Dear You Art Project

Mail Art + Pen Friends = Dear You Art Project

Oil pastels

Looking around and what do we see?

2016, 6th Grade, Canada, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

Here are the photos of the spiral artworks for Look Around project. The index cards are their explanations of their artworks. Some of them painted outside, some painted inside because it had gotten too cold the one day to paint outside of the portable! :)

These works are all on their way to Päivi and her students. They were posted earlier this week, so hopefully they arrive before the holiday break! 

Teacher Kaarina Losey

The 6th graders at Ryerson P.S. in Cambridge, ON, Canada are making and sharing art with the 6th graders from The English School in Helsinki, Finland.

Enjoying Layers of Love in Canada

2016, 6th Grade, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, CanadaArlene TuckerComment

Greetings from Canada! 

They really enjoyed the artwork as they got going with it. A few students used too much paint in an attempt to cover it completely and then had the paint flake off instead of allowing them to etch it off.

Some were very hesitant about painting over their artworks. :) Others enjoyed it so much they asked to do a second artwork jn the same manner!

Kaarina

The 6th graders at Ryerson P.S. in Cambridge, ON, Canada are making and sharing art with the 6th graders from The English School in Helsinki, Finland.

Sneighnten CofE's Layers of Love!

2016, 1st Grade, 5 years old, 6 years old, Mexico, United KingdomArlene TuckerComment

These are the responses from the children - 

I liked all the different colours
I liked scraping all the black off...it was like magic!
It surprised me how good it came out
The colours look like he is under the sea, it looks amazing. just like he is under the sea!
I liked making the patterns
Wow...the is amazing, I am going to do this at home

The children love love loved this project!!

Nina Evans

The 5 and 6 year olds in Class 1 from Sneinton C of E Primary School in Nottingham, UK are making and sharing art with the 5 and 6 year olds in Prepri C from Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

From Inside to Outside, the layers are exposed

2016, 6 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Finland, MexicoArlene TuckerComment

The artistic boys at Espoon kuvataidekoulu (Espoo's Visual Arts School) had fun creating the inside and outside of their character's home using scratch art technique.

When everybody came into the studio, on the tables were their characters they had sculpted out of clay and then painted.  They were so happily surprised to see how their figures changed when fired in the oven!  These were the characters they invented for the first project, Lights, Camera, Action! and have been continued into the following project, Layers of Love.

After some discussion about their characters we moved on to where they live.  Everybody had a unique response.  We first created what their home looks like on the inside.  The colors they chose also help convey the feeling of the place.  The artists were a bit wary of painting over the oil pastel drawings, but once they understood how scratch art technique worked, they got very involved with drawing the outside of their home.

Each one is unique and tells their own story!  We hope our friends in Mexico like these artworks!

With love,
Arlene

The 6 year old artists from Espoon kuvataidekoulu in Espoo, Finland are making and sharing art with Prepri A, the group of 6 year old artists from San Patricio Colegio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Connecting, developing, exploring, and integrating through making art

2016, 4 years old, 3 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Mexico, SingaporeArlene TuckerComment

Making a connection at home and in school
Our children wanted to have a clearer view of their exterior home hence they drew simple pictures to represent different things such as potted plants, grass, building and windows. This guided them into thinking of the smaller details that exist in their home environment.  In this experience, our children reinforced on their fine motor dexterity while learning to manipulate the writing tool while expressing their creativity through representational drawing.

Developing a sense of appreciation
Home-school partnership was present when our parents contributed into our inquiry learning by sending in pictures of their child’s favourite spot at home. Our children were actively participating in ‘Show and tell’ sharing about why they love that particular spot and how they would feel if it was taken away. This experience created a sense of appreciation of what they have and made comparison to children in other countries who may not have the same privilege.

Expressing creativity through drawing
While making doodles using the oil pastel, most of our friends observed the colour change when the colours overlapped while others were very focused on covering the white spots of the paper. There was an exchange of prior knowledge about how their individual homes look like from the outside view.

“My building is not tall. There’s only three floors.’’
“Mine is at level twenty-four but it’s not scary.’’
‘’There are lots of plants outside my home so I need to water them otherwise they will die.’’

Exploring technology
In creating a fond memory of our drawing, we included technology and learned the importance and efficiency of making copies using the photocopy machine. Here, our children identified the red and green buttons. Literacy was involved as they learned to spell the words ‘start’ and ‘stop’. In addition to that, they observed how the machine is operated and the process it takes to print a paper. Sounds of the machine captured our children’s attention as they listened attentively while the machine is making copies of their home exterior drawing.

Integrating inquiry with Math concept
After all the learning at the photocopy machine, our children sat down and began matching the original to the duplicated copy. When someone asked, ‘’How do we know whose are these?’’, another friend took initiative to bring in their name cards. It was a clearer view looking at everyone’s copies of work and this created a sense of achievement and teamwork for everyone in class.

Exploring different textures using different mediums
In order to identify the different view of our homes, we used different mediums to represent our home from exterior and interior view. At the initial stage, the exterior part of our house was the focus as they drew and coloured using oil pastel followed by covering with a layer of acrylic paint. Soon after, our children learned the ‘scratch’ art technique as they explored different tools and drew their favourite spot in the interior house while referring to their photo from home.

Sending a message through letter writing
As we learned that words contain messages, our children verbalized their messages to their friends in Mexico while the teachers wrote it on the paper for our children to trace over. While doing so, some of them identified sight words such as ‘you’ and ‘and’.  Although it was tricky in ensuring the film stayed still while they were tracing, most of them were meticulous and patient in fulfilling this task. 

Regards,
Nurul'Ain

Nurul'Ain, N2B teacher, and her 3 and 4 year old artists from EtonHouse Bilingual Pre-School in Singapore are making and sharing art with Marianna Diaz and her 4 year old artists in Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico. 

From Circle Time to Colour Time

2016, 3 years old, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Mexico, South AfricaArlene TuckerComment

The Toddlers at Oakdale Montessori followed with the lights, camera, action theme. We asked the Toddlers to colour in 2 shapes ad Triangle and a Square with this project. As the theme was about inside of a house. We decided to make houses and decorate the outsides. The Toddlers coloured in with wax crayons and the painted the square for the house and the triangle for the roof. As the Toddlers are so small we did as staff help them with the windows and the smoke.

The Early Childhood class gathered together during Circle time and spoke to them about how we received Elma the Elephant and this time we will be sending back art in a shape. The children chose a square to work with. I think that fun was had by all watching the colours come up through the paint work.

Thanks so much!

Regards,
Rebecca

The Toddler and Pre-school groups from Oakdale Montessori Preschool in Cape Town, South Africa are making and sharing art with Nursery C and Kinder C classes from Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.