Housekeeping: Covering up Noticeboards

Last year, I was a recorder at a school for PSLE marking exercise. The fabrics covering the noticeboards in the classrooms caught my attention. The hooks and eyelets on the fabric seem like a good idea. In case you were wondering about these, teachers have to remove any posters or students' works prior to the examinations. You can imagine the time taken to put these up and bring them down considering the number of examinations we have. Perhaps these plain-coloured fabrics can double up as a table cloth for prize-giving day.😉 

Art Class: Puppets Making

These DIY puppets look too cute! If you have missed this lesson, click here. I provided my students with some art materials before the circuit breaker and these are what they have come up with. We did an online gallery view by looking at everyone's puppets on SLS. Some households lack strong adhesives to fix the materials so I applied some white glue before collecting them in a box. I see a lot creative ideas using common household items, it was a pleasure looking at their works. 

Artventure: Campus Party

Some time ago, I attended the Campus Party Singapore at EXPO. You can think of it like a Teachers' Conference except that it runs 24/7 for 3 days and they offer tents for sleepovers. For more information, you can view it here. I attended to hear the inspirational speakers and just be curious about the things I see. It could be a weekday when I visited so the event was quite underwhelming but at least there was some relevance in the presentations. What were some interesting places that you've visited last year?

Art Class: Introduction to Sewing

Phew! I had just finished packing the resources for a new project. In a few more weeks, the Primary Six students will start their sewing project. Let me share some ways of distributing the coloured threads without getting them all tangled up. In my video, I explained how to remove the threads from the kitchen rolls and putting back when needed. The children will be using burlap as a canvas for their sewing project. 

Art Class: Making a Book

Hi teachers, building on our previous lesson, my students will be making a DIY book this week. The characters in their stories will be based on the puppets that they have made. For their online learning, they'll also be required to summarise their story in one sentence. I look forward to reading their stories!

Artventure: DIY Dress

School has started on 2 June and I'm happy to have completed some art projects during my break. Our school vacation is actually in June but due to the current situation, there was a swop to extend the circuit beaker. My favourite project has to be making my own dress using paper patterns since all the non-essential shops are still closed. It felt really good to make your own clothes. I bought the batik fabric in Bali last year and I knew I had to make something really useful. Not my usual colour scheme for work but I think it's a possible teaching tool when the time comes. 

It sure took a lot of time to make and I've learnt to take note of more details when looking at clothes😊. Besides the type of materials used, things like the type of stitch for different areas, the width/ tension of the stitch also depends on the type of fabrics used. Even though the dress looks alright, since I don't have a serger machine, the interior of the dress don't look professionally made. If I were to make this again, I will use a 50cm invisible zip and stitch my pockets nearer to the waist. 

Art Class: Pixel Art on Window Panels

The children were using the window panels as canvas. They used coloured sticky notes to create an artwork. I designed a worksheet for them to work on the calculations before transferring the digital image to the actual work. They had to take measurements of the window panels first and divide the length and width per unit (per sticky note) to count the number of sticky notes they needed. The image looked rather simple but they had to be quite precise and persist as they learn to work with a paper plan first and not trial and error.