Card #32: Person on a Bicycle

Oral Language Teaching Strategy:
Encourage Partner Talk Encourage students to talk through their ideas with a partner before sharing their ideas with the group.

Time: one 30-minute lesson or two 15-minute lessons
Materials: Art Card #32
Grouping: whole class or small group
Assessment: Kindergarten Oral Language Assessment Scale

FOCUSING ON THE PICTURE

[Analyzing/inferring]

    The artist had created a picture for us. What do you see in the picture? What do you think is happening?

  • Show students the picture. Ask them to look at it and think about what they see and what they think is happening.

  • Invite students to share their ideas about the picture with a partner.

  • Provide time for partner discussion and then invite a few partners to share their thinking with the group.
[Analyzing/inferring]

  • Offer prompts to stimulate discussion:
    • What do you see in the picture?
    • Where do you think this is? Why?
    • Who do you think the person is?
    • Where do you think he/she is going? Why?

      • We don’t know exactly what is happening. It’s okay to suggest different ideas of what is happening that make sense and fit the picture.

    • What time of day is it? How can you tell?
    • What season of the year is it? Why did you say that?

Teaching Tip: You may wish to model a partner discussion with one of the students. You can ask your partner to tell you one thing that they see in the picture. Provide a good listening model by looking at your partner while he or she is speaking. Then you can tell your partner one thing that you see in the painting.

GOING DEEPER

[Inferring/evaluating]

    As we look at more of the details in the picture, I see the houses and road, but I am wondering about the light blue behind the houses. Turn and tell your partner what you think that light blue might be. Why do you think that?

  • Discuss the scene in partners.

  • Offer prompts that focus the students on the scene and location of the cyclist:
    • Why do you think that the cyclist is not on the road?
    • How do you think the cyclist feels? Why do you think that?
    • Do you think he lives in one of the houses? If so, which one and why?
    • What do you think the light blue is just behind the houses? Why?
    • What is the yellow and black thing just by the bike?
    • Where do you think that this picture takes place?
    • What are the yellow lines in the front of the picture?
    • What do you think the artist was feeling or thinking when creating this art work?
    • What is the artist telling us?
    • What do the colours tell us?

You may conclude the lesson at this point and do the second part on the next day, or you may decide to continue and do Connecting and Predicting as part of the first lesson.

CONNECTING

Teaching Tip: If you decide to do Connecting and Predicting on the second day, begin your lesson by reviewing the painting with the students.

[Making connections]

  • Ask students to connect their personal experiences with what they see in the picture. Prompts might include:
    • What do you like about the picture? Is there anything you do not like?
    • How do you feel when you look at the picture?
    • Does the picture remind you of anything?
    • Have you ridden your bike by a road like this one? Were you alone or with someone else?
    • How do you feel when you are riding your bike?
    • Have you and your family ever been at a lake? Did you stay in a tent or were you in a cottage? Where was it?
    • What did you do there? Do you know how to swim?

    • Have you ever been camping by a lake? What did you do there? How did you feel when you were there?

  • Offer specific prompts that fit the discussion you have had with the group.



PREDICTING

[Predicting]

  • What do you think will happen next? Where do you think we will see the cyclist next? Why do you think that?

    Ask students to think about what might happen after the scene shown in the picture.

  • The group could choose one possibility and have students talk about what would be in that picture with a partner.


LESSON EXTENSIONS

  • Use the picture as the basis for a shared writing lesson. Collect ideas from the students and collaborate on building two to three sentences about the picture.

  • Use the shared writing account as a shared reading text to reread with the students.


FOLLOW-UP IN CENTRES

  • Suggest that students discuss their thoughts about the painting with a partner during centre time. They may wish to draw or paint a picture showing what happens to the cyclist after this picture.

  • Encourage pairs of students to discuss other pictures or art work in their classroom. They can discuss what they see, what they think is happening, and what they think may happen next. Encourage students to tell how they feel when they look at the picture and what they liked or did not like about it.

  • Students may wish to use one of the puppets to represent the cyclist and retell the story that they think is happening in the picture.