In BMH's art classes, all stages of the curriculum are integrated with themes of inquiry, providing children with the opportunity to learn about diversity, broaden their horizons and enrich their imaginations while learning about art. Rather than being limited to one perspective, they are able to use art as 'fuel' for thinking and creating, exploring visual aesthetics and understanding information from different subjects.
After three months of exploration, let's see how the pre school children are shining in the art lessons!
At the beginning of the school year, we had a health and safety week so that every child could take health and safety seriously. In art lessons, we introduced the children to the shape, location and function of the stomach through picture books, anthropomorphising invisible and untouchable germs so that they can understand the ways in which germs enter the body and the dangers; as well as thinking about scenarios and ways in which hand washing is needed, focusing on the safety and hygiene of food and the environment, and the care of teeth.
'This is me' is the first topic of inquiry in this term. In this unit, the children have created a small magic mirror by using mirrored paper and integrated materials. The children were able to find their own facial features by looking at "me" in the mirror and feeling the changes in their facial expressions according to the magic mirror.
The children also associate the actions of their bodies with lines and colours. Do lines walk? Do lines turn in circles? What do colours look like when they jump? We experimented with coloured lines walking on a 'long' piece of paper, using a variety of tools to help the paint roll, twirl and jump around the paper, letting the colours and emotions out at the same time.
We also created dancing robots by folding and tearing paper, imitating the body and dance steps of a robot.
In the K1 'Families and friends' unit of enquiry, the children were introduced to many different occupations: firefighters, chefs, florists, salespeople and more.
We learnt about chef's costumes and categories, created doughnuts, cakes, sweets and milk tea through mixed materials and created an art display of the shop environment for our 'milk tea shop' and 'cake shop'.
We also looked at the plants in the pre school and thought about how we can make them healthy? Who takes care of them? The children learnt that plants need air, water, sunlight and soil to grow and that it is the florists who look after them, watering them and pruning their branches. As 'little florists', the children created artistic flower gardens by cutting and pasting.
In the 'Transportation' unit of inquiry, which the children enjoyed, the children used a 'find it' game to review the means of transport in our lives and to match them to scenes.
We learnt about topography and created an urban transport system. Sailboats have also been created from floating foam blocks, and sails, masts, rudders, anchors, telescopes, compasses, etc. have been represented through a diverse range of mixed materials.
The creative children further thought and discussed how to ensure the safety of vehicles and pedestrians with so many transport and pedestrians on the road. They learned about road settings and different traffic signs together and created a 3D city street scene.
In the 'Let's celebrate!' unit, the children learned about the date, meaning, customs and heritage of the festival.
They portrayed the Chrysanthemum Festival in a semi-dimensional way, enjoying the chrysanthemum and tasting the chrysanthemum wine. The shading and highlighting of the wine jug gives it a three-dimensional feel, and the paper cutouts show the dense layers of petals and uniquely shaped leaves of the chrysanthemum.
They also learned about the meaning and symbolism of cakes, thought about the materials and tools needed to make cakes, associated different scenarios of eating cakes, and completed the design and creation of cakes by relief sculptures.
To better understand the Chinese zodiac and the calendar, the children used the rabbit as the basis for their thinking: the rabbit king, the rabbit's dream, the rabbit's big family, the rabbit and food, etc. to create their own Year of the Rabbit calendar for 2023.
The end of October is Halloween and the children have been doing lots of fun Halloween creations!
We created a Halloween atmosphere through the story and the children went on a mission to find the 'little Halloween shadows'. Using chalk to 'light up' the coloured lights in the picture, they found the eyes of a pumpkin, the window of a magic house and the tail of a kitten. ...... They also created pumpkin lanterns with different expressions of the pumpkin and used mechanical principles to create a movable pumpkin device.
We had a great Sports Day in November! But not only were the children involved in the sports events, they also designed their own big trophies for the games!
Each class in the pre school designed a large trophy. They brainstormed and reconstructed using various recycled materials to create a star trophy, a firework trophy, a flower trophy, a basketball trophy, a playground trophy and a wishing ball trophy ......
When they come outdoors, children are observers of nature. Looking up and down, they discover that nature is so beautiful, with so many colours and so many shapes.
So they went on a treasure hunt through nature and picked up many colourful treasures of nature. With these treasures they embarked on many creations and collaged different leaf vehicles.
Art is about beauty, about life, about everyone.
We aspire to teach children how to deal with everything around them in the art lessons, and to encourage them to think beyond what they know, to spark the children to think in depth and in multiple dimensions. We believe that the works of art and the beauty that the children experience will help them to draw their own picture of the future.
