Paua drawings

 I was very proud of these paua drawings my class have been working on - I passed around a polished paua shell and got the class to notice things about the shell - the colours and patterns they could see, the texture and shape of the shell.  I then got them to draw the shell with pastel and outline details with black vivid.

They wrote a description of the paua shell and I got some of them to read their stories at our assembly.
I think the observational drawing we have been doing has been great for noticing objects carefully and has helped with thinking of adjectives in writing.  The paua inspired these pieces of writing:

Observational drawing

My colleague who is doing her TESOL diploma has been using observational drawing to support her literacy programme.  After talking to her about how good it was for getting children to notice details, a very useful skill for reading, I tried some with my class.  I collected some plastic toys and interesting objects and modelled noticing the details in an object by pointing out the feathers on this penguin and the lines on its feet and beak.

The children had a go and produced some great drawings - they have been getting better at noticing the details.