VISUAL ART thoughts #3: The Curriculum, Lesson Planning + Clay

Curriculum & Lesson Planning

During Lecture 3, we touched the tip of the iceberg on the Visual Art curriculum. Below is a flow chart that summarises the elements that need to be covered in primary school Art. There are 5 Areas of subject matter.

Diagram of the Visual Art Curriculum

In the lecture, we participated in a class discussion around ideas for units of work on the strand 'People'. Some ideas included:

• Biology
• Age
• People of the world
• Superheroes
• Aliens
• Body Parts
• Book characters
• Community
• Families
• Emotions
• Politicians
• Physical form

This list alone demonstrates the creativity, choice and fun you can have with Visual Arts subject matter, and it is also has strong links to other KLA's. I think that in the classroom it would be great to get the kids to brainstorm in this way, and perhaps have a class vote on which unit they would like to focus on. By giving students more autonomy, they will hopefully be motivated and excited about the unit.

For example, if the class vote was superheroes, you could then brainstorm what sort of elements the students could focus on. We came up with:

• Costume design
• Puppets and masks
• Internal biology (i.e. x-ray of the superhero)
• Appropriation - e.g. Batman into Batbaby, Batgirl. OR Batman in a different century.

We then discussed how to write a lesson plan for Visual Arts. The content that needs to be included is covered below.

What I took away from the lecture with regards to lesson planning was the basic structure of a V.A. lesson:

1. Explore
• How do we get the hook? How do we get the students excited? e.g. bring a turtle in
• Time to experiment and play with new materials
• Toy turtle
• Ninja turtles (even named after artists!)
• Poems
• Drama: movement about turtle
2. Developing
• Make the artwork
3. Reflecting
• Appreciating - an opportunity to evaluate their own work and others
• It is important to leave time to appreciate

I love the idea of teaching in a highly integrated way. For example you could make it turtle day or week, bring in a turtle, and spend the week revolving all your KLA's around this interesting and practical stimulus - Art, Drama, Maths, Literacy, Dance, Music!

The most important thing I took away from this lecture is that if you walk into a classroom and there are  30 identical artworks in the room, authentic artistic learning is not happening! This is all too often the case in classrooms.

Workshop Ideas:

Clay Photo Frames

In workshop 3, we spent our time manipulating clay. We were making photo frames.

1. Open one bag of clay at a time. You can opt to buy air drying clay if you do not have access to a kiln. The clay will need to be kneaded with the fingers until soft and to reduce air bubbles.
2. Shape the clay into the desired shape. This can be done using rolling pins and other tools specifically for use with clay.
3. You will need some water on hand in case the clay starts to dry out.
4. To stick two pieces of clay together, score the surfaces that will connect and add a little water.
5. You can also decorate it with beads, yarn, or similar if you want to. Just push them into the clay.
6. Place on a smooth, flat surface for 24 hours until dry
7. You can then paint the object.

Example of a child's photo frame made of clay