The Art-venture

I was feeling anxious about this week's lessons for my P4 classes as I had missed 2 weeks with them due to the National Day festivities and the PSLE oral examinations. I was worried that the P4s might not be able to complete their final art project (create their own cardboard sculpture), filing and reflection before the end of the term. This was amplified by the knowledge that Teacher's Day celebrations would take up week 10's lessons, leaving me with 2 lessons in the term. Against this backdrop of worries, a new task emerged - the P4s were to try their hand at designing their very own camp T-shirt for the upcoming P4 camp! My task was to introduce the details of the competition and collect the designs by the end of the lesson. The deadline set for the Camp T-shirt designs was tight, and there was still the Teacher's day drawing contest and 25th-anniversary feathers to complete. This was when I decided to seek advice from my mentor, and she reassured me of the order o...

This week's art class with the P1s reminded me again that lesson planning is really important as it guides us in structuring the flow of our lesson and preparing the materials needed. At the same time, its' implementation still requires some quick thinking and flexibility! The agenda for this week was for the P1s to continue learning some new paper sculptures techniques. I had intended for them to continue using the pieces of paper leftover from their previous lessons. Hence, I did not specially prepare any papers before class for the first P1 class I took on Tuesday as I'd thought that I could ask the students to cut the papers into shapes if needed. However, it took a long time for the P1s to cut out the shapes as students received paper scraps of various sizes, and I found it difficult to give out specific instructions for the cutting! This was when I realized that I could have better planned my lesson with a more thorough consideration of the limited abilities of my P...

This week's lesson objectives for the P2s were for them to complete their half-and-half artworks and to have them observe and discuss some Singapore-themed SYF artworks that featured the half-and-half technique. The discussion served as a trigger for their next art project, which was to create their own Singapore-themed artwork using the half-and-half technique! In a bid to convey the 3 'completion' requirements for their half-and-half artworks clearly, I employed visual aids in the form of images on a slide. Additionally, I went through all three requirements (an outline, title and artist statement) so they were clear on what was expected from them and got them to share why they thought each was necessary. Having seen that the P2s struggled with writing their artist statement, I gave them a few words that they could start it with ("My artwork is about..." / "In my artwork, I have shown...").  I also set aside 15-20 minutes for them to complete their w...