The Fine and Industrial Arts in Elementary Schools, Grade VI

Abstract

The stimulating sense of increased ability to handle materials and implements which comes only when work has been so organized in previous years as to give some degree of mastery along specific lines of manual arts is a strong supplement to the urge of the widening interests apparent in Grade VII. In representation pupils who have learned to picture the general characteristics of objects, to draw with some degree of care, by thinking out the positions which lines and brush strokes should occupy, before instead of after making them, and who have attempted to portray effects of three dimensions, are now interested in gaining increased ability to make satisfactory drawings. This becomes evident in a desire to represent details with greater accuracy and to picture effects of distance and solidity so the results look like the object. The children appreciate the power to picture a book as lying flat, or a bowl as appearing to be round, or a house as showing its structural features and its apparent size. In constructive work the pupils are sufficiently mature to undertake some simple individual projects and to appreciate standards of workmanship. Awakening aesthetic appreciation of beauty of proportions and outlines, and of fitness to purpose enables the pupils to use design understandingly in relation to their constructive work and to their school and home surroundings. The following .suggestions are offered regarding the phases which may appropriately receive emphasis in Grade VII. Representation.-The use of drawing as a means of explanation and description in connection with other school subjects