Written by Velanky and Pranita
The Bookworm van travels to the Chimbel community library thrice a week as part of the Mobile Outreach Program (MOP). Children usually have read aloud sessions during these three days. But this pattern was interrupted in August when Sujata had an innovative idea of having an art session once a week. She immediately thought of an art person who could engage these sessions. A small meeting was conducted between us and Vaishnavi, who was about to take up this task. Vaishnavi having worked for a small project in Chimbel earlier was slightly acquainted with the set up. After a brief discussion about our Read Aloud sessions and how we could introduce a whole new pattern of art sessions, the day for these art sessions was fixed as every Thursday. We exchanged our numbers with our newly appointed art teacher Vaishnavi and eagerly waited for her session plan for the coming Thursday.
The introduction of something new in our program excited us very much. The plan for the art session was shared on Wednesday and was extremely colourful and innovative. Finally Thursday arrived and all preparations for our first art session were done. We had with us a small collection of children’s art books for browsing and we had a big bag full of paint brushes, colours and charts. Moreover we felt as happy as Vaishnavi arrived with a mind full of colourful ideas.
The children had no idea about this and it was a surprise for them. They were curious to know about the new face in the car. As we opened up the library, the children demanded to know who the new person was. At the beginning we just told them that she is a new teacher. Vaishnavi was very friendly with the children and got along well with the children immediately. The browsing time started and she was able to tell the children very nicely, in detail all about the minute pictures, colours and other artistic forms. It was a different kind of book browsing, in the presence of an art teacher.
The art session began with Circle time. The Circle time is a segment where a new person gets introduced to the children, in Bookworm style, singing songs and making some actions. It was the same for their art teacher too. The children were all excited and happy to have a new art teacher.
The children were asked to draw an outline of their hand and their likes and things that fascinated them inside that outline and sharing the idea with everyone. This session was a great success as children in their drawings exhibited different ideas. It included flashbacks from their early childhood, activities they like to do, things they like to play with and things that they like to eat, to name a few.
Our second art session was all about creating an underwater world using mixed media collage. The children not only learned painting, but they were made to work together forming groups. They learned sharing and cooperating with each other and with this experience, a beautiful underwater world came to life.
Our art sessions are continuing to prosper in Chimbel every Thursday. The children learn different art techniques, some of which include shapes, line drawing, shading with different colours like oil pastels, soft pastels and so on. Each time they also have different themes like neighbourhood, nature, to draw and paint on in their own style. This enables them to acquire more knowledge on a particular concept and also boost their drawing techniques and vocabulary.
As resource persons, we look forward to these art sessions with Vaishnavi as a very positive addition to the Mobile Outreach Program. Observing children draw is much of a learning to us. The way children draw, speaks a lot about their behaviour and their personality. It has been a very enriching experience to see the children express themselves through innovative art works as each session captures something extraordinary.
