Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

05 minutes	Introduction
20 minutes	Part A: What is already out there?
15 minutes	Part B: Refine and stretch your ideas
60+ minutes	Part C: Create your artwork
10+ minutes	Part D: Share your artwork with an audience
10 minutes	Reflection

Introduction

For details about the Create Your Mark for a Brighter Future Creative Competition, refer to the teacher content information.

Step 1.

Begin this lesson by explaining to students that they are going to be creating an artwork for a competition (yes, you could win a prize). The theme of this competition is:

Create your mark for a brighter future!

This could be a tricky concept for younger students to grasp, so explain that the aim is to imagine what they could create to make the future even more wonderful. In this case, students will be focusing on their school. So, what could they see themselves doing for their school that would make it an even better place to be?

Create your mark references the idiom, ‘make your mark’, which means to do something important, meaningful and/or memorable.

Step 2.

Explain to students that imagining what we’d like to create in the future is not only exciting but important. After all, how could we possibly know what we want to see in the future if we don’t start imagining it?

Part A: What is already out there?

Step 1.

A great place to start when imagining a brighter future for your school is to think about what already exists. Explain to students that you will be taking a walk around the school as a class.

Get prepared for your walk.

Older students might like to carry a small notebook to take notes or draw ideas in so that they don’t forget them later. If you have access to class devices, they could choose to take photos to prompt their thinking back in the classroom. They might even be able to make voice recordings of their ideas.

Step 2.

Head outside and start your walk.

As you encounter different features around your school (such as: the oval, courtyard or veggie garden), invite students to talk about how they might make it even better for the people and animals that will visit or use those places/features in the future, or what might make the people and animals happier when visiting those places/features?

It is important here for students to listen to the ideas that others are suggesting, as working with friends to imagine the future might spark even better ideas and our visions can grow bigger, brighter and better!

You could encourage students to imagine practical solutions to help the plants, animals and people at your school. You could connect this discussion with other issues you are exploring in the classroom, for example:

What could we do about food waste?
Imagine if we had a huge compost heap - how could this help the plants, animals and people at our school in the future?
What if we had a school that made no waste - how could this help the plants, animals and people at our school in the future?

You could also invite students to imagine crazy, wild or even silly ideas, explaining that often at the core of a crazy, wild and silly idea is something that could be really, really good.

For example:

Could you put in some huge slides from the biggest trees that end up in a swimming pool?
Could your swimming pool be a giant pond where people and animals can swim together? Could your pond be surrounded by a forest with tree houses and hammocks for people and animals?
Could you have a pond or bird bath with lily pads for frogs and birds to drink from and swim in? Could you have more trees for the birds and other animals to nest in?

As students walk around the school observing and coming up with ideas, you or another teacher/assistant could take notes of student ideas or take photos to refer to later.

Part B: Refine and stretch your ideas

Step 1.

Once back in the classroom you can start working with students to remember and refine the ideas that they had for a brighter future for the school.

List these on the board and invite students to clarify ideas with their own words or doodles.

Step 2.

Talk with students about how each of these ideas might help the plants, animals or people who visit or use the school in the future.

Work with the class to discard any ideas that don’t help plants, animals or people or add to these ideas so that they meet this requirement.

Step 3.

Invite students to select an idea that they would like to develop into an artwork.

Step 4 (optional).

Share this clip with students to demonstrate some other ways that kids imagine the future:

Kids Describe the Future to an Illustrator | Kids Describe | HiHo Kids (https://youtu.be/A-58OeQXjfI)

Once complete, invite students to discuss what they saw in this clip, for example:

What ideas did these kids have about the future?
I wonder if any of these ideas were the same as the ideas we came up with.
I wonder if any of these ideas spark new ideas for any of you.

Step 5 (optional).

Invite students to put their heads on their desks or lay on the floor. Play the song below and ask them to focus on listening to the lyrics at the start. They can then let their imaginations run wild while they listen - picturing their ideas for a brighter future.

A Million Dreams Reprise (The Greatest Showman Soundtrack) (https://youtu.be/akdkEh-fzes)

Part C: Create your artwork

Step 1.

Explain that students are going to create an artwork about the idea that they have selected.

Explain to students that in their artworks, they should show how they will create their mark for a brighter future at their school and how this will help people and/or animals. Students can draw themselves in the artwork if they want to. They will also have to write a description of their artwork (younger students may need help with this).

Step 2.

Explain the details of the competition (find these in the teacher content information section, or on the Create Your Mark for a Brighter Future Creative Competition website).

Note: You will need to submit completed student artworks to the Create Your Mark for a Brighter Future Creative Competition using this link: https://createyourmark.com.au/

Step 3.

Some students may feel overwhelmed by the idea of turning an idea as big as this into an artwork. Some things you could do to help them could include:

Limit or define the materials or medium they are allowed to use (e.g. only pencils, markers or paints, only 2D artworks)
Invite them to include themselves in the artwork showing how they are ‘creating their mark’ (e.g. are they using or playing with this ‘thing’ or idea?)
Show examples of what other artists have created
Show a variety of techniques and styles students can use, for example:
Talk about their ideas with classmates before and while they are creating their artworks. Being inspired by what other people are doing is an important part of being an artist!

Remind students that this artwork isn’t about creating something perfect - what is important here is the creative ideas you have and the brighter future you are imagining! It doesn’t matter if it doesn't work out exactly how you want it to, all the best artists, designers and inventors are always experimenting, trying things out, making mistakes and doing the best they can. The main thing is to ‘create your mark’ by having a go.

Students may, however, like to make a few drafts of their artwork before creating their finished piece. If you don’t have time for this during class time, they can do this at home - so long as they do it themselves (no parent help) and their artworks are 100% hand made!

Note: As a requirement of the competition, students will need to use some Faber-Castell products to create their artwork. We have listed some recommendations in the teacher content information.

Step 4.

Provide students with the time to create their artwork.

Step 5.

Once students have completed their artworks, work with them to create a written description to accompany their artworks. This description can be a couple of sentences for younger students and no more than 150 words for older students. You might like to prompt their writing with these questions:

What can we see in your artwork?
What is your dream for a brighter future?
Are you pictured in the artwork? What are you doing?

Step 6.

Photograph or scan their artworks and descriptions in preparation for submitting to the competition.

Part D: Share your artwork with an audience

Step 1.

An important part of real-world learning is providing opportunities for students to share their work with a wider audience and to receive feedback.

You can now work with students to create a gallery of their artworks (with accompanying descriptions) and invite parents/caregivers and other students and teachers at your school. Perhaps you could work with students to:

Group the artworks under the themes People, Plants or Animals (or any combination of these three)
Group the artworks by colour
Display the artworks around the school in the places where the ideas represented in the artworks are located; for example, you could create a trail for visitors to follow and view the artwork.

Reflection

Provide students with an opportunity to reflect on the process of creating their artworks. Depending on the age and ability of students you could invite students to have a discussion in groups or as a class around the following questions:

What did you enjoy most about creating your artwork?
If you were to do it again, what might you do differently?
What do you like about imagining a brighter future?
(Optional) Can you see yourself creating a positive mark on the future one day? How?

Differentiated learning

Extension

Some students may wish to write a full artist statement or tell a story about their artwork. You could extend this further by allowing them to make a speech or presentation, or write a longer creative piece about their artwork.

Provisions for learning support

Some students may find it hard to manage thin pencils, markers and brushes. You might encourage them to use larger drawing tools such as thick paint-brushes, markers and crayons.
Some students may struggle to create a written description of their artwork. Encourage these children to use their voices to describe their artworks where possible or else make this component optional.

Teacher reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Create Your Mark Creative Competition (Foundation to Year 2)

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