Art lessons re-visited

April 24, 2012 · By ·

Screen Shot 2012 04 24 at 5 55 35 PM

Out of curiosity, I walked into an art school with K on Saturday.

I never really had the intention of signing K up for an art lesson, it was just an attempt to see if the art classes offered from this school was worth sending a child to. The trial was after all free, so the cheap mom in me grabbed the opportunity for K to experience a short session and to evaluate the programme.

The boy was very enthusiastic and gamed to attend the trial, since he tend to enjoy doing those paint art craft activities in those malls, and thought that this was something similar.

Before K entered the class,  I asked the lady at the counter area a whole host of questions;

Me : Can I know how are the lessons conducted?

Lady : We will show you the final product after the class so that you can decide if the programme is suitable for your child.

Me : Arhh.. isn’t art more about the process and not the product?

(After reading those early childhood art development books from Susan Striker and attempting many art activities with K from some of Mary Ann Kohl books. Hearing this words from her sounded the alarm bells in my head, especially when I am so influenced by these authors that art is ‘the process and not the product that matters’, when it comes to teaching art to young children).

Lady : (she looked quizzically at my comment)

Me : Oh ok, what I meant was, what is the structure of the lesson like? What are the children taught and how does the teacher teach them?

Lady : Oh 30 minutes, we will let the children do free hand drawing. Then the next 30 minutes of the class the child will do this activity.

The lady behind the counter showed me a A4 printer paper that was divided into half, the top part of the paper showed a black-line drawing of an apple, and the bottom half was blank.

Lady : The child will be asked to draw this apple, and use oil pastels to color the picture. Afterwards, the teacher will guide the child to teach some techniques of blending, just like these pictures you see on the wall. (She pointed to the colored creations pasted on the studio’s wall that were done by the other students)

Me : So what exactly does a child learn in foundation class, and then after that, what do they learn when they progress to the higher levels?

Lady : Foundation course is for kids between 4-6, where they will do tracing, follow the dotted lines in the picture, and then color in the picture with the blending methods that the teacher will teach. Then after that, when the teacher thinks that the child is ready, we will move the child to Level 1. They will learn composition, layering, and the gradation of colors. See this picture (she pointed to another set of pictures, with a consistent Orange in the middle of the picture, and the rest of the pictures was filled with the children’s own drawings). These pictures are from Level 1 and 2, the child will be given a picture with a line drawing of a orange, while the rest of the picture is blank. The child can fill in the picture with their own drawings and then blend the colors on the picture.

Right after 45 minutes, Kyle emerged from the class, and the lady behind the counter showed me his ‘product’ from the class. I was not able to show the picture on this blog (they are probably afraid of people like me, who will do this…heh). And what I saw was a nicely blended picture (right to left – dark red to lighter red, in 3 gradated shades) of the apple on top, and Kyle’s self-drawn and colored purple apple at the bottom of the paper.

Well, I squirmed myself out of not signing up for the classes, by telling the lady behind the counter that I am still evaluating which art school to send Kyle to.

I think if a child attends the class, they might eventually reach this stage of being able to blend an apple, or any other thing very nicely.

Screen Shot 2012 04 24 at 6 09 37 PM

Just a random picture of an oil pastel blended apple from google

 

I told hb that the experience was quite a disappointment, and his remarks were, “It is only $35.00 per class, what do you expect? Blending is after all still an art technique to teach the young ones. This is a supervised activity of sorts for the young children, you can’t expect the teacher to be passing down the technical details of art in that 30 minutes per lesson to the child. I hope you are not expecting that the teachers are art graduates or NAFA trained? Art is like how it has been in ancient times, children go under the tutelage of famous artists, who all then hand down their expertise. Teaching art needs a lot more time and effort on the part of the teacher.

I did not quite agree with the part about being an artist to teach a child art. I am not an artist, but I think using the right techniques + with the help of books, guiding K over time to build his creativity and interest for art is possible. I have after all taught myself to sew and to craft, and I think that can be considered another kind of art form.

So, I walked straight to the bookshop right after K’s trial session, to buy a box of 50 oil pastels for K.

Next up, art lessons home-learning style!

See this youtube video for quick tips on blending with oil pastels

See this previous post on picture books about art and creativity.

And here is a great article from Sarah of The Playful Parents on introducing the concept of geometric shapes in art, as shape is a foundational concept in teaching a child art.

 

 

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Another first

December 12, 2011 · By ·

Time is passing unbelievably fast. We are into the last 3 weeks of the school holidays and last weeks of 2011. I can hardly believe that we are going into 2012 in less than 3 weeks, and Kyle will be going into K1.

If I had a choice, I wish that my child don't grow up so fast. He is slowly losing his cherubic babyish looks, he lost his baby-smells many months back and is too quickly growing into an often sweaty and not so nice-smelling mischievous boy :( 

He still has his endearing personality, when I told him that I hope that he will not grow up so quickly, he said; 

"Mommy, I tell you something"

"I tell you what. I grow taller but I don't grow older ok, I will still be 4 years old for my next birthday…"

Aww…actually I would prefer that he doesn't grow taller or older, and will always remain my little baby boy.

I think he still can't wait to grow up quickly. He is always asking when he will be able to sit all the rides at Universal Studios, grow taller and stronger so he can hit golf balls much further.

We brought him to the driving range for the first time recently, and he is really enjoying the game and turning out to be quite a natural at the sport. I think his interest for golf plays a huge role in his quick progress in learning how to play golf.

After all of 90 balls and a little blister on his finger (after hitting too many balls and gripping the club a little too hard), he is looking all sweaty, rosy-cheeked and happy from his first experience at the range.

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A new milestone

August 31, 2011 · By ·

Was contemplating whether to share this on my blog. But after thinking it through and after a chat with Pauline, she was right to say that we keep our blogs like our online diary to record our memories of parenting, kid's milestones, our challenges and interests at specific points in our life.

Ok then, it's my space and I can share whatever I like, really doesn't matter even if I get labelled.

So the latest milestone is that Kyle can read.

I discovered it about 4 months ago and it pleasantly surprised me. When he turned 2 and a half years old, I started teaching him letter sounds phonetically and we spent about 18 months learning all the letter sounds at his own pace. Thereafter, I introduced word families end of last year to get him started on blending, but he was not responsive to that method, so I thought that it will be best to take a break from all reading activities for a while.

We took a break for about 4-5 months and did not do any reading activities, except for bedtime stories that I would usually read aloud to him. I spent that time evaluating if his slow progress was due to a lack of interest or just simply non-readiness. Then in April this year, I decided to give it another shot, pulled out the phonic readers from my bookshelves, and started reading it aloud to him by sounding out the sounds and blending the letters together. I did this consistently for about 2-3 times in 2 weeks and he was able to pick up the blending method through the modelling method. During the last parent-teacher meeting prior to the June holidays, his teacher remarked in a surprised tone, "he can read!"

So at 4, is it still considered early to reach this milestone? In my perspective, the exact age or timing is of little consequence. What matters is that I picked up on the indicators that showed that he had a propensity to learn to read at a specific time. And I am quite certain that I would not have the same ability to be so sensitive to his unique time table if I were a full time working mom.

I hear alot about moms posting on the local parenting forum, enquiring how they can help their child to read at 2. Seriously, why would you need your child to read at 2? Unless, the mom can say with a resounding "Yes!", when asked if she thinks that the child is ready to learn to read at that age, then by all means go ahead. But please do the research on the various methods that will be best suited to your child. The problem with most who participate actively in forums is that they will go what seems popular amongst other parents and follow the advice shared, which may not be a suitable method for their child's learning style.

What worked for Kyle was that since he is a kinesthetic and auditory learner, he learned letter sounds through games and songs, and could grasp the concept of decoding when I use the modelling method. Coupled with lots of good quality phonics books which he enjoys and plenty of read alouds on a daily basis, which I think encouraged his reading development. Half the battle is won when the parent encourages their child's interest for books. When the child enjoys being read aloud to, they will eventually be motivated enough to want to read books by themselves.

He is undoubtedly a lazy reader. He will initiate picking up the phonics readers these days, but he will ask me to sound out all the letters individually for him, while he blends it together. So this may not the most ideal kind of reading development, but I am thrilled nonetheless. I can now take my time and let his reading development 'take-off' naturally the next two years. And he can start to use his new found skill to entertain his grand-parents to bits by reading environment print out loud in their presence.

As for chinese language development, that's a different story altogether. It's an uphill task and we are progressing at super snail's pace.

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