Our recent sessions were conducted on the topic "What's in the basket ?" This topic is from a book that is part of the course curriculum of the 4th standard. When children draw on a topic that is part of their surroundings, they are more confident in participation. It allows them to connect, observe and imagine with ease.

Through our Let’s Start Art sessions we have noticed that personal encounters of students with plants and animals or our environment, in general, are usually associated with positive emotions and connotations.

The second set of Let's Start Art sessions was conducted on the theme "Plants and Animals are our friends"

It was a great experience, not only for the students but also for our art instructors who learned about the students' vacation experiences and what they enjoyed the most. The sessions with grades 4 and 5 were livelier, as each student had an interesting story to tell, not only on paper but also as a confident speaker in class.

We, as conventional readers, would find it impossible to read or write in a way that does not match the rules of a specific language. But young children start developing literacy skills right from the moment people start talking to them and playing with them. As a result, children start babbling before they speak, and scribbling- drawing before they write. Letting children express what they feel through drawing and writing in their own free way would allow them to form narratives and get them started with writing. In this month of Let's Start Art sessions, we added emergent literacy practices to make the class more engaging and help children gain confidence as well as interest in literacy education.

“Shouldn’t you just teach the students who are actually good at drawing, rest of them won’t get it.”

Sound familiar? The concept of education in our country is limited to the mark sheets of the students. Children who take interest in drawing, singing or any other form of arts are generally asked to focus on the studies, stop distracting themselves with the extracurriculars and concentrate on the ‘subjects that matter’. These challenges have so far disabled the arts from serving their actual purposes.

Can you interpret your child's drawing?
Child Art is a result of the observations, emotions, experiences and imagination of a child, which later helps her develop into a creative person. While our children put so much effort into their drawing, we have a habit of distinguishing them as good or bad without even trying to understand them.

Some drawings are just drawings, with obvious meaning. But sometimes you can discover deeper meanings out of your child's drawings, and figure out what she/he is feeling or trying to express.

What makes you happy?

We asked the students this simple question based on an English rhyme from their syllabus book "A Happy Child" and got amusing answers in the form of drawings. Children told us that they are happiest about the tiny little things in their lives despite all the adversities that they face. 

Most of the things that we vividly remember from our school education either had a picture related to the text in the book, or the words painted a pretty picture in our minds. There are countless studies that have confirmed the power of visual imagery in learning. For instance, one study asked students to remember many groups of three words each, such as dog, bike, and street. Students who tried to remember the words by repeating them over and over again did poorly on recall. In comparison, students who made the effort to make visual associations with the three words, such as imagining a dog riding a bike down the street, had significantly better recall.

Do you remember stocking up friendship bands before going to school? All of us used to wait for friendship day each year and gifted friendship bands to our friends. In the month of August, we conducted the first set of Let's Start Art workshops on the same theme. We asked the students to draw their friends and narrate their friendship stories. 

In the second set of art sessions, we asked the students to ponder over the question- 'How exploring space improves life on earth?'. 

Wouldn't you love to watch your favorite movie with a nice cup of tea? This is what our theme was for the Let's Start Art sessions this month- Chai (tea) and Favourite movie. Schools reopened after long summer vacation, so the students were more excited than usual for the art class and Chai seemed to be a popular thing among children.