Elementary Art

Here I am in the art room waiting for the students!

Today was my second meeting with Ms. M's elementary art students. Once again, we met with first, fifth and sixth graders, as we will do every Friday meeting. My partner and I are lucky enough to visit from 12:30 to about 3:30 every Friday, getting two full hours to work with the children and forty minutes to visit one-on-one with Ms. M. It is very helpful to have a prep hour to be with our cooperating teacher so we can have some discussions about teaching art, past projects, and other things. I think getting to know the cooperating teacher is just as important as working with the children because we get to learn from our experiences, and from someone who has been doing our future career for years.

The students placed masking tape as the "resist"

The lines created by the tape will be "constructive lines"

The first graders had finished their crocodile projects (I updated my last post with a picture!) and were moving onto the next project today. Ms. M introduced the concept of "constructive lines" and the idea of a "resist" project. This means that the students will be working with straight, geometric lines and will work with a sort of tape or stencil to resist the excess material being applied to the surface. The students reviewed different types of lines like horizontal, diagonal and zig zag lines. The children learned that if they used masking tape to create these lines and colored over the masking tape, the masking tape would resist the color and not allow it to hit the paper. Because they were using masking tape over glossy paper (so the tape would be easier to pull off) the markers being used to color the shapes created did not dry very quickly. Next week, we will get to see the finished product after they pull off their tape. Some children did not finish coloring today while others finished in time to free draw or work on a creativity challenge.  The only thing that was a struggle in the first grade classroom was that the students wanted to tape their eyes, mouths and faces with the masking tape as well as draw on their own faces and others. One girl drew a mustache on herself, another table was having a marker-poking fight, while another just decided to draw on her face. It was as if one student had tried to draw on their face and didn't get seen by any of the three adults in the classroom. If one student saw that they didn't get yelled at, then the idea spread like wildfire! All of a sudden there were markers on faces everywhere! As soon as Ms. M said something the students stopped, and had to go wash their faces. Even when I tried to tell those having a marker-poking fight to stop and keep their markers on their papers only, they didn't respond like they did to their own teacher. Ms. M noted how hard it probably is for a substitute teacher to come in for one day and work in that type of situation. Children definitely respond best to those that are in a true authority position, not just visiting student teachers or substitutes!

Here is a mask that was done in class

The students loved saying "It's not snot"

 The fifth graders were working on a new project with masks. This was tied into the jungle theme as they talked about different symbolism and cultures that used masks. Although Ms. M said that she probably won't be able to get away from Halloween masks due to the time of the year, she was happy to get the masks into the curriculum because the fifth graders look forward to doing them each year. Using a plastic template, students used paper mache paste and paper. The paper used was stiffer than the normal newsprint, but the children were still able to apply it to the surface correctly with a bit of extra pressure. This project was fun because the students had already been introduced to mask symbolism and designs, as well as what they were going to do for the project. They had created a few mask designs on seperate pieces of paper, and were allowed to work on those for the remainder of class after creating their masks. It was a very fun lesson that the students seemed very excited about!

An in progress landscape the 6th graders were working on

The sixth grade class, which often has students who get their work done at different paces, were still working on their projects from last week. This was the last day to work on them and to glue their vines on. It was an easy class to work with this week. The students seemed excted to free draw or to work on the creativity challenge if they were finished, and many were determined to get done with their drawings, even if they didn't finish by the end of the class. The sixth grade class is the group that I can tell has different personalities and different "cliques" of students that are either driven to do well, or to use class as a free hour to talk to their friends and goof off.

Today I learned that with time there comes more confidence in teaching, because today I already felt more comfortable with the students, cooperating teacher, and my abilities to truly "teach" the students how to do something. I'm getting very excited for me and my partner's lesson plan that we get to teach to the students. We will be working on getting that in order this week. Ms. M received some gourds from a friend, so we are hoping to tie in a fall theme while painting and adding to them. I will be updating this blog as soon as we finish the lesson plan.

Also, photos will be added to this post and the previous post after I upload and organize some photos I took today (Currently Updated as of Oct. 13!) I will also be answering some formal questions in a new post that is required for my blog posts for my class. Check back again soon for more information! I also added many new pages on this blog for inspirational artwork, my artwork, the student's work from my cooperating elementary school, links of interest, and creativity challenges. As soon as I get all of these things organized properly I hope this blog will be easy to navigate and will hold an abundance of information!