Sunday, April 1, 2012

A is for Art 2012 - Day 1 of workshop

Attended Part 1 of A is for Art 2012 preview earlier in feb....Part 2 of A is for Art 2012 is a one and a half day art camp held on 26 and 27 march, focusing on teaching art through artefacts in the Asian Civilisations Museum

Lots and lots of hands-on, reflections, discussions and journaling during this camp....though tiring to the max and was suffering from very bad body ache from sitting on the floor for most part of day 2, I am glad I had signed up for it. I have the confidence that what i had learnt in this camp and the activities which we had to plan for our pupils will develop me further as an art teacher..... hurray to completing another step in becoming a qualified art teacher... =) 

Gonna share some of the activities which we did on Day 1 of the camp and my take-away from them... =) 

The opening of the camp was conducted like a classroom lesson with the 'tuning in' activity described below:



Art Game 1 - Blow Wind Blow the colours
Each player was assigned a colour (red,blue or yellow). If the 'pasan' person calls out a primary colour, then players assigned to that colour will have to change their positions and the last person to get into position will be the next 'pasan' person... 

and if the person calls out a secondary colour, players assigned with either one of the 2 primary colours that makes up this secondary colour will have to change positions and the last person to get into position will be the next 'pasan' person... 

This game can be used as a tuning in activity or extended to consolidate an art lesson on primary, secondary, warm or cool colours too. I think it will be a good assessment tool to check on pupils' understanding of the different categories of colours informally. 

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Then the 50 or so teachers who had signed up for the camp were divided into 5 smaller groups. I was in group DONG SON with Ain and our facilitators were Victoria and Jannah. 


We were each given a teacher's manual 


The first activity which the facilitators brought us through was journalling on why we became art teachers. Round robin was used to get all of us to share our thoughts.... most shared about their passion in art and teaching and hence became art teachers and a few others were in the same situation as me....we were thrown the position of the art coordinator without having any background in art.... but all had grown to love art..... i am so glad i am not alone..... =) 


i shared on how i was just thrown the position of the art coordinator because 'someone' saw that i did craft with my class and thought that i like art...i also shared that i prefer the planning of art curriculum and school base art programs more to the actual doing of art... 


But while i m doing this recall and reflection, it incurred to me that though i had always said that it was not my choice to be an art coordinator but i am grateful to the one who saw my "potential" in this area. I guess eventually it is indeed my choice to do my best as an art coordinator and it is indeed my choice to want to learn more about art and the teaching of art so that i can share whatever i had learnt with my pupils and apply whatever i had learnt to make learning art more enjoyable for the pupils and also to make teaching art more inclusive and less stressful, especially for the non-art trained teachers and finally, it is indeed my choice to make art the centre of my career.... 


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All the teachers were very happy when we were told that each school would be provided with 6 sets of art cards which featured the selected artefacts. With the art cards, pupils can play matching games which improves their observation skills. We can also play "blind matching" where a pupil describes a card in detail and the rest of the pupils have to decide which artefact is the card matched to. 


And in times where it's impossible to bring all the pupils to the museum due to budget constraints or any other reasons, these art cards will be a great help in bringing the 'artefacts' to the pupils. 


Victoria shared with us an activity which could bring about community building. A large piece of printed artwork can be cut into smaller pieces. Each smaller piece is then given to different pupils to examine closely and to duplicate as a sketch. After which, piece all the sketches together to form the big picture. This activity can be used to emphasize that each and everyone of us plays a crucial part in the community, in school, in class and in any social settings that we may be in. I see this as a great class bonding activity.. =) 

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Victoria and Jannah then introduced the 4 art themes in the teachers' manual and brought us into the galleries to view the featured artefacts ... due to time constraints, we were unable to view all the artefacts...below are some write-ups on the artefacts which we focused on...
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Quan Am

the last artefact which we saw was the Huqqa, an equipment used for smoking tobacco in the past... 

we were given 5 minutes to sketch it and this is what i produced....
damn chui!!!.... wahahahha.....

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Osa Osa




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Dong Son Drum - which is my group name ... =) .... 


close up on the skirt with designs made with cowrie shells


from sec 1 or 2 history lesson, we learnt that cowrie shells were used as a form of money in the past... so these long ago people actually sewed money onto their clothing....interesting.... so is it similar to the idea of using gold threads and gems on clothings nowadays or is it more to this one below leh... wahahaha... 

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We were then given an hour after lunch to plan an art challenge based on any of the 4 themes. Our group decided to do the one on textures, focusing on the Peranakan shoes...


 And this is what we came up with



this activity opened my eyes to the power of having a team of people who likes art to plan for an effective and engaging art lesson for the pupils.... the efficiency amazed me... =) 

it used to be me, myself and I while planning for the art curriculum for all levels for the last 3 years, after this, i'm determined to make it a "ain, aster, mark and i" project..... =P 

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My word to end the day - Excited! 

Learnt a plentiful on Day 1 of the camp.....was eagerly looking forward to what is to be gleaned on Day 2... =) 

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