Themes the teacher can approach through the paintings shown here or similar :

Boats
Fish and Fisherman
Heat, swimming
Harvest

The teacher can search for other paintings that best suit his/her action and class. Konstantinos Volanakis is a very good source for someone to start with many stimuli.

Materials for the Lesson

Papers and colors for the children to draw according to the themes the Teacher thinks best. Summer is the Center Theme but there can be various related themes such as the sea, fish, boats, heat, swimming, harvest etc

 Paintings of famous painters that have summer and the sea as their themes.
Printed in large papers/cardboards so as to stay as gift to the class. Even better would be if the class can be done with a slide or video projector if available at school. In this case youtube is an endless source for such video, especially for young children.
We point some but there are many more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q_eizvFT2Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3I1dW2DIj4&t=87s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHv-JncORE

In the case that the Creative lesson continues until the 4^th phase, A4 papers will be needed, colors, boxes (used at the market also) and scarves that the children will bring from home and will wear them at the representation of the 4^th phase.  The girls as head-scarves and the boys as neck-scarves a fisherman’s characteristic.

Layout of the classroom

Some desks stay in the middle forming the shape of a boat that also could be a beach or a coast.
The teacher can decide what suits best his/her actions and form accordingly the desks and the classroom.

Phase 1

Presentations of the paintings either on paper or with a   video projector .

The children are encouraged to describe what they see.  Details of the painting in front or in the background that symbolize summer. For example the color of the sky, is it morning or afternoon, how blue is it, in the background the boats, the coast.

Summer  activities that we see in the painting or we do not see but we know them ( playing with the sand , the water etc )  The natural landscapes (seaside, mountain-island in the background, the dark blue of the sea in the deep etc)

Activities during the summer, with the sand ( fishing, sailing, boating etc)

Playing  with the sand and the sea.

Phase   2

Emotions evoked by Nature and how they are revealed through the paintings and the painters.

Fishing, the hard word and labor of the fishermen, the agony for the nets to have fish.
What they do with the fish after (they sell them).

Drawings: The children draw in A4 papers, whatever fish they can remember and want. (Fish, crabs, lobsters, cells etc)

Tempest, fear for drowning, fear to lose the nets and fish

Phase   3

Representation of themes from the paintings. We give life and movement to the paintings.

• The shape/placement of the desks helps so as to represent :

• The fishing with nets

• Rowing

• The ground swell and the tempest.

• The market and the selling of fish.

Phase  4

The Venice Market. (through the eyes of Konstantinos Volanakis painting). The classroom becomes a fish-market where the children sell whatever fish they have “caught” or drawn in this first phase. The boxes play the role of the  fish-crates and the scarves are a n elementary costume element to transform into fishermen.

The boys play the fishermen and sell and the girls the women that buy. As a currency caps again or old buttons.

Creative Dialogues- Example

(The desks become fish-market benches. The boys pose there and shell-fish, crabs, lobsters, cells that they have drawn.

BOYS
-Fish! Fresh Fish!
– Sea-bass, Red Mullets, Sardines …
-Crabs!!!
-Mussels! And oysters!!!

GIRLS
-How much do you sell the fish?
-3 euro per kilo
-Give me one kilo
-Are your mussels fresh Fisherman ???
-Very Fresh!!! I just brought them out of the sea!!!