To introduce the students and the adults to each other, first as individuals and then more and more as a collaborative community. Practise basic elements that will be important going forward: different groupings/ formations, ways of looking at things, warm-up and reflection exercises. The focus will be on establishing a safe environment to try new ways of working, to establish the rules of the class and behaviour expectations including how everyone is with each other, supporting students to cooperate well and to be able to focus.
From the first meeting with the adults, things are a little different. New ways of working are introduced through play and creative exercises. Name games, old/familiar games, drawing and dancing are used to get to know the adults and each other in a different way
To encourage the students to marvel at and explore different ways of living together in homes and families, by getting to know their own and others’ homes. Reflect on what creates a good home and a good life and get to think about their own wishes for their home in the future. They will collect, organise, describe and explain their findings. Use their memory and senses to envision and recreate everyday routines in warm-ups, practising physical responses, listening and taking a stand on different statements in reflection.
By having to help a researcher, the students in Theme 2 become research assistants who will describe, explain and gather knowledge about their own and their classmates’ families and homes. They will also outline how they want to feel at home and with their family. With the help of various drama and visual art exercises, the theme is illuminated in different ways, and the theme ends with the researcher coming back and retrieving all the material collected
Exploring friendships and the challenges of friendships both through exploring literary characters, text in music and personal experiences. Highlight, share and express different feelings related to friendship and practice resolving conflicts that may arise in friendship. Highlight the importance of trust and security in the class and explore this practically. Practice listening to increasingly challenging instructions while moving in warm-ups, and practice focus and listening in reflection
The class becomes familiar with the theme of friendship through the book ‘Lena and Anne-Marthe’ by Ida Jackson, and works broadly on the theme of this book, as well as its own experiences and the song ‘Who can sail’, as a starting point. The class will also work on strengthening their relationships with each other.
Explore listening from various sources, capture/translate sounds into words, discover and write their own onomatopoeia/s and other words, and through this process increase their motivation for writing. Get to know questioning and interview techniques, use memory, and focus on reflection.
The class will receive a Golden Chest, which they will fill with words during Themes 4 and 5. They will find these words as sound collectors and through word hunting both indoors and outdoors (Theme 4). They will then work with storytelling based on the words they have collected (Theme 5).
To provide inspiration to create their own stories, learn and practice basic dramaturgy and techniques in storytelling. To develop confidence and to provide experience in sharing, giving and receiving feedback, as well as developing questioning and interview techniques in reflection.
The class has been given a Golden Chest, which they will fill with golden words during Themes 4 and 5. In Theme 5, they will work on the application of the words in the Golden Chest, through storytelling and sharing their stories.
To review and reflect on the content from the previous Themes and agree on how to plan, practise, implement, and reflect on an activity which will be presented to an audience which the artist, teacher and students will discuss and agree on.
Write up which activities (warm up, main activity and reflection) have been selected for each session. The artist and teacher work together to design and implement this ‘Free Choice!’ Theme which should build on the content from Themes 1-5. The idea behind this theme is that its outcome should be presented to an audience, but that the focus should be on the process and not the results. Do not be too ambitious but focus instead on developing content that the students will engage with and one that everyone feels is important. Make time for a reflection after the performance/display/event so that the theme ends well and everyone feels satisfied. Also remember to include a warmup and reflection in each session.
See other’s point of view and get insight into other people’s perspectives. Explore a life lived one or two generations before the students and work on understanding time both physically, as a timeline and as a life story. Practise interview techniques, writing and listening, as well as sharing ideas in groups and in the whole group.
The students work in fixed groups the entire theme and start by getting a photo of a child which they will get to know throughout the theme. Every session reveals a new element in the process of getting to know this child. It becomes clear that the person was a child a long time ago, and that they will let the students interview them. In warm-ups they will alternate between being others and themselves in different variations. In reflection, they will reflect silently, both sitting down and walking.
To explore and investigate. To use a range of approaches, techniques and tools to record and categorise information. To develop confidence in expressing their own thoughts and ‘gut feelings’. To practise listening, sharing, working alone and in groups and working conceptually with real and imagined objects. The students create materials, and list, categorise and explore the evidence to draw conclusions about what it is telling them. In the warm-up, they explore counting, dividing and multiplication through singing and the use of their bodies. In the reflection, they build their memory muscles and deepen their understanding of ‘gut feelings’ and consider how they themselves might be represented.
The students investigate the mystery of the Moving Box in the role of detectives with the aim of returning it to its rightful owner. Each session supports their investigation by exploring the contents of the Moving Box.
With colour as a starting point, the students will use their senses and observation skills to investigate and explain the characteristics of materials (both inside and outside in nature), sort them by colour and reflect on their findings. By observing colours and exploring how they feel about them, students will have the opportunity to ‘rediscover’ colours and become aware of symbols and prejudices related to colour. They will practise making choices, collaborating and transferring their own personal experiences in the reflections and warm-ups using colour as a form of expression. They will record and explain their work through digital media.
Throughout the theme, the students will experience colours through various practical tasks that involve observation and creation. The theme is introduced by providing an opportunity for students to listen to a mythical story from the indigenous people of America, ‘How The Rainbow Was Made’. They are then given the opportunity to create their own stories about the origins of colours. They then explore colours in objects in their indoor and outdoor surroundings, describe the objects, analyse the colours they have explored, create colour spectrums and finally make ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’ coloured pictures
Discover shapes in various settings – inside, outside and in artworks and explore their properties. Create an exhibition of geometric artworks. Through this process students’ confidence and understanding of the properties of shapes and of prepositions increases.
The class will be Shape Explorers. In the warm-up, they will develop an understanding of different prepositions and the properties of shapes. Inside and outside, they will work through a series of challenges received in letters and via a news flash. They will find shapes, explore their properties and record them in Shape Discovery Books. They will explore geometry in art and create their own geometric masterpiece.
Design and create media products using requirements specification, creating narratives using digital tools and using simple composition principles in photography and film and doing all this based on the students’ own experiences and ideas. In warm-up and reflection practice handing over, receiving and playing with a bag of peas and fictitious objects
Through a series of digital media tasks, students will create still images, short video clips and choose accompanying theme music that describes and records their memories from their first year of the Art of Learning. Warm-ups and reflections are based on passing an object (real and invisible) around the group in a range of ways that increase in complexity. Students are given multiple routes into sharing their ideas and feelings – both positive and negative. They prepare a promofilm for AoL drawing from their positive memories and experiences from this last year.
Reflect on and process the contents of the previous themes through agreeing, planning, practising, performing, and reflecting on a presentation together, in a format and to an audience of your own choice
For students to develop their abilities to express themselves in writing and orally in English through an authentic situation (communicating with pen friends in another country). Through music, students get to explore and perform a song that turns into a composition, while also becoming familiar with patterns of pronunciation, English words and phrases. Through letters, the oral phrases are repeated and turned into written text. In the theme, students are allowed to express themselves freely, create visual stories and at the same time practise speaking in English, and in text and short films students get to read and hear English language examples and get help to understand these. In visual assignments, the students get the opportunity to express themselves both with and without digital equipment.
Students receive letters from students in another country where some of the information is missing, and they must use their imagination to fill in the gaps. They make a video for students in the other country, create work based on information they get about the school from the pen friend class, and make a “Liars” video introducing themselves. In addition, the theme is framed by songs in English and associated letter writing as a reflection.
To explore the feeling of loneliness through body, voice, the affective and relational interaction with classmates through tasks that activate both observation, exploration and creativity. Students should reflect on the difference between being ‘alone’ and ‘lonely’, whether they can measure loneliness; what situations they can be lonely in and what they can do for both themselves and others who experience loneliness. By exploring the theme by using their own body, their senses, and their interaction with others, students can both see other perspectives on the topic and find solutions to a theme that is relevant to them both now and in the future. Practise exploring the perspectives of others, expressing themselves through body, voice, written and oral, collaborating and solving problems
The theme is introduced by the students discovering that someone (a lonely troll) has been in their classroom and left tracks and an audio recording where one realises that the troll is lonely. The students are then given the opportunity to help the lonely troll with how to not be lonely anymore. Then they get to explore the theme through both body, voice, using their own emotions and senses and by collaborating with classmates, before they finally become ‘experts’ who can help the lonely troll
Get increased knowledge about how lungs function, how viruses work, how they affect the body, and how the body, through the immune system and vaccination, is protecting the body from the effects of viruses. Understand how the different agents in the body move and react to each other, through play, physical movement and dance. Viruses and the immune system are modelled using the students’ own bodies, using a choice of materials (possibly air dry clay/plasticine (Session 4) and figures in drawing). In the warm-up, a repertoire of dance to music from Sami, Roma, Hungarian and children’s culture is explored and performed, and the students get to experiment with pulse, rhythm, tempo, dynamics and form in dance
The Virus Theme is a double theme. Theme 15 is the first part. The first six sessions focus on the three agents in the body’s fight against a virus threat: the lungs (breathing factory), the viruses and the immune system. The last six sessions (Theme 16) are more flexible than the other themes. These are used to deepen the understanding of the relationship of the three agents and end in a physical representation of the dynamics between the three, where the whole system is in play simultaneously, formed as a game/roleplay/dance.
Get to know the vaccine, and go deeper into how viruses, the immune systems and vaccines react to each other in the body, by translating experiences and knowledge from exercises and games from Theme 15 into a new context: Performance. How the material is disseminated is partly determined by the students with good support from the adults. In the warm-up, a repertoire of dance and music from, among others, Sami, Roma, Hungarian and children’s culture is explored and performed, and the students get to experiment with pulse, rhythm, tempo, dynamics and form in dance. In the reflection, the students work on finding out how they can best remember a (physical) material through exploration, trial and error, and after the performance they try a method to see each other with a positive eye and thank each other
The virus theme is in two parts and Theme 16 is the second part. These last 6 sessions start with a visit from a vaccine developer/researcher (Teacher in Role), who invites them to become better acquainted with the vaccine, and to create a performance where the dynamics between respiratory system/lungs, virus, immune system and vaccine are played out in the form of play/roleplay/dance. The students work in this theme towards a performance, where the vaccine developer/researcher and an audience are present and watching
To encourage students’ confidence and ability in applying maths concepts to practical tasks and challenges. Working in pairs and groups, students will share their own knowledge, apply this in the process of making pizzas and use a range of maths concepts including calculating the cost of food items, working within a budget, working with money, placing numbers by order high to low and estimating. Fractions are also introduced as part of the reflection.
The students are asked by a local Pizza Chef for advice as children do not want to eat at their restaurant. The students explore their knowledge of pizza and the gaps they have in that knowledge. They have to negotiate with a partner to create a pizza that they would both like to eat. This is then made from a range of craft materials and then in pairs the students calculate how much it would cost to make. Students make real pizza with a budget set by the Pizza Chef. Using money, they purchase the ingredients from the pizza shop and make and eat their own pizzas. They guess and then calculate the most popular pizza ingredients. The theme ends with the students sharing their findings with the Pizza Chef so that they can create a new children’s pizza menu.
Reflect on and process the knowledge from the previous themes through agreeing together, planning, practising, and reflecting on a presentation together, in a format and to an audience of your own choice
To get to know the Solar System. Students work with models of the Solar System using different scales, ratios and relative distances from the Sun. They measure, plan, complete models of the Sun and planets in the Solar System using a variety of materials. They will also draw and paint a huge Sun in 2D. Modelling clay, plaster strips, balloons, wool and glue can be used to create scale models of the planets in 3D. The students go outside in the vicinity of the school to place the planets at the correct distances from the sun. Philosophical conversations about the universe are also explored as part of the reflection.
An animated film introduces the students to the Solar System and by assessing their sizes, colours and other facts for each planet, they work on placing the planets into their correct order from the Sun. The students work to create a huge Sun of 3.3 metres in diameter and also the planets in the Solar System using various craft techniques. They then place the planets the correct distance from the Sun in an outdoor location in the vicinity of the school. The adults decide on the content for session 6 based on the interests of the students. The students travel on a space mission in the warm-up, and they answer a quiz about the Solar System in their reflection of each session.
Investigate how the physical environment affects the settlement of people
The students build shelters in nature in their own local area. They learn skills that are needed, become aware of the building’s vulnerability, and learn about nature in the immediate area. Indoors they then create a model of a shelter from another place in the world from natural materials. They explore the vulnerability of the shelter and reflect on different homes and their vulnerability linked to climate and society
To encourage students’ confidence and skills in applying geographical and mapping concepts to their surroundings. They will use terms related to maps and geography to help explore and understand the world around them. They will produce a classroom map, a detailed map of the school and its environs. They will share their work and explore the concepts of maps, geocaching and the use of coordinates to locate features in an area.
The students listen to a Geographer who supports them in each session. Using geographical terms, coordinate axes and cardinal direction sheets, they map their classroom and they then explore geocaching. They map their school and its immediate surroundings, they explore routes to school, the local environment and the man-made and natural objects there. In the final session, they use coordinates and go on a geocaching treasure hunt of their school grounds.
Explore different sources of energy, talk about what energy is. Explore technological systems, speed and temperature, making models, finding out how they work and how they connect to energy. Explore some aspects of sustainable development. Explore and convey texts through writing poetry, by hand. Play with rhythms in the language, using the language in creative ways. Present work. Explore, describe and compare properties of three-dimensional figures. Investigate properties of materials and share sensory experience.
Students get to know energy by learning to make an energy-powered model and then teach this to others. The students then work to convey their knowledge of energy through various forms of poetry. Both the models and the poetry are shared together. In the warm-up, they practise thinking and writing freely about energy, and the reflection gives examples of quick ways to get the students to think about what they have learned from the session and to question. The information also provides teachers with insight as to what the students are curious about. This theme lays the foundation for the work in Theme 23. In addition, the theme also relates to Themes 15-16 Viruses where they worked with energy in the body exploring bodies as factories
Imagine and describe the future through drawings and models. Students explore, design and create technological inventions based on their own ideas. Explore different energy sources and investigate how natural resources can be used in a sustainable way. Try out different ideas in recycled materials and carry out a design process. Describe, tell and argue orally, in an oral presentation. Practise passing and receiving the ball.
This theme is a continuation of Theme 22. The students receive an assignment from the Researcher/Inventor to present energy inventions in a real arena outside the school in the last session. The students make a sketch, then a model of the invention, before working on presenting the model. They receive feedback on the model and presentation, improve these and finally the students present their models
Reflect on and process the content from the entire Art of Learning period, and give the students a space where they can describe and explain themselves what the Art of Learning is and has been for them. This must be communicated to parents, the whole school or another rather large target group. The result can be an exhibition, film or screening, but the result should be documented so that it becomes available to the Art of Learning project afterwards
Record which activities (warm-up, main activity and reflection) are chosen in each session. In this theme, artist and teacher jointly control how the scheme is to be created and carried out. Content and form must be based on elements that have been worked on in Themes 1-23. Set aside time for a reflection after the screening, so that the week ends well and safely for all parties. Also set aside time for warm-up and reflection each session