This week is kind of topsy-turvy. We were off Monday for Columbus Day, so I only met with the Tuesday crew. I'll be out on a Tuesday 2 weeks from now, so it will even out. The 5th grade has a new co-teacher, but we're fortunate that it's a friend we know and love from past years- Ms. McCaffrey, so any worries of how things would work out with a new co-teacher in the mix have been allayed. This week the third grade is getting reorganized as well- a new teacher is coming in, and the classes are getting split up. Although it will be easier to work with smaller groups, we'll miss our young friends who are moving to the other class. This shift may mean a slight change in schedules as well. For next week, anyway we've arranged for Ms. Yancey and Ms DiDonato's class to switch sessions on Tuesday afternoon, but they'll only have 45 minutes. It's not fair, when everyone else has at least an hour if not an hour and 25 minutes. We'll see how things work out. Anyway:
4th grade is doing an AMAZING job! They've been so well behaved, and they are really getting the idea of meandering. I started class asking what an "obstacle" was, since the week before I'd called our buttons obstacles. Some of them remembered their science lesson and answered with a drawing of mountains and hills. YES!!! I let them either draw or write their answer. It's interesting to see how many choose either or even both. What's important is being able to see what they know. This week they finished sewing on buttons as needed and began meandering with running stitch around the obstacles in their compositions. Ms. McGinley's class is basically finished, so next week we just need to mount them on felt backgrounds. Ms. Yancey's class only has an hour and we had a late start coming back from recess, so they will finish next week. Maybe we can get them back on the same schedule if we push a little. They'll also have more time next week thanks to the switch with 3rd grade.
I know this group has had a lot of sewing experience with me last year, but I'm still so astonished at how smoothly our sewing lessons have been.
They get so focused on their work with a needle and thread in hand. They've even gotten better about sitting down while stitching. Last year everybody wanted to stand up. I guess they've grown. Thanks Ms Yancey and Ms. McGinley for jumping into this project so willingly, and being so helpful with the art processes.
I met with Ms. Gelfand's 5th grade on Tuesday. We reviewed ellipses, and looked at cylinders, and then I talked about highlights being the opposite of shadows, and that to make a drawing look 3-dimensional we need both. I showed them where the highlights would fall for each of our times of day, and the students copied my sketch into their books. Then I demonstrated how we would paint our bottles with highlights and shadows to make them look more 3-dimensional.
Morning light from the east would have the highlight shown above on the right side and match up with our yellow morning shadow. Students painted the dark side first with pure blue paint and then painted with water to blend and lighten the color as it got closer to the highlight. They left the highlight the white of the page.
Our noon light would have a highlight on the cone of the bottle and shadows around both edges of the bottle and match up with our red painted shadow.
The afternoon light from the west side would make a highlight on the left side of the bottle and leave the rest in shadow. I like how dramatic this one looks. Our student teacher, Ms. Gelfand, and our new co-teacher were very helpful. Ms. McCaffrey took a few students who had been absent last time and walked them through the whole project to get caught up. Painting and cleanup didn't take very long, so we had plenty of time to do some written assessment questions in our journals to close this portion of our sun unit, which also satisfied their science classwork.
I think this project aligned well with the science curriculum, however it did not allow for much student creativity or choice (the only choice was really in the highlight painting for which time of day to choose). Hopefully the next step in our lessons will blossom and get the kids thinking more artistically and critically. Sometimes these stepped- follow -directions type projects are easier, especially for us teachers, and it did directly relate to the curriculum, but I would like to find some alternate ways to approach artmaking with the kids in more creative ways.
Ms. DiDonato's 3rd graders successfully completed all 4 money stamps, so they are ready for next week's pattern stamping project. Our lesson was simply a review of the block letters and the process of drawing and cutting out the foam sticker shapes. We got handles on all the stamp coins at the very end. It was a bit of a whirlwind. Some interesting things occurred, though. There was an epidemic of "mistakes" and foam thrown away. So we learned the lesson of turning mistakes into new possibilities and not wasting materials. One boy noticed that our 10 and 25 stickers should also be arranged in backward order to print correctly, not just be facing backward. That was a brilliant moment of observation! One wood coin cracked when pressing the handle onto it- we'll have to warn the kids not to press toooooo hard when stamping.
Next week we'll get the Monday crew caught up and start some next stages. Any teachers who want to comment or post, feel free. I love seeing Ms. Akif's art class posts below! When I mentioned we'll be starting to talk about the ENERGY of the sun next in 5th- many of the kids got excited and told me about their solar ovens! Wonderful integration happening!!!!!
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