Art Test

Time really flies, Snow White has attended 9 Art lessons so far. On the 9th lesson, she was asked to recall what she had learnt. Actually, I have asked her the same question for the past weeks and she said that she could not remember a thing! How sad, but is it normal for a child to forget? Snow White never revise her drawing after each lesson as I do not wish to pressurize her. I see Art as an enjoyment and cultivating her creativity at this age.

Teacher's Help
So, she could not draw. The teacher had to guide her again by first asking for her favourite drawings. Then, there were lots of promptings to get her to speak and describe about the drawings. Finally, each picture was drawn on a foolscape paper. From here, Snow White was asked to draw on her own with the teacher's samples serving as a guide. The whole process was too much for her, I have a feeling that she had actually 'swtiched off'. Her face looked so bored througout the 1.5 hours lesson.

This was what she had drawn :


A flamingo.

Can you see the teacher's outlines of the flamingo's head and neck? Snow White tried to imitate as much as possible.



An elephant



An ostrich



A drawing of a girl

Snow White got B+ or B- for her drawings shown above. There will be one more assessment on the 10th lesson. Just wondering about her performance...... 
I managed to get her to paint the following (she was bored at home), she still refused to draw, I just let her colour:

                                            It is a flamingo.


Along the way, I got my second child, Cinderella, to have some fun too:

I drew 2 leaves and a flower, she just happily ignored them and splashed her way through!


Just some thoughts.....
I really appreciate the effort made by the school to test Snow White's skills. It provides me with information about a child's development, her progress, attitudes etc. At the same time, I also hope that such test will not dampen my child's spirits. She was very enthusiastic when I enrolled her for Art lessons and she enjoyed every lesson that she attended until this one. I did not reveal the grades to her as I felt that they were not important. I hope Snow White would continue to learn and thrive in her own special way. She did not express giving up drawing and colouring, for which, I am really glad. Think I just have to encourage and praise her. After the 10th lesson, she will progress to the next stage of drawing and colouring.
I have to excite her a bit and tell her that she is capable.                                         

Sand Art

My mother-in-law loves to bring Snow White for shopping during weekends. She would come back with food ,sweets, dresses etc. Of late, they had been doing some art related stuff. Once, they came home with this piece of Art work :


I was told that they did this piece of work on the spot, paying just a few bucks. There were pots of sand for the kids to choose from. I noticed that Sand Art was quite popular in shopping centres. Partly due to the fact that we can ask our husbands to occupy the time meaningfully with our kids while do our shopping. Of course, kids are curious. They will always want to explore and experiment with new things. Last but not least, personally, I do not need to do clean up the mess.

The work was done on a small rectangular piece of paper. According to Snow White, the whole picture was a piece of sticker. You have to peel the sticker piece by piece, apply the coloured sand on that area and then proceed to do the same for the rest of the picture. A toothpick was provided to help her to spread the sand onto the sticky area. This was her first attempt and she was very proud. As usual, she has a fondness of using dark colours for the face, she chose all the colours to use by herself.


A  few months later, my mother-in-law bought her a similar Sand Art Package. This time, I worked with her at home. I think most kids will enjoy this activity as it is not as tidious as colouring, but it does requires some skills. I noticed that Snow White was quite clumsy, she poured too much sand in one area and subsequently, there wasn't enough of that coloured sand for another area. Just remember to spread a piece of huge paper before you start pouring sand onto the sticker. This will make tidying up so much easier.  Here is her work :

The colours were just splashed out according to Snow White's liking, so she ended up with a colourful piece.
(I helped her with the facial colour. I just cannot stand her using dark colours.)

I am just thinking if it is possible for us to make our own coloured sand. Just go to the beach and collect a bag of sand. Next buy a few dyes and do the colouring ourself, spread out the sand and dry them. Anybody tries this before? The steps sound pretty reasonable, if this works out, just imagine, I think my kids will go wild and create many pictures using sand!