The five-day process
Monday: Preparation Tuesday morning to Friday noon: Involving all of the children in painting the mural Friday afternoon: Touch-ups and adding finer details
Monday
• Prepare surfaces if you haven’t been able to do this ahead of time • Sketch design • Set up a table with paints, a range of brushes sizes, palettes, and paint rags • Organize access to water and have two pails for washing brushes • Make sure you have enough paint shirts • For artistic inspiration, to help students paint detail, and to encourage the direct observation of nature, collections of plant parts, mulch, rocks, etc., can be brought put on display, as can photographs of any less-portable or intangible ele- ments such as birds, insects, trees and clouds.
• Draw up a schedule for groups of children based on the number of children in the school, the size of each class, and the grade. NOTE: It’s a good idea to have groups of K-2 (ages 5-8) children paint areas of background in the lower half of the mural on the first day because they’re not as tall as children in grades 3-6 (ages 9-12), and can be less adept at controlling paint. If they are unable to come on the first day, you can reserve the more easily reached lower part of the background for them to paint on the second day.
• Plan to include everyone – junior and senior kindergartens, behaviour classes, special needs, etc.
Tuesday morning to Friday noon • Have ready a palette with several colours, a paintbrush, a water pot and a paint rag for each child • Fetch the first group of children from their classroom • Let children know that no talking will be allowed because you want all of their attention to be focused on painting • Explain that the artist will start to describe the mural painting process while they are putting on their protective clothing • Ask the group to remove long-sleeved sweaters and roll up long sleeves of dresses, shirts, etc. • Dress the kids in coveralls such as old T-shirts, shirts, and aprons while the artist explains the project, and show children how to apply paint (described below)
• Give each child a brush, palette and spot to work on • Supervise the application of paint • Five minutes before the end of the first group’s time, have a volunteer fetch another group
• Let the group know a couple of minutes before their time is up • Have children remove paint shirts, wash their hands, and collect any clothing they may have removed
• Have the children, or volunteers, wash brushes in the pails of water, and replenish paint on the palettes, or clean them if necessary
• Dress the new group in paint shirts • If the preceding group has to be accompanied back to the classroom, have a volunteer do this while the artist is explaining the process to the next group
• Write down the names and classes of particularly talented children in case you wish to have them participate in touching up the mural on the final afternoon of the project • At the end of the day prepare for the following morning
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GREEN TEACHER 93
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