Week 5 Lesson: imPRESS me

This week, our lesson was on printmaking. It was a really fun class and I feel like the students really enjoyed themselves. There were many opportunities for students to explore the process of printmaking through demonstrations, PowerPoint slides and discussion, and playing in the centers. The class was also very crowded with extra visitors including a film crew and several art education students observing and lending a hand. Although it was crowded and a little distracting, we still managed to stay focused on the lesson.

The big activity lesson for the day was led by Lacey. She did a great job reeling in the students into discussion by asking them very fun questions like “what ‘s a machine?” and “how does a machine dance?” Once student, Daniel, demonstrated to the class how a machine dances by actually doing the robot dance. Lacey also did a good job with her demonstration of printmaking by using the counting method to get students involved in the demo. And at the end of the lesson, she encouraged students to do a train dance which turned out absolutely great. We had a few technical problems but we had back up plans (such as the radio for our end of the day dance party).

Both Lacey and I spent a lot more time communicating with the students during center play. I got a chance to talk to Daniel and Jackson while they were drawing their dancing machine in the drawing center. Jackson was making a robot that had similar traits to Santa Claus and Daniel was making a robot that had a pogo stick and a map of North America.

imPRESS me

This week LaMonique and I introduced printmaking.  I took lead and started the lesson by asking questions about machines, since the students prints were going to be of what they think a dance machine is and will be making next week with clay.  Some questions I asked were what are machines? What do machines look like? Can machines dance? Then we showed a video of Nick Cave and his sound suits.  I asked what they like about it and if they could hear the sound.  I then connected it to how machines make sound.  We also showed a Wall-E video which they LOVED.   Then we had ten minutes of center play where LaMonique did a quick demonstration of our oil pastel center where they made "prints" without ink.  The other three centers were the book center where they also got to build their dance machines, the projector center where they used mechanical objects and traced them on the wall and the drawing center where they used permanent markers on canvas. During this time we played Michael Jackson's Dance Machine. After center play we had snack time and then a powerpoint full of images of prints and Nick Cave's sound suits.  I asked which ones they liked and Sofia said to one of our slides, " I don't like this because it doesn't look like anything."  but then when we showed the sound suits she loved those.  We then split the class into two groups to do demonstrations of printmaking.  I had the students tell me what to draw on my meat tray and then showed them how to make the indentation. Then I showed how to use the rollers and ink and had them count to ten when I rolled the ink on. I had them do the same thing when I pressed the paper onto the ink.   After the demonstrations were done the students got to do their own prints (up to 4) and when they were done they got to go to center play.  With 15 minutes left we played the clean up song and had them come back to the carpet.  Then I asked if they had fun and what they like about the day.  Allison said, "I liked it because it was just fun."  Then they started to tell us what centers they liked best which were the oil pastel and drawing center.  Once our discussion was done we had a dance party and started a train around the room. The kids loved it! I think this week went well especially with our observers in the classroom.  Hopefully next week goes just as good!

Art as Activism continued

This past Saturday we finished up our project from the previous few weeks. Many students were still carving at the end of last week and a few hadn't even started carving until this past Saturday! Melissa started out the lesson by reviewing how to properly carve the blocks. She did this by asking Sultan to demonstrate it. She did this the previous 2 weeks as well and I think it makes the students feel good and pay attention since their peers are the ones in the spotlight. It also lets the students know that she finds them capable. Everyone got to work then, picking up where they left off. We were constantly rotating around the room, providing help when needed, and reminding students to carve away from themselves. Those students that work quickly were getting very creative when it came to printing. They had the time to try out different kinds of papers and mixing colors to find what affect it would have. Only one person wasn't able to finish in time. In fact, she didn't even start carving. However, we provided her with the tools and asked her to carve at home so that on the last day of class she could print at least 1 or 2 pictures. We also had 2 boys that hadn't begun carving because of absences, and they dismissed the images they previously printed out and decided to carve car brand symbols. This wasn't the purpose of the prints, as they were supposed to promote social activism, but at least they have the chance to work with an interesting art form. I do wonder though, if I was expected to give grades in a school classroom, how would I grade these students' works? After all, they either didn't finish their projects or didn't follow the assignment. It just brought these ideas to my attention and I'm beginning to see how difficult it will be to grade art in my future classroom. Now that we are finished this lesson, we will move on to painting next week. If any students didn't finish, though, they will be able to finish up on the last day of class, and if there's time they will even be able to distribute their artwork into the community. Even if there isn't time, we hope the students do on their own time. Using art as social activism can give these students a strong voice in world and we hope to have given them some tools to do so.

Week 5 The Photography Scavenger Hunt

This week we started what is to be our major final project. We want to students to play with size by using close up images on very large canvases. We started off the day with showing a PowerPoint of related art and artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe and macro photography. The students are always very excited about the PowerPoints. They hold the student's interests for long periods of time, and we have discovered that they retain the information we aim to teach them.




Today the students were broken into groups to start the project. We separated all the tables and numbered them. The students immediately recognized the difference in the classroom set-up. Each group was given one camera to go outside and take close up pictures with, and we gave them a scavenger hunt to follow. The students seemed to be intrigued and had a great time outside, although there were many many problems. Problems ranged from technical problems with the cameras to behavioral problems with students running off, not working in their groups, and mainly just not listening. If we were to bring students outside again I would defiantly do it at the end of class, since it seemed like after the scavenger hunt I just couldn't get them to calm down.




At the end of the day, we did get the enough good pictures for them to use as their final projects, and some extras that we can print out to display as well. I believe that if we had access to better cameras (we only had the options of small video cameras that took still frames, when we would have preferred point and shoot digital cameras) it would have made a tremendous difference.

Week 4 Miniature Scenes

This was the last week our students studied miniatures. They continued their routine 20 minutes of drawing in the sketchbooks, and the class was supposed to be started with a slideshow of more miniature art and a time lapse, tilt shift photograph video that was featured in the Guggenheim Play exhibit. However, we were missing a cord and we will now have to reschedule to show the slideshow. To jump start the project, we taught the students a game to get them thinking about objects. They were broken into groups and given various objects. I then called out an everyday object and asked them to convince me which of their objects would work the best. They showed us pieces of fabric for rugs, cups for lampshades, and dried up flower petals for modern chairs. We prompted them with questions as they retuned with their objects. “Why is this a rug? Why is this the best rug?” “It is a rug because it is a rectangle, because it is soft and comfortable.” One group did not have a cup to make a lampshade and instead brought up a seashell. When I asked how that was a lampshade, he proclaimed it was one for a desk lamp and showed me wear the light bulb would go, and how it would shine down onto the desk. I found the game to be very successful in getting them to plan for their miniature scenes. The greatest movement was when I had Erica choose and object for the students to get. I had been choosing very simple objects, and she asked for a bicycle! We were amazed as students started piecing together all the objects to create their bicycles, they were amazing!

After the game I showed the students my example of a miniature scene. We asked them to think about a room they wished they had for their house, however, we were very lenient about the scene they choose to create. I had chosen to make a seafood restaurant for my restaurant, and I showed them how I had made the furniture and decorations. The students all went to work quickly. One of the things that surprise me about my age group is that they never ask for help with their ideas. They will constantly ask for help with the cutting, gluing and other physical aspects, but they never need help choosing creative topics. They made lounges, candy rooms, an “area 55” being taken over by aliens, a clothing store, and a recreation of the movie humans verses dinosaurs. They really enjoyed making their projects and wanted to continue it next week, which might create a bit of a time crunch for us. When they are interested in the project they really have long attention spans. They would stop working even for snack time, and we let them eat their snacks while they worked. Our main downfall was the clean up. We gave the students almost two tables full of supplies for this project, in order not to limit them. We really enjoyed the outcomes of giving them access to so many materials, but it created a huge mess. We are going to think about clean up songs or games, such as the human vacuum, so that next time we will not have to clean up after all of them.

Art as Social Activism Lesson 2

This week, we continued our lesson on creating art as social activism by working on carving and printing some images. The students were very involved with their work for the length of the class. A few of the kids even began printing this week, but most will finish up carving and printing the next class.

Melissa had everyone gather around the grouped desks to begin her lesson. She then gave them a step-by-step demonstration of the carving process and printing process. She asked the students a lot of questions as she did so that they were involved.

A few students would always carve in the wrong direction no matter how many times we told them, and we ended up with a few cutting themselves because of it. However, nobody really minded and they learned not to hold it in that direction, just as I did the first time I tried this.
We also had a little problem with one of the students who became really frustrated and wouldn't work on his project. Melissa and I both tried talking to him and persuading him to begin, but nothing was really working. In the end, he seemed to just want to use his friend's image to trace on his block. It was a minor road block, but it turned out all right in the end.

Overall, the students seem to be really enjoying themselves.

Week 4, 3/5, The Book of Kells

This week's lesson was Jess's but because she was sick I took over for the day. We visited Ireland and explored the book of Kells. After an introduction of where we were, what we had done the week before, I presented a powerpoint on the book of Kells. The students were then asked to create two works of art. The first was picking an animal that had meaning to them, using the first letter, and incorporating the animal as the letter or in the letter. Showing my example and a brief demo of oil pastels, they used that media to create their letter and animals. After a snack, and when they were finished their letters, I showed another example and then asked them to make the cover and back pages of their own Book of Kells. We will bind the book with paper for them to keepand use as they wish. They used scraps of paper and glue to collage a similar feeling of the Book of Kells which included borders, repetition and decoration.

Even though it was a hectic day and could have been more organized (as usual) I felt like the students enjoyed what they were doing. This was another repeat of animals as a theme, and I was impressed with their reasonings for choosing their animals and how they incorporated them into their letters. The collaged pages also turned out well and had the same elements as the Book of Kells. I think they liked the variety of papers and some students chose to make more pages for their book, actually making a story.

I was very happy that I was able to properly conclude the class this time and felt it was a great way to see what the students had learned, asked them what they thought about the oil pastels and about their choices. The examples were great ways for students to see how they could complete the assignment, and showed how you can take one idea, like the very complex Book of Kells, and simplify it.

Next time I need more organized stations of other activities for the students to do and some guidelines and explanations (I put of a fort and it got out of control). I also need to document more and just be more organized with the materials and make sure I have enough materials for students (we were low on glue sticks).

A Colorful Dance - Pre School - Video

 

LaMonique with Daniel- He is explaining his drawing in his sketchbook.

A Colorful Dance - Pre School

This week I took lead and discussed with the students how color can dance. After sketchbook time,  I started off by simply asking what is color, where can it be seen which they pointed to themselves and the outfits they had on. The students also pointed to things around the classroom.  I then proceeded to ask more questions such as what were their favorite colors and why.  Then instead of going into our PowerPoint, we decided to do center play where they could experience different mediums that use color and see how it dances with each one. The four centers this week were the book center that also had colorful ribbons that they could dance and play around with, the projection center where they drew on acetate and colored their drawings in on the wall using paper and color pencil. The third center was a sculpture center using model magic and sharpies.  The students had a chance to stab the clay with the marker so it could change color. The final center used spray bottles that had watercolor paint in each one and got sprayed onto canvas to see how colors mix together.  LaMonique demonstrated the clay and paint centers. We also introduced necklaces at each center in order to keep them organized and not crowded.  Another thing we introduced was a transition dance. This week we did the chicken dance when we wanted them to come to the carpet from the centers.  It worked a little bit but it still needs work. The necklaces worked great!
Once we got them back to the carpet I showed a PowerPoint with images that concentrated on color and what the big activity was going to be, scratch art where each student got a piece of scratch paper where the black came off and color would come through.  The students were very excited seeing these images and had a lot to say.  One image was a example of scratch art and it was a Halloween seen. I asked what their Halloween costumes were and some said, "A princess that was pink, a fairy that was purple, a ninja that was black!" Then we went to our final image that as the another example of scratch art, a scene from nature. Next to it I put the same one in black and white and ask them what the difference was and which one looked better.  Autumn began to say, " The color one looks better because it is more pretty and I like colors."  Then Anja said, "The color one is better because I can see the picture and it has my favorite colors in them" which she then said all of  the colors, red yellow green blue and purple. After the PowerPoint was snack time when we showed the videos Finding Nemo, Tangled, and Alice in Wonderland.  After snack they came back to the carpet where I showed a demonstration on how to use the scratch paper. We all laid down so each student could see and I asked them what shapes I could draw that would help make a picture.  They all started to shout, "Triangles, rectangles, squares, ovals, hearts, diamonds, circles, stars..." I then showed them different lines and ask how to color a shape in.  When they showed me how I told them to make sure there here the squeak noise, that way they know they are doing it correctly.  When I was done they went back to the tables to do their own pictures.  Once they were done they could go to center play or draw on the tables.  We also introduced the Dora the Explorer song Clean Up to get them to start helping clean up their areas. It worked for some but not all and I think next week it will work more now that they know what the song is.  This week there were some tweaks but overall I think it was a great lesson and went well. Hopefully next week will go even better