Making, sharing, and then talking on the phone with our friends about it!

Kids were really excited about this project, they kept thinking about places were their characters could live and almost everybody came up with more than one idea, and so, they asked for the opportunity to make 2 or even 3 projects. 

Andres said that his character lived in disney because it was the happiest place in the world. 

Renata said that her character could live in the beach because he loved to swim in the ocean. 

Anabella and Sofía Ayala came up with a make-believe land were their character could live, because after all, characters should be able to live anywhere we can imagine!

This was by far the most enjoyable project for my kids and I was delighted to see them so excited creating beautiful pieces for our friends in Nottingham!

Global Classroom:
The day finally came when we were going to meet our art pals! Kids came really early to school so we could make the time difference work for everybody. 

We had a computer ready to make the facetime call but for some reason the connection was not being successful. So, us teachers exchanged our phone numbers and used our mobile phones to make it happen. 

My students' faces were priceless when they saw their friends live! They sand and danced for them, and they watched their friends do the same for them! They exchanged questions and got to know some differences about our schools. I have to admit they were kind of jealous because in Nottingham they get 3 breaks and they only get 1! We got to sing happy birthday to a beautiful girl who happened to have a birthday that day!! 

They asked questions about what was the time, how was the weather, how they get to school, what do they eat for lunch, etc. 

For the rest of the day they kept talking about this amazing experience, and can't wait for us to have another global session! 

I can't thank you enough Arlene and Nina, for making this happen!!

Xoxo,
Vicke Benavides

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

Extending our inquiry into the world of 'Changes'

Mail Art 3 was another interesting project. It was amazing. We also extended our inquiry to 'Changes' in general where children talked about what 'Change' meant to each one.

What is change? What does it mean to children? Children usually use this word in context with clothes. However the meaning varies. Why are we talking about change here?

Children wanted to know if the changes in our environment are similar with those in other countries. Celin said that she saw snow in Korea. Emilia shared that it only rains in Singapore. Advaith shared that in some parts of India it snows. 

I started off by reading the 'Day and Night Monkey'. This gave the children the opportunity to converse about how night is different from the day time. A few children shared that they could only watch television for a while at night. Julian shared that there was once where the sky grew dark and he thought that it was night but it was not. It was going to rain. Ethan agreed with him and shared that the sky tricked him. He thought that it was going to rain but it was night time. 

I had an amazing time conversing with the children about 'Day' and 'Night'

Jordan drew about Night and Day Safari. He shared about how his mum enjoyed the fire show at the Night Safari and about how bright the fire was. He shared that the Night Safari was dark and there were no lights around except for the lights in the shelter. Emilia asked about why there were no lights. I shared with the children that sometimes when people go on a Night Safari, they do not carry torch lights as they might invite animals to them. Then Emila asked about what else they could do. I continued saying, " Maybe A fire torch where fire is used. Fire is hot and dangerous but there is a special way of using it so that you do not catch fire." Emila continued to ask, "But why fire?" Then I asked, " What happens to darkness when a candle is lit up?" Jordan replied, " It becomes bright." Emilia smiled and went, ' Oh yes!' Then children took off from there about how animals might shun away from the fire to protect themselves. 

Emilia drew buildings at LEGOLAND.She shared that the buildings were light green during the day and became very dark during the Night as she had to go to sleep. Everyone had to sleep too.

Jing Ru drew the Zoo. Jing Ru's focus was on colours. She shared about how the colour of the sign board appeared to have changed during the day and Night. During the day it appears Green and at Night it appears purple. Then she thought for a while and said "I think purple and red can make black." Great thinking! I loved it! Jing Ru can be given the opportunity to work with lights and paint of different colours." Then Adu came to me asking," What colour is this?" Pointing to a dot made by maker on his paper. When I said purple, he continued," It looks purple here right? But when I turn the paper to the back of it, it looks brown. How is that? "

Jeongwon drew her Mummy in a garden. She painted a story about how her Mum got eaten up by a shark when she went out. And that night her dad had to cook for the children and they all slept. In the morning, her Mum returned. She realised that she had been dreaming.

Ethan drew flowers and volcanos. He shared that some flowers bloom during the night and close during the day. Moreover he said that they can be found in india.

Adu drew Volcanos and shared that when everything is dark during the night, as the Volcano erupts, the lava will be bright. Besides he shared that not all the volcanos would erupt.

Xi Wen drew a legoland building. She said that the building is very colourful during the day. But at night, it will be dark only the windows will have colours and light.

Leeann shared about going to her cousin's house with her family. In her picture she drew the sun low that it almost touched the ground. She said it is going to be night time as the sun is going down. She also shared that everything(flowers)grow big during the day.

Julian shared about going to the Supermarket with his Grandma during the Night. He also shared about going to his cousin's home and playingswords during dinner. He had dinner with his parents' friends, went back and slept. He woke up in the morning and had his breakfast. He shared that he had the snack which Nicole had placed in the birthday goodies bag. Then he played tennis which was bought by his Grandpa from Kuala Lumpur. When it is morning, I saw a moon but it was not clear.

Nicole: It is Morning. I have drawn the eyes of Morning. Can you see the rainbow? I see the sky and the sun and the rainbow in the morning. At night, i see the Night star. I can see the birds flying and sleeping. My pool is blue at night and it is the same in the morning.
Celin: Night time is dark. The stars are sparkling. The sun is coming soon. Morning, someone gets up and smells the flower. The sun was hot and someone goes into the house. Then it was almost Night time again. 

Avinaash: I drew the sun and moon. When I wake up in the morning, i see the Sun. When i sleep in the Night, I see the moon. Then the sun come up again. Then the clouds also come out.

Zhi Han drew a girl and a bunny and drew told a story. ' There was a girl. It was the first day of her own life. When the girl goes out, she sees the biggest sun in the world. The girl finds a swimming pool which is icy cold and has toy sharks inside. Then the little girl sees a bunny hopping by. She feeds him carrot as he is hungry. Then the little bunny wanted to follow the girl home. The little girl took him home and asked her Mummy if she could keep the bunny. Her Mummy said, " You can shower the bunny and you can play." And then it was Night time and the bunny slept beside the girl on the bed. And she read the story,' The Hunter who Got To the Forest' to the bunny.

Jia Wen drew the stars, moon and blue sky for the Night sky. She drew a sun and yellow sky for the morning sky. She shared that she could see clouds and Sun in the morning and moon and stars outside at night.

Hope you enjoyed reading the stories.

Love,
Rachel

Nursery 2A, 3-4 year olds at 215 EtonHouse Bi-Lingual Preschool in Singapore are making and sharing art with the 4 year olds from Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

K1 have open arms for their friends in Mexico!

Today was an extra special Dear You workshop with the lovely artists at International School of Helsinki!  They were so excited to see what was in the package!  We read the letter from Kinder 3B and talked about their artworks.  Who is this frog character?  By looking at the artworks, what kind of personality does this frog have?  One of the best parts of this first share was reading the names of the artists in Mexico.  Some of us have friends or brothers and sisters with the same names!

Before the students came in from the park, Mrs. Maaninka showed me what K1 has been up to in their Unit of Inquiry, as part of PYP.  She showed me the great dioramas of the different landscapes and habitats they have been exploring. This subject coincided very nicely with the current Dear You project, Look around, which is about creating our character's environment using watercolors and wax crayons.

In circle time, we started off the workshop with an active discussion on what elements are in our environment.  When we step out of our school, what do we see?  The children said rocks, birds, trees, snow.  Oh, good thing they brought up snow!  I asked them, when I was here in October for the Layers of Love project, did we have snow?  No!  So that means our environment and our habitat changes.  We talked about these changes in relation to day time and night time too.  

We then shifted to our characters and thought about if we were at our character's home and stepped out for a walk, what would we see?  As you will soon discover, every artist in K1 was using their own imagination and making it come to life!

VA: In the day time there are bears who likes to wake up and eat berries. There are trees and lots of snow.  In the night time the bear sleeps so much under the moon light in the cave.

AR: In the day time it is sunny with a rainbow in the sky. At night time it is bright.

KES: Outside of Elsa's house is the blue sky, a bench, and yellow snow. At night time there are stars, sun, and moon, in the sky.

KEI: There is snow and it is dark at night time.

DEE: There are trees and it is dark at nigh!

MIC: Doodle saw two boxes and two dog balls. At night time there are star, trees, moon and one star is starting to break.

DEV: There is a house, trees, and raining rocks in the sky. At night time birds sleep in the nest in the dark sky with the moon.

SAS: In the day time there is sunshine and trees.

ENZ: In the day time you can see Darth Vader and rocks.  At night time you can see Star Wars, a princess, and Darth Vader.

SHR: In the day time, you can see a snake and princess Rapunzel. She was happy to see the sun! At night time, she is sleeping and there was a mouse.

GAU: You can see a boat on the water and mountains in the day time. At night time we sleep and the mountain looks like a letter.

ALE: This is Chewbacca's home. I am outside. There is a window. It is in the night time. It is a special house because Chewbacca lives there.

AIS: I drew a dog and he is going to sleep. It is night time. He has a tree home. There is a bear looking at his tree. It is dark outside.

SAT: I painted all sand.  There are snowballs. It is outside a boy's home. It is during the day, I see the sun. In the night time it is dark.

SPE: This is the night. The people are sleeping and the bad guys are trying to steal the candy. We are outside the treat's home. In the day time, I see candy rocks in the water. There is grass outside. The sun is shining, but it almost dark.

We hope you enjoy our artworks and stories!

With love,
Arlene and the artists of K1

The 4-5 year olds in K1 at International School of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland are making and sharing art with the 4-5 year olds in K2B class from San Patricio Colegio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Autumn in Berlin

I am happy to send you some pictures of our wonderful artworks. Our kids depicted our environments as they see it -  full of autumn colors and favourite places. You can hang our environments both from day side and from night side, they are equally beautiful!

Best regards, 
Lusine

Lusine Boyajyan and her group of 4 year olds artists from Kita Felix and Friends in Berlin, Germany are making and sharing art with Angy Castillo and her  Kinder A group from Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Tigers are grateful for their gifts from Mexico. And then make more art!

The Tigers were so very happy to receive artworks from their friends from Mexico!!  We read their letter and then proudly put their artworks on the classroom wall.  Gracias amigos!

For the Look around project we started off by revisiting where our characters live.  When we stepped out of our character's home, What did we see? What was there? What was the environment like?  Everybody's imagination took them to a different place!  We thought about what this environment looks like in the daytime and at nighttime.  Using wax crayons and watercolors, we made our imagination come to life!  

With love,
Arlene & the Tigers

The Tigers from Your School in Espoo, Finland are making and sharing art with Nursery A from Colegio San Patricio Cumbres in Monterrey, Mexico.  Both groups of artists are 4 years old.

ISH shares their Layers of Love!

The artists in K1 never seize to amaze me!  Each of the artist's home, which they made using scratch art technique is unique just like their character.  We started off the session by remembering who our characters are.  We dove deeper into our stories and lives of our characters and talked about what their homes were like.  What does the outside of their home look like?  What about the inside?  We used our own homes as reference.

K: The Ninjagos are playing outside in their yard on a sunny day.

DEV: Spiderman is dressing up in his house to get ready to fight the bad guys.

V: Elsa is coming inside her house to have snacks.

SH: Elsa is playing outside in the park, but all of a sudden it rains so she ran inside her house.

DEE: Elsa went outside and saw a swing and then she went on it. She saw a bean stalk and climbed up it and saw a castle and a giant.

G: Elsa is looking out the window and she saw somebody. She ran outside and played with them.

K: Elsa coming home from the market.

AI: Elsa lives in a home. She's looking at the Caste's garden.

SA: It's quiet inside the home.

MI: He lives in a den. He is hiding from the fire outside. He is safe inside.

EN: Living on the rocket, they are flying far away with the rocket. They are eating food inside.

SP: There is a tornado with spaghetti and meatballs in it.

SH: It is a car park with some tractors.

KA: Ninjago and doodle are making spaghetti.

AL: Piccachu is playing football outside the house.

SAT: The boy is playing with his toys inside the house.

As you can see everybody was open to exploring how we can use this technique to understand spaces and the revealing process of the different layers involved in life and in art practice.

We hope our friends in Mexico like it!

With love,
Arlene and the artists of K1

The 4-5 year olds in K1 at International School of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland are making and sharing art with the 4-5 year olds in K2B class from San Patricio Colegio in Monterrey, Mexico.

The Tigers know how to love!

The Tigers really amaze me with how present and creative they are! As if we were in the homes of our characters we were drawing the interior and exterior of their houses.  Brilliant!  Each one is unique and takes you to a special place.

Everybody was eager to draw with oil pastels and paint.  At first the scratching came as a bit of a surprise, but once they realized the affect it would give, they experimented away!

We hope our friends in Mexico enjoy our artwork and stories!

With love,
Arlene and the Tigers

The Tigers from Your School in Espoo, Finland are making and sharing art with Nursery A from Colegio San Patricio Cumbres in Monterrey, Mexico.  Both groups of artists are 4 years old.

Naturally and artistically!

From natural materials picking to using microscope convertor, our children became investigators zooming into this little gadget to look closer into the plants in our environment.

Following that, they did mark making on the clay using tools such as sticks and twigs to create lines similar to the ones on the leaves. This encouraged them to transfer their observation onto pre-cut paper before coloring using different mediums such as crayons and colour pencils.

Our final episode of this project was drawing a spiral and cutting along the line to create beautiful mobiles for our friends in Mexico!

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. 

Connecting, developing, exploring, and integrating through making art

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

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.

Sharing the Love!

Ms. Rachel, core teacher of N2A, presented Layers of Love project in a unique and meaningful way to her students. 

Our homes represent more than our financial assets; they have a deep and unique emotional meaning. Our earliest memories of home are often connected to our childhood. Layers of love (our 2nd mailing project with Mexico) helped us to contemplate about our homes, inside and outside. It was not a mere art experience that just involved paper, oil pastels and paint to enhance creativity but a reflective process that helped children to share their perspectives through illustration of what home meant to each one. 

I live in a tall building. I stay on the 7th storey. I have many books at home. I have toys in my home. The lift is on level 1. When you press the button, the lift will go up. I have a big table and a small table at home. I have big and small chairs too.

-Jiang Xi Wen

Nursery 2A and Nursery 2B, 3-4 year olds at 215 EtonHouse Bi-Lingual Preschool in Singapore are making and sharing art with the 4 year olds from Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Feeling happy in Singapore : )

We finally got mail from Mexico! Our children were so amazed to see a big envelope in each of their private letter box. Upon admiring the materials used to paste within the boundaries on the crafts, some of our children shared their prior knowledge about the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and did sequencing of the days of the week and matching the food crafts accordingly. 

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. 

The Layers of Love from Berlin!

I am happy to send you some pictures of our scratch project and the amazing stories of our creative artists. Our kids were delighted to see the new colorful images coming out as they scratched using very different tools: plastic forks and knives and other sharp objects. Some of them depicted inside of the place where the character lived, others displayed the outside.

Here are some of our stories:
Basti: This is a house with a chimney and smoke comes out of the chimney, down there is grass and the sun is up in the sky. Here I have a door and two windows. And here is my bed. 

Raphael: This is a house. Out of the chimney comes a thick smoke. It has a door and windows. Near the house explodes an askumet. In the front of the house are large cobblestones.

Leyla: It's a man with a house, a letter box and a tent. The house is full of ghosts. The doors and windows are broken. In the left corner is a heart for the monster. 

Maya: It's a scratch tree. It has leaves and they have different colors. It was a cat who scratched it all about!

Linus: It's inside the place but it's not my place because my place is very far away.

Aya:  It's a house. A heart. It's my house. It's raining outside and snows sometimes.

Lyn: I was in my room and my sister was in her room. My father wanted to go to Aldi (supermarket) to shop and then there were two monsters next to the house. The monsters were nice and wanted to get married. The sun war shining and my sister looked out of the window and so did I . The girl monster had a necklace.

Tarja: This is inside the house. There is one circle inside it. There is an umbrella with a very long holder. Here is a 4, that's how old I am. 

I am sending the parcel out today, hope it arrives soon and safe. And our friends in Mexico like our pictures and stories a lot.

Best wishes,
Lusine

Lusine Boyajyan and her group of 4 year olds artists from Kita Felix and Friends in Berlin, Germany are making and sharing art with Angy Castillo and her  Kinder A group from Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Small stories and big ideas from Berlin

Happy to send you some pictures from our project, Lights, Camera, Action!

Kids were excited to make their characters and to expand as they created more. I send you our small stories and some pictures.

Here are some stories from the group:

The rabbit goes for a walk. The rabbit melts because of the sun.

This is a monster. He likes stones and sweets. He doesn't like mashed potatoes.

This is a nice ghost. He eats meat, especially pork. He plays ball.

This is my mother. She goes for a walk and then to her work. She likes to eat rice and meat at home.

Lusine Boyajyan and her 4-5 year old artists from Kita Felix and Friends in Berlin, Germany are making and sharing art with the 4-5 year olds with Angy Castillo and her Kinder A class from Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Opening mail!

Our children enjoyed opening their mails. They loved them. We took out the crafts and placed them in individual envelopes and dropped them into the children's mail boxes.

With love,
Ms Rachel

Nursery 2A and Nursery 2B, 3-4 year olds at 215 EtonHouse Bi-Lingual Preschool in Singapore are making and sharing art with the 4 year olds from Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

The artists in Mexico inspire creativity for their friends in South Africa!

The children opened the Dear You Art Project which we received all the way from Mexico today. The children loved it - thanks so much. We read the Hungry Caterpillar to the Toddlers today and we are off to the Library to get an Elmer the Elephant book to read to the older class on Monday 

Kind regards,
Oakdale Montessori

The 3-4 year old artists at Oakdale Montessori Preschool in Cape Town, South Africa are making and sharing art with the 4 year old artists at San Patricio Colegio in Monterrey, Mexico.

Furry and cuddly reflections from Munich

Prior to receiving the project description, I was nervous about the supplies the project would need and if it would be age/ language appropriate. While most of the children I work with have at least a basic understanding of English, there are several that have no common language with the class, meaning that they speak neither English nor German. Therefore, class projects must be visually based to maintain accessibility. And even though Munich is a major city, simple supplies, like contact paper, can be difficult to obtain.

The project, “Light, Camera, Action” exceeded my expectations. It was specific without being restrictive and easy to incorporate into the previously scheduled classroom activities.

The current topic for our class is animals. We recently concluded our discussion on animals of the sea and were moving into land animals when we received the topic. We directed the conversation specifically to pets and asked the children to name all the different types of pets people keep. Many of the children do not actually have pets, so we asked them which kind of pet they would like. We then discussed the personalities their animals would have.

The kindergarten has two rabbits that are “everyone’s pets” but the children decided that rabbits are outside animals and would not make good pets.

To incorporate the use of light into to project, I showed the children pictures of stained glass portraits some people make of their favorite animals. The result was our version of stained glass, depicting cats, dogs, birds, and fish. They helped pack their artwork in a large envelope and are excited for their new friends in Mexico to see them. And they can’t wait to see what the other children created. 

Hallie Barrows
Munich German

The 4-5 year old artists at Elly und Stoffl kindergarten in Munich, Germany are making and sharing art with the 4-5 year olds in Kinder D at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico. 

Artists at work

Artworks on display

Colors of Us at EtonHouse in Singapore

The Art experience was wonderful. One child, whom I worked with lastly made a stunning picture. She chose to trace a picture from the book, 'Colours of Us'. She selected a picture of a dark woman who wore lovely jewels. The child traced the picture carefully. I guided her verbally, showing herareas which she overlooked on tracing, e.g. side of the face, pupils, contours etc. After tracing she decided on the colours of the tissue to be affixed. Pre-cut tissues which could be cropped further were provided. She chose yellow and carefully affixed them on the face. When I gave her a pink paper, she said that it was too big and cut it smaller to be affixed as a hairband. When she felt that she was done, she turned over the art piece at looked at it with amazement...I was surprised too. I asked her if she would like to use the marker to colour the little details. She accepted my suggestion readily and coloured the nails and jewels. It was awesome. Her friends who saw her picture asked if they could do one too. They were inspired.

The Art experience contained a surprise element...as children would only be able to see the big picture after finishing their work. It exhibited the child's personality when she selected her desired colours and shapes of tissue. The size of the picture e.g. the large face gave the child a bigger space to work on. This experience was a confidence booster for this child who often felt that she could not make beautiful picture like her older sister who was apparently able to create lovely pictures. I had another child who felt unhappy about issues with the size of the tissue papers and felt that it could not be cut to her desired shape and size to make the right fit. As such she prefered to use the marker which she could confidently colour within the boundaries.

Children should be given the opportunity to work with both large and small sized pictures creatively rather than comparing which might be better. They can work with their desired combination of colours to suit their taste as such they need time to think and work with different colour combinations. Exploring their work with a wide variety of light sources is something we were unable to do due to other work commitments at school. We observed our work on the light table which gave them a different appearance. When I photocopied the pictures they looked different too. We could have tried observing the pictures on the wall being reflected by a torch light or even on projector.  

Now children are interested in tracing faces... tracing a real image of a photo poses challenges which are different from cartoon pictures with definate lines or borders. We tried it at school. It was a different learning experience.

Sincerely,
Ms Rachel

Nursery 2A and Nursery 2B, 3-4 year olds at 215 EtonHouse Bi-Lingual Preschool in Singapore are making and sharing art with the 4 year olds from Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.

South African artists swim their way to Mexico with Nemo!

We introduced the Dear Art project to the Toddlers during circle and explained that our art is going to another school very far away in Mexico. In a few weeks’ time we will get the Mexico’s school art projects sent to us. Img0087 is the Toddler teacher showing the children where the other school is in relation to our school. The Toddlers used a fish theme as the average age in the class is only 2.5 years. We explained the theme as light, camera, action we asked the class what the favourite movie was and the children all said “finding Nemo”. As the class is very young we asked the class to colour in and decorate the fish to what they wanted it to look like. We asked them to close their eyes and think of their favourite colours. Each picture is the Children's own interruption of Nemo.

I introduced the theme to the older class also during circle time and also spoke about Light, Camera, Action. The children then decided to take shapes and use laminating pouches to colour in the shape in between the sleeve and then we laminated them to represent stained glass windows 

Kind Regards,
Rebecca

The Toddler and Pre-school groups from Oakdale 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.

Documenting our journey from Monterrey to the rest of the world!

Our artworks were shipped today!  I would like you to share with your students the whole experience so they can imagine what happens when you send an envelope to a far away land.  The project will also include "community workers".

Maria Elena Gonzalez, Preschool Principal at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico had the great idea to create a platform for her teachers to share the knowledge and extend the learning experience for their students.

The Nursery and Prep classes at Colegio San Patricio are making and sharing art with schools in Germany, UK, Finland, and Singapore.

Documenting our journey

Mail messenger saying good bye to our children while taking away our artworks all around the world

Weighing our packages to Finland and Singapore

Weighing our packages to the UK and Singapore

Wrapping it up for the air flight!