i have finished my new student teaching placement! i am not writing any of my own lesson plans (sad) but i am very excited about what we are doing. our art classes (grades 6-8) always work together with their music class. they have done rhythm lessons together, commercial lessons (writing jingles and making the product) and now they are studying hip hop movements in music and art. for music, the students are learning DJ skills. in art class, we are making street art based in graffiti.
i really like that all grades are doing the same project because it really allows the teacher to fully use the room as a teaching tool. the tables are numbered and labeled with city names from New York, there are graffiti boards set up, information about different street artists and examples up.
for their first project, the students are making a mini masterpiece, which is a form of graffiti art. we talked about the different kinds (tagging, masterpiece, throw up etc.) and also talked about the English artist Banksy. here are some examples of the students' works. they had to include a word that meant something to them, make it 3D, use fading techniques with paint, use a personal symbol (yay standards), and include graffiti marks (stars, halos, drips, arrows etc.) we were also able to discuss color schemes, unity and variety with these. these art works are made on cardboard (yay recycled) with paint pens, sharpies, gel pens and metallic markers.
also, here is a video combining 6th grade's artworks and the songs they made in their DJ class. i was pretty impressed.
these are a few more examples of the first and second projects, I didn't get as many pictures as i wanted! also, i will be posting more videos later!
again, thanks so much to my wonderful host teachers and the entire exploratory staff at SMS! can't wait to get started on my own!
my kindergarten classes have been working on "Line Scapes", which are landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes made from our 8 kinds of lines: swirly, bumpy, zig-zag, wavey, loopy, horizontal, vertical and diagonal. so we learned the 8 lines and what to call them. the kids got to make the horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines with their bodies.we also talked about how to use them, "If i wanted to make a mountain, what line could i use?". i also showed them paintings of a landscape, seascape and cityscape and we learned the names of those. you get a lot of "mountainscapes" and "buildingscapes" at first, but eventually they get it.
so the first day, we learn the names and make them out of pipe cleaners *note to self. never underestimate the need for the phrase "careful, it may poke you in the eye"* did not think that was an issue with pipe cleaners until a girl stabbed herself in the eye on the first day. nothing serious.
the kids really liked being able to play with something and get a real "feel" for the lines. also, "don't put that in your mouth" is something i had to say more than i would like.
on the second day, we draw all 3 Line Scapes together, on line at a time. they didn't color anything in, because the next week, we were going to use paint to make a resist over the crayons.
here are some finished works:
even if they didnt all stay in the lines, they got some nice resists and beautiful color use! i love these!
on fridays at our school, 2nd-5th grade come on a rotation, so we can't really do a steady project with them. we usually do one day things or play art games. this week, i decided that i wanted to do a short fun project with 5th grade. we watched a video on the artist Joshua Allen Harris (which is a great video, btw). then i talked to them about alternative art materials and gave each table a "trash kit" with paper and plastic bags, tp rolls, newspaper etc. then they got prompt words like "alien, monster, animal, food" etc.
they had a lot of fun and came up with some interesting things! no idea what to do with them now....
