The illustrated album is auseful resource for school contexts. In fact, many of them were born for the libraries, both particular and public, as materail for children.

Nowadays, in Galicia, we have writer with a long experience, who have even awarded the Premios Nacionais de Literatura Infantil e Xuvenil, who also have accompanied these passion with the teaching activity. They even talk about the necessity they felt to create their own materials for their students. Authors like Fina Casalderrey, Paco Martín, Xabier P. Docampo, or Agustín Fernández Paz created books for the smaller ones, at the same time they worked didactically with them.

In this section we will analyse THREE cases of didactic use of illustrated albums.

We will oberve how, in the hands of creative and agile teachers, with a pedagogical conception of work centered in interdisciplinay projects, they may become the starting point of learning processes, much intense and sophisticated thatn the book itself.

We will see how, starting with a book, teachers may work in a greenhouse, or create a series of raps, or study gasteropodes with their students, ...

We mean, in these cases, PROJECTS METHODOLOGY, thanks to which the book is a means, a starting point, which starts having branches to different topics, differents fields of knowledge, finally to become an interdisciplinay resource, potentiating association in the children's thoughts.

CASE Number 1: SNAILS

Based in the book CAROLINA E OS CARACOIS - Writer: Arturo Iglesias / Illustrator: Xosé Tomás - Baía Edicións

At one kidergarden teachers decide to read the book with the children and then carry out a project with it.

The authors visit the school, and show them all the creation process. It is a book illustrated with three dimension imaxes, modelled, using clay, stones, and the shells of real snails, as well as other materials (plastic, wire, paint, etc.).

Boys and girls are witnesses of the creation of the settings, and of the ideas that led to the creation of the poems.

The children observe the models, the previous designs, and they learn that, to model shapes, it first necessary to plan, draw, and think about spaces, invent a personality to characters, etc.

They see the use of materials, and how everyday fabrics and materials may be used to create and recreate. Thus, they were especially interest in the snail shells: pick them up from the ground (some of them were even acuatic), dry them, and then paint them with acrylic paint.

Pick up little pebbles, of similar size, to make walls. Model clay e create the floor for a bathroom. Insert pieaces of wire to create the snails' antennes, ...

At this stage it was essential to stimulate their curiosity with something: example. They faced the thing itself, the materials, the matter, they touched hem, smelled them...and they were ready (and stimulated) to make their own productions, which came later.

Teachers enhanced a series of investigations arround snails as real animals. With the children, they picked them up, fed them, studied their geometry, and they let them be part of their own group.

They used them to work affection, care of animals, responsibility of feeding them, and the cooperative work carried out.

The next step consisted of making their own clay snails, with the same tachnique of the book, and with others too.

They decided to model snails and recreate some of the scenes of the book: moving, creeping, forming a wake, a geometric shape, ...

And they also recreated Carolina, the main protagonist. It was a group work, as it was made in a big sixe, and for that they had to cooperate, and use different materials.

The result was a sepecial interpretation of the book: very inner, individual and collective. It helped them comprehend the creation processes, to carry out mind maps, and to make a final product working in common.

A new didactic variant enrichened the project and its exploitation: the creation of an exhibition with the materials, with explanations e presentations by the authors.

CASE Number 2: ROBOTS

Based on the book O NENO QUE TIÑA MEDO DOS ROBOTS / O ROBOT QUE TIÑA MEDO DOS NENOS- Writer: Miguel Vázquez Freire/ Illustrator: Xosé Tomás - Rodeira-Edebé

In this case, as we could see in the section PARTS, the topic is robots, all kinds of robots. The characters, en theory enemies of children, are made of waste materials, mechanic remains which humans reject, of old wahing machines, parts of ventilators, coffee pots, etc. Recycling, is, then the background.

The authors decide then to reach the young readers by means of workshops and encounters, enroling them in the creation of beings from remains of objects which we do not usually pay attention to. And they decide to create the main character, the robot AX-B10, at a real size. And they take it to libraries, schools, as a model to imitate.

A new similar project starts with students of all ages, and from different places: the creation of robotic characters, from all the perspectives.

And they did it following some steps:

1. Looking for material at their onw homes.

2. Sharing all the materials.

3. Designing the character on the paper, writing its textual description: psycological features, aim, planet of procedence, etc.

The design process is fundamental: they share the materials, their ideas, they discuss the decisions about the creatures' identities, they talk about the names, and all together create a gallery of characters.

Then they have the idea of going beyond, and combining the use of these recycling materials with illustration on paper.

They decide to create hybrid stories, integrating everyday objects on bidimensional illustrations.

We can appreciate here three samples of this technique:

The project grows, given its enormous possibilities. And finally, it acquires the dimension of a digital book.

They decide to call it "APROVEITANDO" (a mixture of reusing and walking), because the idea consists of using all materials, recycling them and bring them to life again, and make them "walk".

The "APROVEITANDO" project was born in the context of illustration workshops carried out at a bookshop, and it was finally designed and spread out in an open way to share the result on the web.

The whole project may be downloaded here : APROVEITANDO (pdf)

CASE Number 3: PLANTS

Based on the book VERDEDADES - Writer: Yolanda Castaño / Illustrator: Xosé Tomás - Editorial Biblos

The book VERDEDADES, metioned in other sections, is based on the knowledge of plants, trees, fruits and flowers. The vegetal world is the leit-motiv of Yolanda Castaño's poems, centered in different types of species.

The illustrations go beyond the strictly vegetl world, and design a particular microcosmos, the world of a curios young girl, a scientist, who spends the summer in the countryside with her grandparents. A time and a place of freedom to learn, of intense emotions, of generational affection, and of aplants everywhere.

In a school, teachers decide to carry out a project arround it, with kindergarden students, a big scale project, implying a big number of teachers, going through different subjects, making children read, sing, memorise, plant, dance, draw, ... A interdisciplinay project facing the child s a multifacial being, with multiple intelligences to take into account.

One greenhouse:

They sellect the plants which are mentioned in the book, to plant them, study them, water them, take care of them, and to follow their growth. The different groups of children (the school is very big) choose their "own" plants.

 

Rap music:

A music teacher decides to create some rap melodies based on the poems, so that the students may sing them and learn them.

 

The encouter with the illustrator: one spring morning the illustrator comes to school. The different groups come and visit him, singing their raps, the poems that they had already adopted as their own. They show their projects, and the illustrator draws live, for them, so that they can guess which plant it is in each case, he interacts with them about the creation process, etc. And they establish emotional links one to another. They learn that, bahind a books, there is a person who has emotions, who projects, who work, who grows by creating.

Mural projects: children carry out several investigations about the plants they chose for their groups. Tis procedence, the suitable weather conditions, the drawing of the leaves, the seed. They use it all for the illustrations, as well as for real projects, which they then exhibit for the rest of the school.