Notes of Lessons: Picture Study, Class Ib

[We have thought that it might be of use to our readers (in their own families) to publish from month to month during the current year, Notes of Lessons prepared by students of the House of Education for the pupils of the Practising School. We should like to say, however, that such a Lesson is never given as a tour de force, but is always an illustration or an expansion of some part of the children’s regular studies (in the Parents’ Review School), some passage in one or other of their school books.—Ed.]

Subject: Picture Talk • Group: Art • Class Ib • Time: 20 minutes

By Dorothy Blease
The Parents’ Review, 1904, p. 790

Objects

I. To introduce a new picture to the children.

II. To increase their power of imagining by asking them what they think the story of the picture to be.

III. To give them an idea of beauty by helping them to see the most artistic lines in the picture.

Lesson

Step I.—Give the picture to the children for them to examine.

Step II.—Take the picture away and let them tell all they can about it.

Step III.—Ask the children questions concerning the season, time of day, river and chief features.

Step IV.—Ask them what they think is the story of the picture. Show that every artist has an idea which he wishes to be interpreted.

Step V.—Draw from them the principal features of the picture, showing that without the figures in the foreground it would be incomplete.

Step VI.—Ask the children to point out the most striking lines in the picture and let them draw them from memory on paper in pencil.