Week of Feb 21

Our "week" was short due to the President's Day holiday, but still jam-packed with activity.

 2nd grade: I only saw Ms Spangler's class this week. We had a helpful sub and student teacher, and the kids got to complete their stitcheries. Most kids just needed to fill in the backgrounds.

 There was a very staggered completion rate in this project, so I brought in paper, tap, and thread for the students who finished before the others to extend their shapes into a shape garland of cut paper attached to a long thread. It was interesting to see that despite mys saying repetitively that their shapes should be large, many, many of the kids drew and cut out teeny tiny shapes. I feel like this project overall may have been a little too demanding developmentally. Not everyone had the motor skills needed to pull the pipe cleaner "threads" through all the way, and the idea of scale is not fully understood yet.

 3rd grade: Ms. Lex and Ms. Didonato's classes completed their abacus projects. We had time to do some more values and then papier mache the frames to make them stronger. .

 I hope the papier mache is sufficient to make these useful tools. If I were to do this again I might change the materials to be a bit sturdier. The kids really seemed to gain counting fluency as they used the abacus. The movement of the beads is like taking a tally, and creates a strong visual. When counting coins the biggest mistake is losing count!

4th grade: Mr Willis and Ms McGinley's classes completed their lego fractions. We practiced some more equivalent fractions, did a compare/contrast between a Chuck Close and a Sol Lewitt image, and finally arranged and glued down their pieces. Mr Willis' class wins for most prints! His class was able to fill an entire board with leftovers. I would really love to get some plexiglass and find a spot for this lego fraction mosaic to stay on a while for a long time!

 5th grade: Oh my goodness! This was a feat to prepare and manage, but we had our variables/drawing machine experiments day. I came up with 8 art experiments for the kids to try, and they wrote a response about each of the experiments afterward. We met in the auditorium and I set up each experiment around the stage as "centers" to cycle through. We only managed to get through 4 rotations, but there was a lot of great, focused activity happening. The fast pace and novelty of each station kept everyone engaged.

 The sand pendulum was extremely popular, even though it was not a permanent image.

 The expandable/collapsible reach gizmo was interesting, but didn't do exactly what I'd hoped. Despite a fixed rotation point there was still too much play and not enough limitation in the range of motion.

 Body Compass had an interesting build-up of mark. The kids placed their elbows on a dot and rotated from the elbow as they drew with a marker.

 Action painting was popular. It as good to limit it to one page per group to get a nice buildup of color and mark.

 Race Car printing was exciting, but the resulting print was not terribly impressive.

 Marker pendulums were fun- markers taped to yo-yos to create linear and bang-dot marks. It could have built up even more.

 Limited reach chalk drawing had chalk tied to a short length of string within a frame. We also had pencil tops making amazing spiral marks, but I missed a picture of it.

A special thank you this week to our student teachers and interns who were a crucial part of making this experiment day run smoothly. Now to do it again on Monday with the other class!!

Week of Jan 17

There were no classes on Monday due to MLK day, but this week was the beginning of our new schedule to accommodate an extra day and 3 new classes.

2nd grade: Ms Drossner and Mr Pitt's classes missed out this week, but I met Ms Spangler's class for the first time. They are a lively and quick-working group! They accomplished in one meeting what I expected to take 2 sessions!. We passed out their brand new books and started off with a compass drawing to show North/South East/West. We did a kinetic activity to help differentiate the 4 directions by standing and completing a different motion to each direction. We talked about radial designs in art and I walked them through the steps to create a collaged and drawn compass using different colored squares of paper, drawn radial designs, and an arrow attached with a  brad. I look forward to doing the lesson with the other classes next week.

3rd: Ms O'Donnell's class missed out on Monday, but I got to meet our new teacher, Ms Lex, and Ms Didonato's class in their new Wednesday slot. Ms Didonato's class completed their sound unit with some review, practice and performance time, and a chance to paint their bridges. Their patterns are so colorful! It was a real luxury to meet them first thing Wednesday morning with plenty of time to work! See the previous post to hear/view some performances!

 Ms Lex's class began with introductions. Most of the students were excite to get to be a part of Artslink again as they all had been in either of the 2 other 3rd grades before the classes were split up, and had met me before. We picked up with the money concept they had left off with, as the 3rd graders need lots more practice. I brought pre-cut colored paper shapes to represent each coin value. Green squares = $1, smaller blue squares= $0.25, long purple rectangles = $0.10, short yellow rectangles= $0.05, and small red squares = $0.01. We talked about patterns a little. The kids worked in teams to create arrangements of the papers to represent a specific value. or example $1.25 could be represented by a green and a blue square. They practiced with several values. Then they created their own pattern collage by arranging at least 1 of each shape onto a background paper. They were asked to make a geometric design that showed repetition and did not leave too much empty space. When they are complete we will find out their "value", and then make a second composition to represent "change" back from a specific value.

 4th: Ms McGinley and Ms Yancey's fully completed their coordinate grid map projects. All painting was completed and grids drawn. Then we played a coordinate grid game. We established values for each possible item on their maps. When I called a coordinate, the kids had to find it on their maps, and tally up the points for whatever was in that square. The table with the most points at the end got to be the first to hang up their pictures.

 In Ms McGinley's class we also had enough time for a reflective writing piece about what they liked or disliked about the project and what they learned. She had some students type up their responses to add to the pictures in the hallway!

On Wednesday I met Mr Willis'sclass for the first time. There were many familiar faces from last year's 3rd grade class! First I passed out their new books and asked the kids to write a bit about what they liked about math, science, and art as a way to ease into the artslink program. Then we started off our fractions project. I thought legos would be an interesting material to work with as I've recently found lots of lego"hacks", or ways to use a tool for alternative purposes. The kids were split into 5 groups by random numbering. Each group was given a basket of legos and asked to sort them by color, then tally up how many of each color they had. They then added up their total, and had to show what fraction of each color was in the basket. I thought they'd be able to reduce their fractions, but apparently that's a bit ahead of the curriculum, so Mr Willis asked them to use their calculator fractions function for the activity. Finally I asked each kid to pick out 12 legos, build something, and we found out who had 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/2 colors in their little sculptures. Next time we'll begin making a printmaking matrix from the legos to stamp an edition. I had so much fun on Wednesday!

5th: Ms Gelfand's class continued sewing their geometric forms. Some students were able to begin stuffing them and combining them into the final sculptures. It was interesting to see that some students found that creative thinking step a challenge. Although we started our sculpture unit by identifying the underlying geometric forms in sculptures, the reverse process of turning the forms into more imaginative sculptures was not as concrete. I don't think they are quite used to the possibility of an open-ended result in an assignment. They need to work their imagination muscle.

what can you do with a cube and a cylinder?

Tuesday, November 1st with 4th, 5th,and 3rd

What an exciting day! Ms. McGinley and Ms. Yancey's class had a very hands-on science/art project involving rocks and water and drawing and printmaking- Whew! We're starting to talk more about erosion, and first looked at a picture of the Grand Canyon to brainstorm what could have made it so deep. Interesting answers: (everybody thought my alien laser beam idea was silly) we heard earthquakes, tornadoes, rivers, rain, glaciers, and volcanoes. It was interesting to see the range of natural forces they understand to create change on the earth. Then we looked at how to make a contour map to understand how high or low the ground is. While some students finished stitching their river meanders, the rest took turns coming back to 6 stations. First we arranged rocks in plastic takeout containers, then drew outlines of the rocks on the plastic lid, poured in colored water, traced the new contour, poured in more water, traced, etc. Then we laid a damp paper over the drawing, rubbed the back and revealed the transferred contour map. Then students drew over their lines to make them more bold and colored in the spaces. We've glued them into our books ready to use as a pattern for our mountain sculptures.

I also managed to retake photos of their meander embroideries:

In Ms. Gelfand's 5th grade we did the same stencil/poster lesson as on Monday's class with Ms Albert, which went equally as well. When I arrived the students were sharing their sun/energy/time reflections they had prepared to incorporate into their project. With the smartboard available I was also able to share with them the Allen McCollum unique shapes image to help stress the "SIMPLE" image idea. Here are some results:

 I love all their spiky suns.

In Ms. Didonato's 3rd grade we decided to switch activities based on the process we experienced in Ms O'Donnell's class previously. Instead of starting with the complicated pattern coin stamping image and huge coin tally, we've started with the "war" card deck stamping and easy small change tally. We managed to get everybody through the printing process, but lacked time for tallying values. Ms. Didonato's class is really hurting from the difference in time- we're a whole lesson behind the other class now. I wonder if perhaps we should switch with Ms. O'Donnell's class next week and give her class a morning session on Monday- especially since they'll miss Tuesday for election day. Here's what they did:

Week of Oct 17

Unfortunately, my camera's memory card has become corrupted and I've lost all the pictures from this week.... we'll have to do with a wordy recap.

Monday

• Ms. O'Donnell's 3rd graders completed their final stamper, and even made extra ones to give to their classmates who moved over to the new 3rd grade class. We reviewed vertical and horizontal, and compared the 2 sample prints I brought. We also calculated how much my print would cost based on the number of each symbol used. There was lots of math practice! The class is now ready to begin stamping their own prints.
• Ms. Albert's 5th graders completed their bottle paintings after learning about highlights and shadows. Painting went quite smoothly, and I was able to help 3 students who had been absent the week before do the entire painting from start to finish while Ms. Albert had the students do the final assessment questions in the journals.
• Ms. Drossner and Mr. Pitt's 2nd graders reviewed balance and focused on fulcrum placement. We compared the balance to number models: for example 3+3 and 2+4 and 1+5 all equal 6. Students were limited to using 6 beads of any size or color to make a new mobile piece, but did not create a fulcrum loop until all the beads were placed. Whereas the hangers from the first week do not all balance, this week's pretty much all balance. Next time we'll start assembling the hangers into our group mobiles. 

Tuesday

• Ms. McGinley's 4th graders are nearly complete their meander embroideries. Most of the students were able to finish stitching and started mounting their embroideries to felt for a "frame". This is the first time I've had students do this kind of "finishing" of an embroidery instead of doing it myself. They learned to do a tacking/overcast stitch around the perimeter of the embroidery to attach it to the felt. Unfortunately I did not pre-plan names on the work. Marker won't work on the dark felt. The pieces are still in their books to prevent mixups. Many of the students totally completed their projects, and were able to complete an assessment question: "My stitches are like a river because..." Answers used vocabulary like meandering, curved, obstacles, etc. Some continued the simile to compare their buttons to mountains. I think they got it!
• Ms. Gelfand's 5th grade began a new step in our projects. We started with a journal question "Name 3 ways the sun's energy helps us" (or some similar wording). As we went around the room the variety of answers was very exciting, as there were way more than 3! Students responded with things like: sunburns/tans, plants growing, artmaking/photography, solar energy/electricity, heat, and light. Then we passed out brainstorm paper to groups of 4 students and asked them to brainstorm words connecting to "sun", "energy", and "time". Hopefully this will help demonstrate the variety of ways they are learning about the sun. Brainstorming was VERY successful from my point of view- everyone seemed to share equally, and the students respected my admonition that in brainstorm time EVERY contribution is valid and Nobody's ideas should be criticized. The groups reported out, and there seemed to be a natural balance of which tables focused on particular words. Finally I had the students focus on one of the main topics and select 2-3 words to combine and illustrate. We're trying to generate ideas and imagery for the next project. They're not quite there yet, but I pointed out that the brainstorm and sketch process was a way that I and other artists get projects started, and it's an important part of artistic thinking.
• Due to prep schedule changes because of the new classroom additions we decided to switch the afternoon 3rd and 4th grade schedules. Unfortunately Ms. DiDonato's class is getting shortened to 45 minutes so that her students can get to prep. The new small class size and expanded space is wonderful! However my inner clock was not attuned to teach a 45 minute class. We got through the math ideas of pattern and calculating the worth of the print. I also demonstrated the process we'd use to stamp our designs, but then we ran out of time to actually print!! I felt very disappointed to have lost track of time and focus. My sincere apologies, 3rd graders!!!
• Ms. Yancey's 4th grade benefited from the switch as it gave them an extra 10-15 minutes of work time. Students jumped right into stitching after I showed some options for stitching solid lines instead of dotted lines. Their embroideries are not as complex as the other class's due to our comparatively reduced work time, so I did not push this class to do as many meandering lines as the other class. Most students were able to begin mounting their fabric onto the felt frames, but very few were able to totally complete the project yet. Next time we'll catch up, do the assessment question in the journals, and introduce the next project. I don't know if it was end-of-the day-itis, but there were a significant number of dropped/lost needle incidents Tuesday afternoon. One was still missing when I left... Hopefully Miss Linda swept it up or someone found it.

Concerns for next week:

• Monday afternoon the 24th is our October meeting after school
• Tuesday I will be absent because of another residency commitment I have.
• The following Monday is Halloween and afternoon sessions will be preempted by the costume parade.

Day 2- Let's make some ART! (and math and science)

When I walked into a few classrooms this week, I heard, "are we actually going to make any art this time?" I guess the kids don't think the sketchbook work we're doing at the beginning of class really counts! Haha! However I'm very happy with our sketchbook activities. It helps frame the activity well, it's a great assessment check or understanding, and it helps connect our math and science and art connections more implicitly. The sketchbooks also helped during "waiting" moments when someone finished early or had to wait for the rest of the class to catch up.

In second grade we jumped into our mobile-making by creating balance bars. We did some pattern repetition exercises at the beginning of class and reviewed symmetry/asymmetry/balance/unbalance. Together we formed our pipe cleaner balance bars, following directions, and then the kids got to play with putting beads on them. They were challenged to create a pattern and balance their bar with the different weight beads. Partly due to limited selection, only about a quarter of each 2nd grade successfully created color or shape patterns. Does it balance? :

 Yup!

 But not everyone reached equilibrium. Some focused on one side first and then had trouble balancing out the other side. It was an interesting experiment. Next week we'll align the balance lesson with math number models by limiting the number of beads.

 The 3rd grade started making their coin stamps. We started off with 3 coin symbol patterns on the board, and worked together and alone to figure out the value of each one. When we're ready to stamp we'll be making our own symbol patterns and then figuring out the values, so it was good practice. The kids had to follow directions very carefully for the process to go smoothly, and they did really well. We traced our wood coin circle onto the paper backed sticker foam, drew our coin symbol in "chunky" shapes, cut them out, and stuck them onto the wood circles. Mrs. O'Donnell's class had more time and got penny, nickel, and dime complete (except for handles), and Ms. DiDonato's class completed just pennies (complete with handles). We probably could have done more, but I goofed on my supply stocking.

 The kids were impressed with the resulting stamp effect, so I think they'll really have fun with this. They noticed the reversal necessary for printing and we noted that print blocks have to be mirror images to the printed image (love sneaking extra math concepts in). Originally I wanted to do it on fabric, but I think we'll do paper- it'll be a better match with our inks.

 Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures during 4th grade's sewing session today. It's a shame, because they did a TOTALLY GREAT JOB!!! It was the easiest "1st day" of sewing I've ever experienced. Most of this is because nearly all of our 4th graders have sewn with me before in last year's residencies, and they are quite calm and well-behaved classes. So they know the drill of threading needles and knotting. We reviewed concentric and meander, and I introduced the idea of Path of Least Resistance very physically, by being silly about knocking into desks to cross a room vs walking through the spaces between desks. We sewed buttons into our compositions today to represent "obstacles" which I hope the 4th grade teachers will be able to connect to their landform lessons. With 3rd and 4th grades I've been telling the kids who like to pop up and come show me things or ask me questions that "I'm not the Pied Piper" to try to cut down on some random classroom movement. I was not this strict about it before and it's working better now- more hands raised and less following.

 5th grade reviewed morning, noon, and afternoon shadows in their sketchbooks. We talked a little about prisms and color and rainbows before beginning our "Water-Color" artwork. We practiced drawing ellipses in our sketchbook because I worried they'd feel uncomfortable just drawing their water bottles from observation. I thought we could use the shadow lesson to also show color mixing, combining 2 facets of light.

 Students first drew their water bottles using ellipses. Then they paired up to project and trace am/noon/pm shadows using a real waterbottle and shadow at the foot of their drawn bottle. The noon shadow seemed the most confusing to them. Students were encouraged to turn mistakes into creative opportunities, so a few of them who drew very small bottles ended up making several. Painting in the regular classroom is a little nerve-wracking for me- I don't want to get really messy in there!! But the kids were pretty careful, and the aide and student teacher and teachers were extremely helpful in keeping everybody organized and tidy. And we have rainbow hands to prove it! Luckily both classes occur right before lunch and the paintings were able to remain at desks to dry while the kids were out.

I'm very pleased so far with the integration of Art/Math/Science. I'm satisfied that my artistic goals are being met in these beginning lessons. I hope our academic goals are also being met- any feedback teachers? Feel free to comment.

Pilot Projects Spring 2011

From May to June 2011, a  pilot program was launched to focus on math and arts integration at Comly Elementary school. One Kindergarten, one second grade, two third grades, one fourth grade, and two fifth grade classes participated. Th classroom teachers selected particular math skills their students needed to review, and we developed projects to explore those specific skills through art.



Kindergarten number mosaic



The Kindergarten class focused on number models and counting in a button mosaic. Each student was assigned a number, counting was practiced when counting out mosaic pieces, special pieces of sequins or pompoms were selected to represent their numbers, and laying out the individual pieces in an array helped review counting by 5s.

2nd grade foursquare time story sketch

 The second grade focused on telling time and telling time stories. We created a group clock to use as a classroom practice clock, then we began a number story fabric collage project. Students started with a foursquare organizer for their sketches, and then used fabric scraps to illustrate their stories.


2nd grade number story fabric collages

  Warm colors were used to represent am and cool colors represented pm. The collages were all arranged in a film strip/timeline format banner and students got to tell their stories to the whole class.


2nd grade time story banner




3rd grade probability cross-stitch

 3rd graders were focused on learning probability. Students made a color die with either a 2/2/2, 3/2/1, or 4/1/1 color combination. The rolled their die 100 times and kept a running tally of each color rolled. The results were graphed onto gingham and cross-stitch x's were stitched to mark each tally. Some were more like bar graphs, and others were a little more inventive with the placement of colors


checkerboard distribution of tally mark colors

 4th graders were focused on calculating volume of geometric solids. We measured and cut plastic canvas to construct a needlepoint cube. Student created an initial stripe pattern to mark one centimeter width on their cube, and used different colors, patterns, and stitches on each side.

 The sides were stitched together and students measured and calculated the volume of their own cube, and the aggregate volume of the entire class's cubes.


calculating volume

  Students arranged their cubes in various sculptural formations and recalculated volume of the resulting forms as well. We really stretched their multiplication practice with decimal points due to the irregularly cut canvas squares!

4th grade cube combos

5th grade focused on surface area of geometric solids. We selected a cylinder as the major form we would make. Student designed 2 inch square designs with their initials and shapes, then printed vertical and horizontal stripes on fabric rectangles to mark out the base and height of their cylinder.


printmaking station

 For the top and bottom circles, students designed radial symmetry patterns to mark out radius/diameter needed for calculating area of a circle.

 Their pieces were sewn together, and students stuffed and handsewed the closures. Additionally, their cylinder/pillows were signed by every student in the class to serve as a souvenir for this graduating class.

The pilot projects were short and sweet and gave an initial opportunity for artist and teachers to get used to each other and get their feet wet in arts integration.