The Magic Paintbrush

Continuing our discussion on Ancient China, one of our recent stories was a Chinese Folktale titled The Magic Paintbrush. 

Ma Liang is a poor orphan who dreams of becoming a famous painter, but does not have a paintbrush to paint. In a dream one night, the young artist is given a magical paintbrush. He goes on to amaze onlookers as his artwork becomes real and leaps from the paper.When news of this spreads, the young boy finds himself at the hands of the emperor, whose interest in the paintbrush is driven by greed.The emperor commands the boy to paint him a room full of riches. Ma Liang knows in his heart that it would not be right to paint such a thing. Instead, he paints a tree of gold on a solitary island in the middle of a sea. He paints a boat for the emperor to travel to the island, and he paints wind to fill its sails...and more wind...and more wind. The emperor is blown away, learning the lesson that those who rule and paint with greed in mind don’t deserve.

Each student was given a piece of paper with water colors. They were to imagine that they had the magic paintbrush. Whatever they painted would become real! What would be something you would like to have that could become real?

Students painted some very creative ideas! 

More pets, castles, endless amounts of books, large bowl of chocolate pudding, more stars in the sky, parts for their bike, etc.

The next day, we wrote about our paintings!

Students met with a partner to chat about their paintings and ask questions to expand their ideas about why they painted what they did. Those ideas were used to begin their drafts. 

Why did you paint that picture with your magic paintbrush or what would you have Mai Liang paint you? 

Why? Students followed with complete sentences to give reasons for why they painted their pictures. 

These will be coming home soon. However, first we want to enjoy them in the classroom to share with one another. We will be creating a museum of Mai Liang inspired paintings and writing for students to show, and and for others to walk through and view. 

We get to celebrate our writing and continue our conversation connected to Ancient China!