| Unit Title: Exploring Nature's Elements Through Art | ||
| Lesson Title: In Nature: Collaging With Textures, Colors, and Shapes | ||
| Grade Level/Ages: Late Elementary/Ages 8-9 | Instructors: Katie Hopkins & Maddie Tyska | |
| Day /Date of lesson: Saturday, 02, 25, 2012 | Room No: 204 | No of Students: 22 |
About:
-The lesson "In Nature: Collaging with Textures, Colors, and Shapes" is meant to give students the opportunity to reflect on memories while engaging in a collage process. Students will be asked to recall the imagery, senses, and emotions that they see or feel while in their favorite nature environment.
What We Would Change:
- Shorter discussion because students were losing interests a little bit.
- We would have done a more “random” or “abstract” demo because most of the students started to copy the colors and shapes used in demo.
What Worked:
- The students were very interested in geodes from last class, and they ended up working out better than we thought they would!
- Students knew where to get sketchbook materials and respected materials.
- We arranged the tables in three clusters and had one station for tea staining. The tea staining station did not have chairs, because we did not have enough, but it worked out better because students worked better standing.
- The students understood when we told them we couldn’t find their first tea staining projects, and were not upset.
- The students were engaged in discussion and every student had a collage idea after they shut their eyes and imagined a scene in their minds.
- We saw students’ projects looking very similar, so we scaffold them to go in a more unique direction, and to remember to include earth, wind, fire, and water elements.
- When students were stuck they looked at collaged illustration books in the reading station and were inspired again.
- When a group of male students were finished with their collages, on their own, they started working on a collaborative collage of a beach scene, and are excited to complete it next class.
- The group of boys were really involved this class and did the tea staining project again. They also had more discussions with the girls compared to last class. We think this is because of the new table arrangement. For the last project, we had the tables set up in a horseshoe shape and it was not effective because students were shouting across the room to each other.
- All of the students helped clean up! We gave each of them a small job, for example, collecting scissors or putting paint brushes in sink.
- Our wrap up discussion went well because all of the students finished their projects and enjoyed the process.
- For our wrap up, we had students say a positive point about their peers’ projects. The students were very mature during this conversation.
Teacher Improvements:
- We had a time schedule written on a white board, which kept us on time and on the same page the whole class.
- We made more effective classroom visuals.
- Our overhead projector worked for the PowerPoint.
- We choreographed who was going to say what, who was going to document, and who was going to do them demo.
- Our transitions were more organized because we planned out what we would have the students do during each transition.
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ReplyDeleteExcellent reflection on the previous class! I also wonder what do you think of sensory experiences of your students in your lessons, both collectively and individually? How do they respond to each activity dealing with differently mixed senses through art-making? Last Saturday, I asked Joey, "Can we take the smell of tea by video-recording?" What he responded to me was, "I would like to take a photograph with the smell and let my parents feel it from the picture." How could we document those sensory experiences for the people who were not there?
ReplyDeleteYour collages turned out so awesome! I loved looking at them in class on Tuesday. Also, I really like your geodes! The colors are beautiful. I think at the end of Saturday school at the exhibition it will be so awesome to have them displayed in a really creative installation. The students might actually want to participate in making the installation for the parents to see. Awesome job guys :)
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVED this lesson. When I came in afterward, you and Maddie were beaming, although extremely exhausted. Your enthusiasm for your Saturday School class and the lessons that you've created really show and I am so excited to see what you are both capable of accomplishing as teachers! There is such a flow to your classroom that makes it easy for your students to learn and enjoy their time. Exploration is so vital, especially at this age. Students understand how materials are used more so that allows room for their creativity to shine through. Excellent job ladies!
ReplyDeleteWe had the same problems some weeks during discussions; I think that it is not always a problem to plan for a long discussion, as sometimes students are more into it than other times. However, being able to be flexible and cut the lesson short when necessary is always a good option to leave open. I think that your idea about keeping the schedule on the board is great. We did that in our classroom as well, which kept us as well as the students on task. Great idea that I will definitely use in my future classrooms!
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