Most of the things that we vividly remember from our school education either had a picture related to the text in the book, or the words painted a pretty picture in our minds. There are countless studies that have confirmed the power of visual imagery in learning. For instance, one study asked students to remember many groups of three words each, such as dog, bike, and street. Students who tried to remember the words by repeating them over and over again did poorly on recall. In comparison, students who made the effort to make visual associations with the three words, such as imagining a dog riding a bike down the street, had significantly better recall.

Wouldn't you love to watch your favorite movie with a nice cup of tea? This is what our theme was for the Let's Start Art sessions this month- Chai (tea) and Favourite movie. Schools reopened after long summer vacation, so the students were more excited than usual for the art class and Chai seemed to be a popular thing among children.

The 15th Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas Convention was held on 21-23 January 2019 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Before the convention, all the primary schools of Varanasi were assigned with different countries and the students were supposed to learn about the country and present a rally during the commencement of the event. We conducted the Let's Start Art sessions around the same theme.

Let's Start Art sessions this month were conducted under the theme of The Winter Season and Family Pictures. The first set of workshops started in the first week of the month and we asked the students to draw their family photo. 

A number of 162 students from 10 schools attended these workshops.

What do you know about an agricultural farm?

The first set of Let's Start Art sessions for the month of August started with this question. Around 130 students from 5 Govt. Primary Schools in Varanasi attended the workshops. 

All the students had their own element of fascination from the farms. Some of the students were fascinated by the scarecrows, while others couldn't get over the tube wells, sowing, and techniques of planting rice. It was surprising that the students, who have never been introduced to the methods of crop production and management, have observed such details on their own. 

Mayank is a student of class- 3rd at Govt. Primary School, Orderly Bazaar. He's a silent student in class but his work reflects his observation. Not just the stories, but also the diagrams from the science book, he confidently draws all these in his drawing book and this has definitely made learning easier for him.

Art has always been the mirror of society. There are major historical incidents that are identified through the art of those times. Although art was supposed to exist only to please and flatter the establishment, there were always public artworks that reflected the public history, their beliefs, and part of evolving culture.