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Painting activity and learning art terms in English


Subject: Painting activity and learning art terms in English

Purpose: In this activity, I want to encourage children to work in teams and enjoy their time while creating a painting as well as learn painting and art terminology in English. This was a class topic I suggested at the beginning of the semester so that I can get familiar with the students and they could warm up to me.

Details: My idea will consist of 4 parts. Part 1 will be assigning children in groups of 2 in the beginning (as we repeat this activity, the number may go up to 3 or 4 since the children will be familiar with working in teams by then). Part 2 will be hanging it for each group. Part 3 will be teaching the group the words in English related with a painting. Each child will be given paints and brushes and they will be asked to paint based on the teacher’s encouragement at Part 4.  I was mostly inspired by the Waldorf Approach. I think a teacher who has the performance role to promote an artistic coordination between the children will be very beneficial for them. Using this approach, the teacher will get a chance to encourage children to become more engaging with each other. It is crucial that the teacher is not to pressure the ones that don’t want to participate right away; but he or she should find a way to encourage the shy ones. Best way to start this lesson is to teach the students the components of a painting in English. I start with simple words such as “paint”, “paper”, “brush”; then move on to the names of each color as detailed as I can and then I move to more advanced topics related with art and museums. Later on, the teacher can assign one child to go to and pick the color green & blue and the other one to pick red & yellow as an example. This activity helps children to learn how to work in teams for a collaborative effort. It also encourages them to appreciate arts. Furthermore, it gets the children to learn words in English related with paintings and art.