be inspired and his legacy will live on. If ever there was an understated genius who could inspire children to draw, create and make things it was this lovely, quiet man.

One of the earliest memories I ever have was of the Vision On music, Tony Hart's gallery and the dream that maybe even I cold get a picture in there. It doesn't matter that I didn't...(no, really. I'm over it!). Watching a few clips tonight I remember the "wow factor" that went with his art - so simple, with bits and pieces from the kitchen, and done in no time. What an inspiration.

A Picture to Remember

Q.2 Which museums or art galleries have you visited?
Are there any pictures that you remember very well? Why?

I visited Anker exhibition in this May. It was held at Matsumoto city museum.
Albert Anker(1831-1910)was born in Ins of Switzerland.
He is not known well in Japan though, he is popular in Switzerland.
His painting is really realistic. I was especially impressed by the painting of grandfather and two grandchildren. I thought that the painting people are look like real human when I saw it.
I hope to see it again someday.