Intro to Art

I started the unit off with my very own digital gallery. I created QR Codes, borrowed the ipads we have available and threw them right in to looking at different art forms and telling me their opinions.
I pasted 18 different works of art around the room that could only be accessed by scanning the bar code. Below are 3 examples that I used.

 

They kept track of the name of the piece, artist, origin of the artist and their opinions using this sheet.

 I thought this would take about 30 minutes, but boy was I wrong! They got so into checking out other pieces by the various artists that this spilled over into the next day so in total, many of them ended up taking 90 minutes! I didn't mind though as they were very keen on seeing all these different forms of art, whom am I to deny them!

When we finally got around to talking about what they saw and their opinions en español, it was very interesting to see the differences in who liked what. Some pieces I thought they would like, most didn't like. Their use of extensive opinion-giving vocabulary was not as extensive as I would have liked, but this allowed them to see that there is much more than just saying "Me gusta" all the time, or "Es feo.". It gave them the opportunity to explore better ways to express opinions and why they liked or didn't like.

I then went on to ask more questions to extend the speaking portion of the class, asking which was their favourite and why, least favourite and why. Which medium was the most interesting, etc.

All in all, I think it was a very successful start to the unit, and although the language portion was limited in scope, I like that the first day got them excited about the unit. When some heard that we were doing art, they groaned and said "But this Spanish class!". That feeling is exactly what I'm hoping to dispel over these few of weeks.