Outside lesson

April 01, 2017

I need to do more lessons outside. Give students a break from the four walls. It also gives them a nice dose of Vitamin D. Besides teaching Visual Arts to Year 7-11, I also teach one class of computers. It is part of the Technology Mandatory syllabus. I am a trained Visual Arts, Technology Mandatory and Design and Technology teacher.

With the computers subject, we are using the program 'Illustrator' to make a game logo, five game items and three game sceneries. I will include some pictures in this post. My school's network has been down for two days. Although most of the computers are now ready to be used, they need to re-download all the programs. I've already spent some lessons with the students drawing out possible ideas for their game design and completed a few theory lessons. Instead of punishing the students with more work, I decided to take them outside.

Friday was pretty sunny so we ended up spending half the lesson outside and half inside. I have been cleaning my art room for the last two days and found some old large rims of paper. I asked my students to roll out the paper and handed a marker out to each student. I put on my Spotify music and asked them to draw. All the students sat in one straight line. I asked students to draw the same part of the body. When the music stopped, they were required to move one space down. The person at the end of the line had to get up and go back to the start of the line. This meant everyone would have a go at drawing on someone's design. Everyone had to add something else on top and so forth. The drawings ended up being a weird combination of human/monster characteristics as different students contributed to the finished look. It gave them a good laugh and showed them that teamwork can also help create something 'fresh' and exciting.

The next activity required them to work in pairs. One person had to lie down on the paper and the other person had to trace the outline of his/her body. Then they had to fill the space with 'nice' things about the person. They were allowed to walk up to different groups and add words in. It is a timely lesson to teach students that kind words can be used to uplift students. Students seem to appreciate the extra dose of Vitamin D.