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Teaching Objectives Crafts

Click on the any section below to view the respective teaching objectives.

School-Autonomous Changes and Priorities 

Due to the bilingual instruction beginning with the first year, the Crafts course serves a supporting role in the acquisition of English, the school language of instruction, above all in the initial months from school begin until Christmas, referred to as the “Intensive Phase,” as well as subsequently in the 2nd Year in the form of a broad, multi-subject unifying course.

Technical and textile crafts are included within the Crafts course and selected parts from both are taught within the curriculum.

Year 1

General Knowledge and Abilities 

The students should be able to: 

  • understand the relevant English expressions used in the Crafts course (tools, material, preparations, procedures)
  • know the most important working materials and their properties (paper, papier mâsché, clay, wood, felt, cotton, wool and string, possibly leather)
  • practice constructive work criticism
  • know and employ the fundamentals of construction including colour, form, structure, patterns, contrast and proportion
  • perform measuring tasks (measuring tape, vernier calliper, ruler)
  • learn and employ various surface decorative techniques using paper (pasted paper, print, marbled pattern paper)
  • wrap works with paper
  • model simple imaginary forms from various materials (clay, papier mâché, salt dough, …)
  • understand the particularities of clay and its changes after raw and glaze firings
  • master simple working techniques in clay (thumb-pressed vessel, slab technique)

  

Special Technical Skills  

The students should be able to: 

  • design a simple work according to specifications from criteria
  • finish a simple working sketch from their own imagination
  • consider the form and use of a work
  • fashion a simple work of their own design, resolving by themselves the simple problems that arise during the process
  • transfer simple plans with proportional accuracy onto a work
  • use the fretsaw, junior hack saw and the mitre saw as intended
  • use the standing drill as intended
  • master the most important techniques of joining wood (glue, nail, screw)
  • learn how to treat wood surfaces (rasping, filing, sanding, painting, waxing, lacking)

 

Special Textile Skills 

The students should be able to: 

  • learn how to make fundamental materials (paper or felt) and use them to make simple works
  • sketch simple models and work with simple patterns
  • cut cotton and felt according to simple patterns
  • learn and use various joining techniques for felt and cloth as well as understand their properties (sticking together, glue, stitching by hand or with a sewing machine)
  • alter fabric using various techniques (crochet, knotting, braiding, weaving) and thereby produce a new surface
  • learn the important parts of the sewing machine and their functions
  • perform simple stitches (normal and zig-zag) with the sewing machine

Year 2

General Knowledge and Abilities 

The students should be able to: 

  • describe the most important tools, materials and procedures in the foreign language
  • employ the most important tools safely to avoid accidents
  • understand the directions and working drawings so as to work independently
  • finish a sketch from the imagination for more complex works
  • work independently on a project
  • propose criteria for a self-selected work including choice of material, working sketches (possibly patterns, etc.), fashioning the work according to design and solving independently problems that arise during the process
  • practice constructive criticism
  • experiment with working methods producing one-of-a-kind works as well as works in a series, recognizing relevant positive and negative aspects of both
  • learn and employ more complex working techniques in clay
  • design surfaces of ceramic objects using glazes, stained slip, decorative acts (additive and subtractive)

 

Special Technical Skills  

The students should be able to: 

  • learn and use more (covered) joining techniques for wood (dowels)
  • use various wood surface treatment methods accordingly (see 1st Year)
  • learn about more materials and their properties (metal, various kinds of wood, industrial wood products)
  • produce with the soldering iron simple joints

 

Special Textile Skills 

The students should be able to: 

  • develop more complex patterns, resolve problems
  • work with the sewing machine (threading, winding, complex stitches)
  • handle the concept of fashion, observe commercials critically and form an independent opinion concerning them
  • learn more design possibilities regarding material (silk painting, silk-screening, batik)
  • design and fashion objects from formable materials taking into consideration the particular properties of the material, costs, originality and quality