Exhibition Preparation: Week 8

This weeks lesson played out differently than we had planned. Katie and I had to make fast decisions to alter the lesson on the spot.  We had originally planned to let all the students finish up past work for the first hour, then take them to the Palmer in the second half of the lesson.  As the second hour approached, Katie and I noticed that the kids were hyped up on creating art and trying to get them to finish up was next to impossible.  The way we reacted to this situation was to take a vote on whether they wanted to either continue working or visit the Palmer.  Since six students wanted to visit the Palmer, and the others wanted to continue working, Katie stayed in the classroom and Myoungsun and I took a few students to the Palmer.  At the Palmer, the agenda was to focus on how artwork was displayed.  I asked them questions such as "how are the works organized? why are certain paintings placed next to each other?"  Joey thought that all the works were put together because they have similar styles, particularly abstraction.  The students were SOO excited in the museum that the majority of the trip seemed to be them running around in amazement and pointing out all their favorite pieces.  Many of them went up really close to the labels and copied down the artist's name and title in their sketchbooks, which was so exciting for me to see :)  I wish that we could have had more time in the museum because I felt horrible rushing them back to the classroom after 10 minutes because I knew they wanted to stay longer. 
After we returned to the classroom, the original plan was for the students to create a group exhibition of with the pieces that they want to include in the final art show.  They were supposed to also write down titles to their pieces, a blurb about the work and/or answer a few questions about their experiences in the class.  This was meant to be feedback for Katie and I and also documentation of their reflective thinking.  Since the students were so engaged in their art, it was extremely difficult to get them to clean up.  The students kept wanting to finish one last thing. By the time we finished clearing off the tables, there was no time for student to create an exhibit and write all their reflections.  Katie and I had to make the executive decision to cut the exhibit part out of our lesson.  This was disappointing because it was originally the main part of our lesson, but looking back, I am happy we gave the students the opportunity to make art longer than planned because it allowed students to have some freedom of how they want to spend their time.  By the end of the class, the students chose about 4 pieces they wanted in the show and wrote beautiful reflections.  Some reflections that particularly stand out to me are:

"I learned to use my imagination and that you can make art out of nature" --Krista

"My favorite part of the art classes is drawing the two headed dragon. (crubb 5 and bad crubb 6)." --Lukeria

"I experienced so much.  But most of all I experienced true ar and true amaginashon (imagination)"--Kaitlyn

"I learned no matter what others think, you can do anything. I <3 art" --Susie

Overall, my Saturday School experience has been so fun!  I genuinely formed great relationships with the students and could appreciate all their individual personalities.  I cannot wait to see them at the show!!