During this autumn term, pupils of years 1, 2 and 3 from the International School São Lourenço in Almancil have been working on an imaginative project in collaboration with Penguin, installers of energy-saving heating and cooling systems.
The company contacted the school to ask if their younger children would like to contribute penguin drawings for their next series of ads in the Algarve Resident. Taking this beyond the art class, the idea was also that the penguin theme could be integrated into other studies over the term.
The idea was warmly received by the school, and eagerly taken on by Jennifer Kieran, teacher for Years 1 and 2. She explained: “Classes began by learning about the Antarctic environment where penguins live. Then pupils had sessions in the IT room using PCs to research different penguin images and select their favourites. Back in the classroom, they set to work sketching ideas for penguins in different places, outfits, poses and scenarios – wherever their imaginations carried them.”
In another IT session, the children used the Paint program to create penguins in the style of those they had been drawing in class. The final session was spent creating penguins for specific times of the year – Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
All the children’s pictures were passed to Penguin for collating and scanning, before forwarding to the Algarve Resident to produce the final advertising layouts.
Penguin’s Director, Chris Blackburn, said: “Kids love penguins, so this was a fun idea, in keeping with our cartoon-style ads, and which allowed us an opportunity to contribute something to the school curriculum.”
The first of the budding advertising designers’ drawings – a scary Halloween penguin by Maxmillian Hartl, aged 7 – appears on page 31. Watch out for more in the weeks to come!
