lesson 5

Unit Title: Exploring Nature's Elements Through Art
Lesson Title: up close and earthy
Grade Level/Ages: Late Elementary/Ages 8-9	Instructors: Katie Hopkins & Maddie Tyska
Day /Date of lesson: March 23, 2012	Room No: 204	No of Students: 22

REFLECTION BEOFRE LESSON:

I got to bed early and I feel awake and ready to teach this lesson. I am wearing a silk Indian style shirt that is loose and comfortable and blue slacks. I am at Saints café with jeff and I like having this extra time in the morning.

Today I want to show my personality in today’s lesson and have a sense of humor during my discussion. This class should be fun for the kids. I feel comfortable with teaching painting and macro photography because I know a lot about it.

REFLECTION AFTER LESSON:

I felt good during the lesson and the kids were very excited when they saw the macro images in the presentation. I am glad I used the projector because the students were really engaged by the clear images. It was a little distracting that they were eating their snack at this time because they kept getting up to throw away their trash. They really grasped the definition of macro photography with the foreground having more detail and the background having less detail. They were a little more confused about the definition of composition, but they were trying to understand. I should have drawn a grid on the board to show them how good compositions fit with in the intersecting points on a grid. I was glad Ez didn’t let me move on until he could comprehend the definitions.

I am glad I had the sand and gold leaf for them to add to their paintings because it added another step incase the painting was not enough for them. They also had the option of not using the sand and gold. I really tried to encourage the students to cover their whole canvas with paint and not leave the white gesso showing. I could have gone into more detail about how the canvas is made but that would have taken up more time away from painting. I talked to a couple students about how a canvas is made and they explained to me the canvas is pulled tight with staples.

I am glad I had the students think about the edges of their canvas because that is something the viewer will see and should be thought about. The students really caught on to why we did pencil sketches from the images because they saw that they were transforming it into their own style. At the end of the lesson the students kept saying how much fun they had because they got to draw and paint. The macro photography concepts really made sense to them because it was not overwhelming to focus on the subject and to blur the background. The students were really engaged with the demo and followed me around the room, and Myoungsun said that meant the kids were really interested.

This is a lesson I can see myself teaching again, but next time I would plan on talking about composition and would have a clearer definition.