Term 3 session 1

Before starting any teaching I had the children draw three picture: a self portrait (using a mirror), a picture of their favourite person (it was amazing how this image resembled the self portrait) and a drawing of their hand. These drawing will be our benchmark later in the term. The drawings also gave an indication on the ability and confidence of the children.

I introduced the students to copying line drawing upside down (that is the line drawing was upside down not the students).
My whole objective is to get the students looking at, and copying the lines. The skills used in this exercise develop spatial awareness. Estimating how long the lines are, how big the are lines, the angle they go, how wide apart they are and where they join each other. The students are then looking very carefully and seeing detail they have never noticed before. To carry on the theme of observation the next activity turned out very abstract.

The children taped white paper to the desk (to prevent moving), with one hand (holding pencil) on the paper they turned away and looked carefully at their other hand. Without looking at the paper they drew the lines on their hand. It did not matter if they were not connected or lost their way, they just started again. The whole objective was to follow the lines with their eyes and transfer that information to their hand. We photocopied the image enlarging in the process. The children then colours the shapes and spaces formed by the lines. This way fun and reduced the stress of drawing realistically.