Week 2: Miniature Collage Boxes

Jill and I decided the first week to set-up our space so that the kids have a comfortable spot in the center of the room to watch PowerPoint presentations and that seemed to work well for the second week too. I noticed last week how much the kids really enjoyed looking at different artists and we both decided to show them a video during snack time of an artist that creates microscopic sculptures on grains of sand. They seemed to be really interested by this and some of them have even heard of the artist before. I was disappointed however, with the sound quality of the video because it wasn't loud enough through the laptop speakers. It was really hard for the kids to hear and I had to improvise and explain what the video was showing. That was something that I will have to plan for again next week but the kids really enjoyed having their snack lounging on pillows and watching the video.

This week the class worked on their miniature collage boxes that they started in the previous class. The kids had to come up with a theme for their boxes and then were going to create miniature sculptures revolving around that theme to put inside them. However, they did not have enough time to get to the sculpture part of the lesson this week. The boxes seemed to take longer than what I had planned and they seemed to be having fun working on them so I decided to hold off until next week for that part of the lesson. I think that time has been a real challenge for me so far. As far as staying on time, keeping track of the time, and knowing what the kids can accomplish with the time frame of the class. But here is what they were working on.





















































This week I also noticed that the kids really feed off of each other in their sketchbook drawings.
The conversation started somewhere about Justin Bebier and how much they disliked him. Pretty soon that was not only the topic of conversation but also the subject of their drawings. Even a child that usually doesn't draw in his sketchbook, but does math in it instead, was making pictures of how much he disliked Justin. This almost carried over to their boxes as well with themes of "I hate Justin" but we quickly informed them that they needed to pick another theme for their box.

Overall I think that this week went fairly well but there are still things that could be improved. I seem to be having technical difficulties from week to week with PowerPoints not coming up correctly, or sound quality being an issue but I'm hoping that next week that will improve.