The magical power of the Drawing Club

Since young children's language expression and writing abilities are being constantly developed, this age group often enjoy recording life experiences, conveying emotions, and expressing their understanding of the world through drawing. Drawing not only develops children's creativity and imagination, but also satisfies their strong curiosity. Every child is a little artist. With just a pen and a piece of paper, they can depict a colourful world.

Earlier this academic year, HNN launched Drawing Club, an initiative created by Greg Bottrill in which children develop their imagination, literacy and mathematics skills through story exploration.

What exactly is Drawing Club? We are honoured to have Greg Bottrill, the author of the book "Can I Go And Play Now?", and the mastermind of Drawing Club to introduce it to us after he came to HNN for an in person professional development day with our teachers.

Mr. Greg also actively participated in a day of teaching at the Nursery. He carefully observed and experienced every age group's classroom and analysed in detail with the teachers the implementation methods and effects of Drawing Club . He also shared with the teachers more details about integrating these methods into daily teaching and designing courses based on children's interests and needs to help them develop comprehensively. Through the exchange with Greg, the teachers gained a deeper understanding of the relevant educational theories and implementation methods.

惠立幼儿园的绘画俱乐部是什么样的呢？

What is the Drawing Club like?

At Hiba Nursery, every Drawing Club starts with a storybook. For example, in the recent Drawing Club, the children's creative journey began with “Where the Wild Things Are”. Ms. Juliana condensed the plot of the story into five new vocabulary words and used gestures to support the children remember them. During the storytelling process, the children constantly shared their thoughts about the story's progress. When encountering the new vocabulary, they made corresponding gestures. Linking the new vocabulary to a physical movement locks the new words into their memory. 

After the story ended, the children's creative journey begins. Ms. Juliana asked the children a question based on the plot of the picture book: "What do you imagine the beast to be like? Where is its’ home?" After Ms. Juliana shared her ideas, the children immediately picked up their pencils and eagerly began to sketch the beasts and their habitats from their minds. After completing their creations, they explained the various details of their creations with the group. Next, the children set a magic word to add more vitality and liveliness to their work: when they said this magic word, something happened, making their works more interesting and vivid.

In every Drawing Club session, students not only engage in imaginative creations based on the original story, but also constantly exercise their oral expression skills through interaction with teachers and peers. The setting of special vocabulary and magic words also supports with deeper language acquisition.

Perhaps many adults think that drawing is a way to relax after learning knowledge, can children really grow from it? In fact, various play activities, including drawing, are ways for children to explore, discover, experiment, invent, and take risks, and they are ways for children to understand the world and themselves. In these activities, oral expression, imagination, writing ability, cognitive level, and even mathematics can be developed in a mutually connected way, and children gradually gain growth in happiness.

At Hiba Academy Nantong, we constantly explore children's creativity and imagination in a joyful atmosphere through exciting projects like Drawing Club. Children water every imaginative seed with creativity in the soil of the story, and various surprising flowers bloom. This is the charm of creativity. At Hiba Academy Nantong, we help children develop their thinking and cultivate creativity, while also helping them feel the joy of happiness and growth in creation.