Methodology

I will see the children one hour a week. The school year covers about 36 hours/ sessions. Dividing these sessions into six basic areas ( drawing, painting, printing, collage, sculpture and textiles ) for each class means, for example, that each group can do painting six times during the year. 

The sessions are planned to introduce children to a wide range of tools and techniques, to encourage language and discussion, extend and use previous skills as well as developing further skills. Links are made with the work of artists.
A certain flexibility in planning is always necessary. I encourage and respect each child's way of working and I let each one work at his or her own pace.

Each unit is planned following the same scheme. Few activities are one session work, some activities are projects to carry out in more than one session, some activities are open and  the children have to decide which work to do, the materials, tools, techniques to use and finally, some activities will be done visiting a museum, an art gallery or having an artist come into the classroom. In that way, Sant Cugat del Vallès is a city of artists.

The scheme of the units:

• Title of the unit and a picture related to the activity
• Sessions
• Focus, the first objective in black is the one to write on the board for the students
• Material
• Resources, links to the webs, books, Artists or students artwork.
• Talk about, How to introduce the activity. Useful information they need to know
• Sketchbook, for pre-task activity, to record information or drawings or to practise techniques
• Doing, the steps to develop the activity or activities
• Developing the idea, further activities or simple options about the units
• Vocabulary and Language, PDF with the art key words and the language useful to talk about the artwork
• Assessment, usually sentences or questions about the process and the final artwork.

Visiting a museum

Visiting a museum, gallery, site or any visit outside the school are considered activities to be planned. The visit would be most effectively used at the start or in the middle of a unit of work, so that work back at school, can be based on the information and experience acquired. If it is used at the end of a unit, it can round off work in an enjoyable way.

When planning a visit teachers need to:

   - To do a preliminary visit to the museum or gallery to work on the plan,
   - A map/plan of the museum or gallery,
   - resources packs or guides from the museum,
   - Pictures, painting, booklets for the classroom.

The room should be suitable for Art, with sink, tables, stools, board and lots of space for visual vocabulary, posters, works, key words and sentences important to help children to understand and use English. Most of the materials and tools have to be labelled to  help children and teachers.

 Moreover, there will be a resource library corner, with art books and dictionaries, where students can consult, inform, clarify or look for a free extra work, and finally, having a computer will be very useful for the presentations, flashcards and information.

Pupils will work in groups, pairs or individually alternatively. Every day they have to choose a child to record the keywords and expressions used in the class and write them nicely.

The learning objectives are Art and English. But because they will be in an Art lesson, the major aim has to be to develop pupil's artistic sensibility while learning some skills of communication in English. Teachers must help the children to understand using  a wide range of possibilities.

Some of the activities will have a language activity associated, word search, crosswords, order step by step sentences  to do the activity, classifications, match  words with pictures or definitions, etc... And other activities will be introduced by a power point, a web page, a book, or the information children bring to school.

I will always write the learning objective on the board and children will copy it in their sketchbook if it is appropriate. Writing the objective on the board at the beginning of the lesson is one of the things I found interesting to focus the attention of the students.

Children will be encouraged to develop the habit of using the sketchbook for:

  - recording, exploring and storing information, notes, selected materials;
  - for working out ideas, plans and designs;
  - for looking back and reflecting on their work, reviewing and identifying their progress;

Finally, here are some top tips I consider important:

• Don't put children down for what they've done. Always support and encourage them.
• Art can be the starting point for a mass of other work.
• Always be really well prepared before an art lesson with the right materials.
• Art doesn't have to happen in the afternoons.
• Be flexible and be prepared to set the classroom up differently if it works better that way.
• Emphasize that art is a totally valid way of having ideas and communicating.
• Take the class to galleries, museums...
• Getting artists in the classroom, would be  fantastic.

Units in mind to prepare in future:

• Drawing: Still life, Movement, Animals
• Painting: Landscape, Names design, Aboriginal Bark painting
• Printing: Linoleum, Vegetables
• Collage: Wall paper, 3D collage
• Sculpture: Masks, paper Mache, Toys, pop-up cards, origami
• Textile: Dying, Puppets