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 3 part 1

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!!!!!

5th Grade Art Class to October 8, 2011

We opened with a brief discussion of why the sun has been worshipped throughout human history and saw an instructional video on creating a solar oven from a pizza box. Since new pizza boxes are more dear than I expected, I collected shallow boxes from BJ's to make up the difference. Given the large classes, the construction process was chaotic, but the students seemed to enjoy the collaborative effort and dug right in. Constructing the oven gave them an understanding of how the energy is collected (reflective foil, black paper for absorption of light, plastic wrap window to keep heat in).

We--both 5th grade classes--tested our solar ovens by spending the end of a Friday afternoon in the school yard. Students had brief instruction on setting the foil panel to catch the rays of the sun by propping it up with a stick. We let the pizza heat, and classroom teachers conducted class outdoors in the meantime. Although I provided a dumpster for students to dispose of their solar ovens afterward, many of them wanted to take them home. Judging by the students who've stopped me in the hall to ask about the next part of the lesson (creating a reverse pastel sun god inspired painting), they are enthusiastic about their solar unit.

2nd & 3rd Grade Art Class to October 8, 2011

2nd and 3rd grades are almost finished their pizza clocks. We began with a discussion of food art, a la Wayne Thiebaud, and collage art a la Eric Carle, but mostly we are focusing on understanding elapsed time: We are depicting, by contrasting colors, elapsed time and time remaining from a randomly selected time. Students made their own collage paper, and I supplemented as we began to run out. Large pizza cardboard, donated by Susan Newman, was used by 3rd grade and adds an authentic large pizza look. 2nd grade and special needs students worked on a smaller scale.

Students were given a clock worksheet to fill in when tasks are completed. Next week we should be putting the hands on our clocks and concluding with a time-telling game.

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.

Day 1 Introductions and journals

This week we began our projects in each grade. Overall, each class received their new Artslink journals (a marble composition book), looked at art, and worked on a journal question and/or drawing to help introduce the topics we'll be doing.

 In 2nd grade with Mr Pitt and Ms. Drossner, we're learning about Balance in Science. We looked at Alexander Calder's Circus, wire acrobat figures, and abstract paintings. We experimented with our bodies to see which position of our bodies was easiest to balance- feet apart, feet together, or one foot. We then talked about balance and unbalance in pictures and decided which pictures I drew on the board looked balanced or unbalanced. We noticed that symmetrical pictures definitely were balanced, pictures with similar sized shapes on either side of a picture looked balanced. Pictures with different size shapes on either side felt unbalanced and pictures with lots f shapes on one side and no shapes on the other looked unbalanced.
To practice balance and unbalance in drawings we made 2 pictures in our journals to demonstrate.
Some challenges in 2nd grade are lack of smartboard/digital projector so I can't use powerpoint for my presentations. At least one child speaks no English at all, and so I'll need to think about how I'm giving directions.

 3rd grade is learning about money in Math. Mrs. O'Donnell and Ms. DiDonato's students considered why we put pictures on money. We examined coins and sketched the fronts and backs to see what information is minted on coins. We looked at some artists like Andy Warhol who used images of money in their art and discussed the value of the art (there's $200 printed in this picture, but it was sold for $43 million!) Finally, we planned the symbols we would need for our coin stamps to be made next week.
The biggest challenge in 3rd grade is the class sizes! So many children to keep organized, check in with, and manage supplies. I definitely need to keep things simple and organized with 3rd grade.

 4th grade with Ms. Yancey and Ms. McGinley are learning about rivers and water in Science and concentric shapes in math. We compared and contrasted a Zen garden and a rocky stream image using a Venn diagram to note how water moves around objects. We looked at Art by Edna Andrade and Victor Vasarely, who both used repeating lines in their op art.

 We talked about thin, thick, straight and curved lines, and then created a drawing in our journals. Starting with a selection of simple shapes, we drew concentric lines around them, and then added some meandering lines to fill up the empty spaces.
The classrooms seem bigger in the 4th grade for some reason. Both 4th grades felt very comfortable to me- partially because there are many students who I know very well and it was easy to remember their names. I know many of them like to hop up and come to me for questions- so I need to be strict about raising hands and staying in seats.

 In Ms. Gelfand and Ms Albert's5th grade classes we did much longer journal activities to begin our unit of science study about the sun. We thought about many reasons why the sun and sunlight is important for art- being able to see, having color, enjoying the beauty of the world that grows because of the sun, and working with the sun for art processes like photography. Students were especially amazed by the pinhole photograph below by Tarja Trygg that shows 6 months of the sun crossing the sky.

 We then looked at 4 paintings (a Monet Haystack, a Diebenkorn landscape, a Hopper house, and Rivera's Cactii below) to try to figure out what the time of day was and observe the shadows in each of the pictures. With Ms Albert's class I had everybody do all 4, but in Ms Gelfand's class I had each group do one because of shortened time. They did a great job looking and talking about art.
Some challenges are the large class sizes with wide levels and a few students who have already told me "I can't draw". Well we're going to change that! I'll need to think of some extra ways to differentiate for the various learners in these classes.

Some thoughts I have:
Journals could suck up all our time, so I need to keep it short and sweet.
Journals could help me in sharing directions- have them copy down directions so it's on the board, but also in front of them. 4th and 5th are more facile writers, 2nd and 3rd graders take much longer to write answers, but seem better at drawing answers.

I invite any of the teachers to share their thoughts in comments or in separate posts. I feel very happy right now about how we've begun. The students were very well behaved this week. I feel very comfortable having worked with all the teachers before and knowing so many of the students from before as well. Some of the now-5th graders I know from when they were in 3rd grade, and I know the 4th graders Very well from my extended residency last year.

Schedules and inspiration

At our meeting this week we hashed out the schedule to get our projects started. I'll be coming in on Mondays and Tuesdays all day, and fit in 4 classes a day. Morning classes will be 1 hour and 25 minutes (this gives 5 mintes between classes) and afternoon classes will be 1 hour. Later in the season, perhaps we can switch up the 3rd and 4th grades to give Miss Yancey and Miss DiDonato's classes some more time. It was decided that 2nd grade would only have an hour to better match 2nd grade attention spans. The upcoming schedule of events has been posted in the sidebar at right for each grade.

 2nd grade will be working on balance and inverse addition/subtraction number facts. To start off we'll be taking inspiration from Alexander Calder's mobiles to create our own group kinetic sculpture. Later we will doa  printmaking project to explore positive and negative space and pattern and repetition.

3rd grade will be exploring money and value math skills. We will look at the features of coin design and create our own coin stamps to create value/repetition compositions. We'll calculate the resulting value of our prints and make borders to represent change back from a specified value. We'll also discuss the value of art compared to rarity and hold a mock art auction.

4th grade will be learning about rivers and the interaction of water and landforms. We will explore concentric lines to represent the path of least resistance in making river embroideries like the zen garden above. We will then work in groups to make larger erosion sculptures to show how water carves away land.

 5th grade will be exploring light, shadows, and elapsed time. We will begin with shadow paintings to show how colors interact and how the sun moves across the sky. We will then create sunprints with light sensitive cloth to represent our understanding of time.