I received the most precious gift this week: love and kindness in the form of a painting.
I commissioned this painting several months before school ended last year from a student who was graduating. I had seen the poem on Facebook (where I get soooo many ideas for class!) and made an instant connection. As you can see, this artist is amazingly talented! What touches me so much about this painting is that I can see and feel the warmth and kindness that exude from this student on a regular basis. What’s more, she is completely unaware that she is the sweetest soul that I have ever met – she doesn’t strive to be these things, she just IS.
I contacted her mom to ask if it would be OK to speak with her daughter about creating a painting for me. This young lady is talented in so many ways, not just painting, so she’s super busy. I didn’t want to cause her any undo stress (because I knew if I just asked the student, she would go out of her way to complete it because… well, that’s the kind of girl she is).
The end result is so much more than I ever imagined!
I discussed this painting in all of my classes – we contemplated the use of color, the time of day, and what the students thought the picture meant before focusing on the words. What is this girl like? What does she like to do? How old is she? It was a great way to provide meaningful input using basic descriptive vocabulary – because, let’s face it, you can never get in too many repetitions. All the research points to repetition in a variety of contexts in order for language to be acquired. For sure, discussing a painting in this kind of detail is a new context for us!
The poem was also great way to re-introduce the future to my level 3’s and to review it for my level 4’s. It provided beautiful examples of the “yo” form (first person singular) that are more difficult for me to get in (that is definitely an area of growth for me!). It gave us a chance to discuss emotions and to ponder, just briefly, the idea that as long as you remember someone, they are never truly gone… a great tie-in to Día de los muertos.
If you have artists in your classroom, I highly suggest commissioning paintings from them. They put so much of their own personalities into their work and you will have a treasured remembrance for years to come.
