Found Objects and Confessionals

This past lesson was a continuation of the found object sculptures. The student's seemed to enjoy themselves while creating their pieces. The time frame worked out great for us, having the two classes to work on the sculptures, just about all of them finished, but we plan to leave time in our last class for them to finish up and last minute details. The student's continue to surprise us with their creativeness, and going above and beyond our expectations each class. We kept our theme of "progression, transformation, fluidity, and motion" known throughout our class. We started the class with a discussion, and had the student's go around and explain their ideas and show what theme they are representing.

Some used more than one, so it was exciting. Using the recycled materials that they gathered from around campus, we had some cool sculptures emerge. Transformation of representative objects like a pizza and flower were made by two of our students, Jordi and Isra. Fluidity was shown in Kailee's piece, by the growth of seeds and grass, and the use of newspaper and glue, that wrapped around a tin can. Progression was shown in Gracie's sculpture, by the simplicity of the work made from geometric boxes at the bottom of the sculpture, that grow to complex, organic shapes at the top. Other sculptures included a castle, a floral sculpture made from soda cans, a shopping cart (literally a shopping cart found on campus) filled with recyclable materials that transformed into foods, and many more.

In the beginning of this lesson, we also got a great start on our video confessionals. This documentation is fun for the students because they go into the side room and explain to the camera what they are working on, they share their thoughts and ideas, and also share any personal confessions to the camera. Some of the student's have been getting very into it, sharing a lot about their friends and classmates.

Plan B: Learning Centers

Yet another day in the Wonderful World of Bugs has passed and once again, Amanda, Laura, and I are amazed at what our students are creating! Even though our field trip day was thwarted by three inches of snow, we were able to think on our toes and write an entirely new lesson on Friday, using what supplies we had. Since the planning stage, we have wanted to try learning centers with our students, which would be smaller exercises or “stations” that students would rotate between. We planned on students spending about 15-20 minutes at each center and then going to the next one, eventually getting to all four. Not all students got to every center as we intended, but all students were busy the entire time and seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The centers all focused on transformation and we used artists, Cindy Sherman and William Wegman to show students what transformation means (they really enjoyed William Wegman’s dog videos!) and we got a great response from Ava (below):

We were also curious to see how one of our students would react to these learning centers since, in the past, we have struggled when it comes to getting him to focus on one activity for an extended period. We did seem to notice an improvement in his behavior since he was doing multiple activities in shorter segments rather than one activity for 30-40 minutes like we usually do. Overall, the lesson was a great last minute substitution for what we had planned and it was a way for us to use our learning center ideas in class.

Making Villains...and Friends

Saturday’s lesson was based off the lesson that we did last week. Students had the opportunity to create their villains out of modeling clay. There was a question whether students will grasp the concept of creating 2D drawing that they made last week and turn it into a 3D object. Although some students had trouble with connecting the pieces of clay together, I believe that the students got the concept very well, and the villains turned out better than expected. This coming Saturday, the students will be painting their clay villains.

This past Saturday we decided not to build the fort. I think this was beneficial to the class because it was not a distraction like last class. The students spent a large amount of time working on their clay villains and did not give up on them to play just to play in the fort. At the end of class, some students asked for more clay to play with. We had a table in the back of the room were the fort was last week which held the logo shirts, and some of the girls took their clay and went underneath to play with the clay. Some of the boys sat inside the podium in the front of the room. I think this worked out well because they weren’t yelling and fighting like last time.

I think the best thing that happened in our class last Saturday was a student who made two new friends. This little girl the past weeks was very quiet, sat in her seat, only drew a few things in her sketchbook, didn’t want to decorate her alter ego, and would just observe the class. She did not have anyone that she would group together with at the end of class to play and talk. This past Saturday, close to the end of class, she was talking to the two girls sitting next to her as well as drawing on the table together. Chelsea and I were so happy that she was finally getting comfortable with the students within the class. We will be definitely sitting them together next week.

The Reserved Student...When Actions Speak Louder than Words

We are heading into the sixth Saturday Art School class and by now we've gotten a good feel of which students participate which do not. In this blog I'd like to share a personal experience with one of the students who is much more reserved and shy.
In the beginning of class students come in, get their sketchbooks, and start sketching. We usually give about fifteen minutes of sketch time and then start the lesson but with the inclement weather we decided to extend sketchbook time a little longer in case students were late. I went around and asked some students what they were drawing. Students usually share but some are very hesitant. I decided to sit with a group of girls who are usually a little quieter and not ask questions but instead be a part of their group so they could ask me questions. I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and started to do origami. A couple asked me what I was doing. I told them I was making an origami star. One girl, Annie, who is very hesitant to share what she is sketching and to ask questions, observed me doing origami. She didn’t ask me any questions; instead she grabbed her own piece of scrap paper and began making her own origami. I continued to fold my paper; some of the girls in the group asked me show them how to make the star, so I showed them step by step. I continued folding and felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Annie showing me the origami bracelet she had just folded. I asked her if I could wear the bracelet for class, she agreed. As the class went on I noticed Annie was much more vocal about help and asking questions in connection to the project than she ever was before.
I think it is important to keep in mind that some students like to keep a distance between themselves and a teacher. Participation in a group discussion may not be indicative of understanding or interest but may just be indicative of extroverts and introverts working together in a discussion. Some students are more comfortable observing than participating. Trying to give students one on one time will allow you to see the understanding and experiences that some students possess. The old saying “actions speak louder than words” is also important to keep in mind when teaching.. In the case of Annie, she became more comfortable when not forced to do a task or answer questions about her sketches but rather to choose what she wanted to share.
So, to end on a questions to my fellow teachers, have had an experience with more reserved students and how have you been making a connection with them?
 

Digital ID

This week our students developed alternate identities for themselves by imagining what they wish they could do better than anyone in the world. We wanted to keep our assignment general so that our students would come up with a variety of secret identities instead of designing a class full of superheroes. While there were some ideas that involved powers like teleportation, many of our students simply choose to be better at everyday things that they already enjoy, such as drawing and ice skating. After our students planned out there idenities on a handout and we designed an ID card for their new idnetity in Photoshop.

Initially, I was concerned that the students were to young to be using photoshop for anything productive. I was also concerned that it would be difficult to monitor the activities of twenty one students in a computer lab and keep them on task. Occasionally, we would catch students trying to play games or browse the internet, but for the most part they were very focused. As usual, i was extremely impressed by our students maturity and their ability to learn new skills quickly. Our lesson was designed as a step by step process using a template that would be easy for all of our students to follow. Several of our students had more experienced with technology than others and were able to work ahead of the class. Some of the students even surprised me with their ability in taking pictures and videos in Photobooth. I tried to keep my instructions as simple as possible and even the inexperienced students followed along attentively. In the end, the whole class completed the project successfully and for once, there were no technology related problems. I learned that even young students today are very capable with technology and you should not underestimate their intelligence because of their age.

Ew We Have To Touch That...Paper Mache Sculptures

This past Saturday Hoo In and I continued on our lesson dealing with sound and the visual. This time we decided to make something that was 3 D. We knew we wanted the sculptures to be a little bit bigger in size but we also did not want them to look like the cheap materials we were using (wire, cardboard, plastic bottles, etc). So we decided that it would be a good idea to use paper mache. Half way through the class it became apparent that maybe paper mache was not the best idea.

Incident Number One: The Balloons
We decided to give students free range when it came to choosing their materials. We set out cardboard, wire, newspaper etc. We also had balloons. The balloon escapade started off slow, a few students came up to me asking for a couple balloons. Before Hoo In and I knew it, the entire room had balloons bouncing everywhere. It took a little bit for Hoo In and I to go around to each group and make sure they were working on their sculptures. Soon the class had settled down.

Incident Number Two: Paper Mache Paste
As we continued in the sculpture process, I gave a demo about how to rip the newspaper and but it in the paper mache paste and then put it onto your sculpture. Some students were pretty hesitate to use the paste but eventually warmed up to the idea of being messy.

Incident Number Three: Paper Mache is Heavy
As some of the students put paper mache on their sculptures the thin wire that could easily hold up a balloon could not hold up the weight of the paper mache. It was nearing the end of class so Hoo In and I decided to tell the students that it will be easier to reconstruct the sculpture once the paper mache is dry, a dry material is easier to work with instead of a soaking wet one.

As the lesson neared the end, Hoo In and I saw that most of the sculpture were only partially covered with paper mache. We will extend of lesson into next week and hopefully all of the sculptures will be fully wrapped in paper mache and ready to dry.

Break'n it Down

This week we had an amazing time with the students creating sculptures from found materials. We started the class with a pile of used materials in the center of the classroom. Then after some sketchbook time, we looked at a slide-show of artists that make work out of used materials and discussed the implications of that.

After talking about how artist use materials, we talked about our own project. The students were going to make sculptures dealing with themes around the ideas of motions, fluidity, progression, and transformation. We had the pile of used materials to start the students off, but we also wanted them to actively go out and find materials themselves. So we divided the class into two group and walked about campus and found materials in trash and recycling cans, as well as from nature. After coming back to the class rooms and students the students sketched their ideas and collected materials simultaneously allowing the Art to inform the material and allow the material to inform the art.

Then after showing the sketch to the instructor and explained how they planed on depicting the themes, they were allowed to start.

Because this is a two week project they did not have a lot of time to get work done, but next week they’ll have plenty of time (I hope). But next week I really wanted to try and generate more discussion of what the theme mean and how the students are showing and sharing that theme.
Walking around campus, and working with the students was amazing and it seemed that the students were really enjoying themselves and were excited about finding their own materials. We sent a note home with the students encouraging them to bring in materials from their own lives for next week to add a more personal aspect to their work.

Exceeding our expectations

This past Saturday was the students chance to show off their habitat photographs. Two weeks ago we started to discuss insects’ habitats and the students were given disposable cameras to take pictures of what and where they thought particular insects lived in their natural environment. Originally Laura, Alice and I were slightly skeptical of the images they would bring back to us. To reinforce our request, we sent a letter home addressed to the parents, along with the cameras, asking them to encourage their children to take pictures outside. To our surprise the students exceeded our expectations! We were delighted to hear and see that it didn’t take much guidance for them to understand the assignment. Although there were a few pictures here and there that were of family/friends or just randomness, it was to be expected. The pictures of inside houses and man-made objects actually worked out for the best because we were able to discuss in class why or why not the students thought it was an appropriate habitat for bugs and/or people.


Being able to visually see man-made objects along with the natural environment (some even in the same exact photo shot) clearly helped the students distinguish how we as people can affect the environment which insects may live in too. The students drew circles around what they thought were the insect habitats and drew bugs that would live there on top of the actual photograph (Ex. a butterfly drawn on top of the sky in a photograph they took or lady bugs in the green grass).


As a class we were able to expand our lesson and look a little deeper. The students showed that they could take responsibility and expand their learning experience outside the classroom as well as discuss ways in which we can help our fellow critters that live among us. This awareness was also a great transition which will lead us into our next Saturday’s lesson. We will be learning about what we can do to actually help and protect insects by creating safe habitats for them to live in ourselves(create butterfly stick piles). Because the students did so great and gained a lot out of this assignment, we feel as their teachers that they are learning a lot, if not more, than we anticipated.

Wearable outfits and creating our villians

This Saturday I worked with our students to finish up our lesson on logos while Kim visited with students during sketchbook time and then began the next lesson. Last week students created logos for their alter egos and then drew them in crayon on sandpaper. This week we were transferring those logos onto t-shirts so that the kids could have a "wearable outfit" portraying their alter egos. Students came over to me one by one as they got to class and we had a set of instructions on how the process would work. Students were really excited to see how their logo would end up on the shirt. Overall this part of the lesson worked really well and students were really excited to be able to wear their shirts, we even had one of the girls tell us she wanted to wear hers for Halloween so she could dress up as her alter ego.

Kim then began the next lesson and using a powerpoint introduced the idea of villains to the class. She discussed different villains from movies that the students would know when relevant she also connected villains back to alter egos. Then she had the students "perform" a little bit to get them to better begin thinking about villains. The students all stood up in the circle and were asked to be a villain through posing, facial expressions, and noise making. It was semi-successful. Some of the students really enjoyed and embraced the activity while some of the student simply just stood around completely un-involved.

There is one key part of the day on Saturday which I can clearly label as the incident in our classroom this week. So last Saturday we finished our lesson a little earlier than anticipated so the students had some free time to work in their sketchbooks or we pulled out large sheets of paper for them to draw on. One student took his sketchbook and with Chris Sunday's help he made a "fort of doom" where in his sketchbook he worked out plans to take over the world. We got some really cool drawings from him and a few of the other students joined him. So Kim and I thought that it would be a cool idea to expand on this idea and create a larger fort for the whole class. So we again had some extra time at the end of the lesson and the students were able to use the time however they pleased. Our thought process is that the students would use the time creatively in the fort, this however was not the case. The fort became a center of complete chaos and no real art making was occurring inside of it. Unless we can come up with a way to avoid this incident from occurring again with the fort Kim and I feel like it will not remain a part of our classroom set-up.

Incredible Edibles

This week in Saturday School our students explored food as a fine art medium to bring their monsters alive. We had our students work in groups of 3 and 4 to create a monster from an exquisite corpse activity and then build a story around their creature. This lesson was very successful in creating group dynamics amongst students and their cake designs were a fantastic representation of the stories they made up of their monster.

The trick to making this possibly very messy lesson a success is organization! We planned out everything from groups, materials and even possible allergies or food related illnesses that might occur when dealing with baked goods. Keeping our students and our room as clean as possible became a challenge. Providing plenty of gloves, table cloths and soap is a must to do any lesson involving food. Our students didn't care about getting messy and they dove right into all the edible materials that we provided with full force.

We were shocked at how on task our students were with developing their monster, brainstorming a cake design and then creating a cake sculpture with the edible materials. Instead of devouring the Swedish fish and the endless amount of candy, the students worked through the activities we had set up to further develop their cake monster. This lesson provided the students much more than a neat looking cake. They learned about artist that use food as a

fine art medium, developed an amazing working relationship with their fellow group members and created a narrative that turned into great looking cakes.

Meet our Monsters

Alter Egos and Logos

Last Saturday, there were various things happening at once. Chelsea was going to present a new lesson. The lesson was based on the alter egos made the week before, but that week there were a few students who were absent as well as not completed with their alter egos. In the beginning of the day, the students who were not completed and did not start their alter egos sat at a table so I could help anyone who needed help. During this time, the other students worked in their sketchbooks.

We could tell at the beginning of class that the students were a little more active than usual. I thought it was because the students were getting more comfortable with their classmates as well as the class in general. The lesson that Chelsea planned was to start creating a logo for their alter ego which will be transferred to white shirts in the next class. Chelsea showed a Powerpoint, but there were a few students who were not paying attention by playing with the projector screen’s rope. Chelsea showed the class a clip from Art 21, the artist Trenton Doyle Hancock which worked out very well with the overall lesson, but some students could not get over that his alter ego was wearing underwear.

The students worked really well on their logos, but they got done quicker than we thought with the drawing and transferring onto sandpaper. There was about thirty minutes left in the class, and the students were running around, crawling under tables, yelling at each other, and other activities that didn’t include art making. Chelsea decided to cut long sheets of paper so the students can draw on these in groups. The class seemed less chaotic once they had an activity to do.

Next lesson, I believe that we should have an extra activity at the end of our lesson just in case students are completed with their projects early, or we can bring out the large pieces of paper that we saved from last week for the students to continue drawing on.

Elements of Art Displayed Through Collage

Last Saturday, for our third lesson of teaching, we made collage art using recyclable materials. The students cut up magazines, newspapers, and cardboard, and also used paint, oil pastels, markers, and colored pencils. We started the class with a discussion by looking at two different collages. We looked at Henri Matisse's, Tristel and Richard Hamilton work titled, "Just what is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing?" I created a large size poster listing the "elements of art" and had it displayed in the front of the room. We focused our discussion by looking at the two collages and picking out elements that both of the artists used in their work. Thankfully, for the kids being extra talkative that morning so we had a lot of participation and had no problem with getting them talking! The students did really well with pointing our different aspects of the collage. We then broke them off by partners and had them talk with one another to try and think of a theme to represent in their own collage. The students talked about their own interests, family traditions, sports teams, and many other topics. The students surprised me with their ideas, they were all so thoughtful. Giving that in the past two classes, we were struggling to get used to our time management, we kept the discussion short enough so that the students had plenty of time to work. We were a lot more successful this week, so I was excited to see our improvement. It gets exciting the more we get to know the students as well. It's really cool just getting to sit down with them and talk about their interests, whether or not it's even art related. The students in our class seem to be enjoying themselves in the class, and that's what I believe is one of the most important goals that I have as a teacher.

What Sound Does This Painting Make....Silence

Have A Sense of Humor is a unit stressing the connection between art, humor and the five senses. Hoo In and I explored the sense of sound in connection to the visual this week. Since we wanted the kids to explore pure sound (no voices or story lines) we introduced them to abstract, non representational art. Our first painting we showed them was of organic green shapes with red dots in the middle. We asked them what they thought this painting could be of, most said representational things (a turtles stomach, a dinosaur's skin, plankton etc. )We then asked what type of sound this picture would make. The room went silent and for 3 seconds 20 students stared blankly at Hoo In and I trying to comprehend a silent abstract picture making a sound. Some offered up a faint noise but most just stared. Hoo In and I shared what we thought the picture would sound like, we clapped in a circle snapped our fingers and made a popping noise with our voices.
Hoo In continued on with the lesson and split the students into groups. She gave each of them a portion of a Kandinsky and told each group of students to make up a noise that best represented their image. Most groups compiled and thought of fitting sounds, however we had one group that did not have a sound when it was their turn to present. Which lead me to my first incident and question for reflection, What happens if you put students into a group and they cannot seem to come up with a finished product? Is there another way to gauge their learning? I think this could go either way, if you are assessing the students on being able to collaborate and work in a group, this group would surely not have fulfilled the task but if you are assessing what sound this particular painting makes, it may be more beneficial for the teacher to talk to each individual of the failed group to assess the learning that is being done by each individual.
Once the students were done presenting their ideas about Kandinsky and sound they did a Rothko. Students were able to automatically compare the quietness of Rothko to the chaotic-ness of Kandinsky. Their sounds were much more toned down. The students were then asked to draw what a sound would look like. Hoo In played a clip and had students draw and paint what the sound looked like. This bring me to the second incident that I think is worth mentioning. We showed student purely abstract paintings and discussed abstract paintings in detail and yet when we played the sound most students did not make an abstract piece of work. Most students created a story line based on the sound. In my opinion I think representational was easier to work with than abstract. I do not think this means the lesson was a failure in anyway I think this means that a deeper understanding of connecting line and shape with sound was needed in order to make their own abstract paintings.