Hi Teachers! The Primary One students have started using watercolour cakes to paint. We watched an instructional video in the previous lesson and talked through the things to bring for the following lesson. The children wrote down the one thing to bring - an empty container to hold water.
Now, there are a few points to make clear when you entrust the children to bring an important piece of material. Because no container = no painting. I've explained that I don't have enough for everyone. So, if they have, they should bring the containers the next day and labelled with their name and class with a permanent marker and kept in the art cupboard lest they forget if they wait until the next art class (weekly art class).
The painting day arrived and some students had forgotten to bring a container. Last week, a boy from one of the Primary One classes came up to me the moment I entered his classroom. He repeatedly thanked me for teaching him an important lesson that day and said that he will not forget to bring important things again. I was quite impressed by his response.
Children without water containers were given a set of coloured pencils instead. I mean what I said. And this reputation goes a long way and essential for classroom management. They could still practise the use of Warm and Cool colours even though the medium has changed.
I mostly rejected the use of lunchboxes as water containers and the best try goes to a kid who wanted to use a pen cap as a container. Yes, anything that looks like a vesselš
Most children had painting experience but they will still enjoy when asked to do it. Thus, asking them to bring something isn't that difficult because responsibility is taught by leveraging on this activity. I do bring a few containers to class in case a child's container has cracked. Sometimes, it irks me to delay the lesson unit due to small hiccups but I try to think of the long-term benefit over the short-term inconvenience.
