Enabling children to look is an essential foundation skill. Through looking we nurture curiosity, build knowledge, and make the world our own.
Looking provides us with an opportunity for active exploration. Empowered by close looking, we can build confidence in our ability to make a creative response, developing dexterity skills along the way.
Choose one or more of the activities below to enable an exploration of careful looking and to encourage children to feel able to make and share their response.
Try These Activities...
Develop visual literacy skills and empower children to become explorers of their environment, become familiar with shape recognition and share through recording. See the Resource
Adapt the “Shells: Observational and Imaginative Drawing‘” resource to suit your children.
Vary the subject matter to suit your class themes, always trying to provide the opportunity to draw from 3D objects in real life.
Encourage children to become collectors in their environment, choosing their favourite objects, arranging them and becoming familiar with materials through drawing. See the Resource
Invite children to create their own still life composition as a response to paintings by Cezanne. See the resource here.
Using These Materials...
Watch this quick video to help you start thinking about how you can use soft pencils in your class.
Explore how you can use wax crayons in creative ways, using them in the activities above.
Open your mind and explore the many ways you can use poster paint in the class room. See the Video.
