Regarding artwork

Often there is incidental English used in artwork classes. Example the students want a red crayon so they have to ask for it. Children can be very creative, far more so than I am ! I would show them how to do the artwork and then hide it as I did not want them to copy my feeble attempts. In the UK I picked up some plastic cookie cutters from A to Z. Just right for using with Play Dough. Play Dough sets are readily available at toy shops. It is a good way of encouraging manual dexterity. Origami would be another great activity. Some artwork can be taken home, this is good a PR exercise. Often children are enthralled by such artwork activities. Sometimes the results are unpredictable, eg green elephants in a picture, however I am not one to say that green elephants are wrong or bad. If a child wants a colourful creature, flower, or a pink sky, well they are being very creative indeed ! If the artwork is displayed at the school it greatly encourages the students. Often artwork materials are all around us. Scrap cardboard, old clothes and material, photos, food containers and such like. Plastic containers with lids can have a few beans put inside them and have the lid glued on and they make great rattles. Sometimes very young children will select those in preference to commercially made rattles. Recycling is also very ecological, further the price is right ! A discarded jar can become a thing of wonder when it has a few beans planted in it to show children how plants grow. Plastic bottles can be made into hanging plant pots. Discarded 20 litre plastic buckets that contained paint or detergent make very good plant pots, they would do well for giant sunflowers !

String and rope can be used to show students how to tie knots. Some shoes still have shoelaces ! As a teacher you may be breaking new ground if you show your students how to tie knots, now there is a point, knot and not are spelled very differently but they sound the same !

My sewing abilities originated when I was at primary school and we had to make a puppet out of papier mache. The puppets clothes had to be sewn ! Papier mache is in itself a dying handicraft. The price of it is right, try and use it if you can. It could be used to make wonderful masks for school plays !