Tai'an city gets its students into creative sandpainting

Zhaozhuang primary school, located in Ningyang county – in Tai'an city in East China's Shandong province – has leveraged the advantage of it being near the Dawen River to integrate sandpainting into its curriculum.

During the holidays, students listened attentively to their teacher talking about the past, present and future of the river – to understand the use and protection of its water, fish and sand resources.

The school has been developing its sandpainting for seven years, ranging from a simple and fun riverbank or beach outing to using it in its current labor education curriculum.

At present, the school appoints a teacher with experience in sandpainting as a full-time teacher and a number of others as part-time instructors. The campus is also equipped with two special classrooms and facilities worth over 40,000 yuan ($5,488) to develop the course.

"During the summer vacation, the school arranged sandpainting classes for students from third to fifth grades students who are supervised," said teacher Shao Huiling.

A record is kept of the students' participation in sandpainting, including photos.

Sandpainting is said to be a great way for Ningyang county to promote labor education. By viewing labor education as an important measure to cultivate the morality of its students, the county has made dedicated efforts in recent years to optimize various mechanisms, improve approaches, collaborate with families and schools and conduct multiple evaluations, among other things. (Edited by Chen Chuxuan)

Students join forces to create a large sandpainting. [Video by Chen Hui for chinadaily.com.cn]

Students collect sand on the banks of the Dawen River. [Video by Chen Hui for chinadaily.com.cn]