Visit to the Park & First Classroom visit

Park with Grade 3 & 4

This morning I worked with grades 3 & 4 out in the park.  It can be a tough thing to ask children to concentrate on doing anything on paper when they are outdoors. Children love to explore with their fingers.  They want to touch the rocks and the leaves.  They want to build leaf towers, skip rocks or hold bugs, not draw them. 

There curiosity is precious and I am fascinated with what they discover, but our 'plan' is to get the children to somehow record their findings in a way that can be brought back to the classroom.  Collecting items was generally discouraged because often in park situations removing material is not an option.  The only other way to have a reference of what was discovered is to have a visual record.  Sketching, writing, rubbings, tracing and photographs were the main tools used by the children. 

A child would point out to me a tender weed and I would have to encourage them to sketch an image of it.  I would ask them how  could we try to recreate that weed back at the school with paints and pencils?  He would say, 'I want to glue it into my sketchbook', and I would have to try and encourage other methods.

The park visits are both a rewarding and frustrating experience for a couple of reasons: of prime importance is the children learning to see, explore and enjoy the park on a deeper level.  The art is how we are hoping they will be inspired to express this new found enjoyment of the park.  While we are in the park I don't want the children to feel like they are being told what to do and how to 'express' themselves and yet this is exactly what I end up doing in order to get some material for the classroom work.  The reward comes when they truly find something inspiring and create something so beautiful out in the middle of a grassy field.

The kids generally have a good time and most of them come up with some neat sketches, but I do feel like they are participating in the act a bit to please us adults.  I hope in the end, they find their own way to 'express' their experiences from the park.

Exploring research in the Classroom Grades 1&2

In the afternoon I worked with grades 1 and 2 in the classroom.  We had already been to the park together and now we are going through the materials they collected on site.  Through group-colouring exercises the children began 'seeing' in more depth, the recordings from their sketchbooks, photographs and memories of the park trip.

The children were all excited and their enthusiasm is very energizing.  They got together in groups and created amazing drawings.  They talked together about what they saw in the park and shared ideas on how to express their version of the park.  I think this was an important step in the project.  Both the children and the teachers were absolutely wonderful to work with.

Next this group will move into painting and collaging.  We need to have the supplies ready for that visit.  I hope to post pictures soon.  Please add any comments or questions you may have to the entry, I will be checking back often.