Chinese script and symmetrical faces

Suddenly, the school year is flying toward the end. Our school system has just completed the End of Grade testing in elementary schools. Today our fifth graders took the Science Test. There were about 80 items on the test... a fifth grade science test.  It's been a tough week for them, but we are all glad it's over.

                                    

One of the third grade classes are learning how to use a bamboo brush. Here they are practicing holding the bamboo brush, and drawing the basic strokes of Chinese characters. Just holding the brush properly was a challenge. The kids tend to hold it the way they hold a pencil. It took a couple of sessions for them to get the hang of holding the brush vertical to the paper.

Once they learned the basic strokes, they began to practice writing their names in Chinese characters. I had found a website that gave me the Chinese version of every name in my classroom... every name including the Hispanic/Latino names. They learned a little piece of history about how the Chinese were the first to invent paper made from wood pulp

                                     

I gave each student a copy of his name in Chinese, and they practiced writing their names using the bamboo brush and a watered down black tempera paint. All in the spirit of becoming more globally aware... the news of that deadly earthquake in the westernpart of China two weeks ago had not reached most of their eight-and nine-year-old ears. It's hard for a kid to imagine over ten thousand people dead and missing. It's hard for an adult to imagine. The kids were very concerned as they have mostly been learning fun things about China. I took a few minutes to update them on the news and that many people were going in to China to help rescue the victims, and help take care of them afterward. The class continued in a more somber note that day.

I do not claim to know how to write Chinese script... I only know what I've learned from a book, but if I ever get the opportunity to learn from a bamboo brush master, I will gladly work hard to learn the strokes.

I think the characters are beautiful, even though I don't know what they mean. The focus of their learning during these brief classes was less how to write Chinese script, and more how to use the tools of art. They've drawn with oil pastels, painted with water colors and tempera. They've drawn in pencil, colored in crayons, and sculpted in clay. Learning that there are different kinds of brushes, and different ways of handling them, is more about solving problems, and developing good eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, than about being an artist. And being an artist (who solves problems using higher order thinking skills like analysis and application) helps a kid develop the skills he or she needs to learn in any academic area.

So although their attempts to write Chinese script would not impress a calligrapher, one would have to admire the students' focus as they attempted to draw each character in their names, and the variations in line thickness, length, and the control of ink flow from the brush... actually, tempera paint flow... it would have been a disaster to use genuine black ink!       

                            

Now in Second grade, one of our projects has been the Symmetrical Smiles painting. Here, the students learned about warm and cool colors while also using their knowledge of symmetry. They painted the facial features in warm colors, and the background in cool colors. Again, the focus was in learning how to use the brush, and how to apply the necessary amount of water and paint to the paper. Cleaning up was another learning task. Actually, cleaning up is a learning task EVERY DAY!

                                    

Second graders learn in math how to find symmetry in basic shapes, but in doing this painting, they had to draw half of a face on one side of the paper. I showed them how to transfer what they drew on one side of the paper, to the other side. They were totally amazed when they opened up their paper and saw the face in its entirety.

I have to admit that each day they start or continue a painting, I am not always buzzing busily about the classroom making sure that each child is doing exactly what I showed or told them to do. No, sometimes I'm just standing there watching them. I see their faces and hear their remarks when they have noticed something about the experience, something new. Sometimes I hear a kid say "I made a mistake!" and I go to his desk and tell him that we don't make mistakes... we change our minds.

Other times I hear a kid say "Wow! Look what I did!" or even better, one student saying to another, "Wow! Look at what you did!"

I am thrilled that I'm going to be doing this again next year! I'm already putting together a notebook of ideas for new lesson plans ... and I have all summer to think about it.

 

 

                                       

Tag by Donna (Nightmaremom)... Thanks,Donna!

If you have never visited Donna's site, and you want to know about how to get these kinds of cool tags for your journal, just click on her link... she puts new ones in her journal every day. She made this for me last month when my 1st graders were painting their kite flying paintings.

Tags: Symmetrical Faces, Chinese Script, student art in progress, teaching art, Nightmaremom