Week 8: Cardboard Mosaics

Kate stamping her canvas before she glues down her cardboard pieces

For the final week of class we really wanted to see what the students had learned over the past 8 weeks so we titled this lesson Re-visiting Junk.  During our discussion in the beginning of class we began by asking the students two questions:

1.    What is it like to see junk now?
2.    Do you think differently about junk now compared to how you used to?

Their answers proved as evidence that they indeed understood the purpose for using junk as art.

“If I see someone throwing out junk, like a broken toy, I tell them that they can make something new out of it!”
                -Almila

After the discussion questions we went back through each week and asked the students if they remembered what we did and what types of materials we used with each project.  Surprisingly one student remembered what we did the very first week of class.  As a teacher, being able to assess students on their learning and understanding is very important and I really think that Jen and I have been doing a really great job with this through our discussion with students as a class and individually.

While we were revisiting our past weeks, we also wanted to introduce something new.  The project this week was to create individual mosaics using rolled corrugated cardboard.  Using paint to cover the cardboard, students could also stamp impressions of the cardboard rolls onto their canvas and then proceed to glue the roll down.  It’s always exciting to see which students take really well to certain projects.  This week, Jeffrey sat for the entire two hours making multiple stamp and cardboard mosaics that were amazing.  He started with a small canvas and later asked for a larger one to continue with his work.  I sat for about 10 minutes just watching and video taping him work and the amount of attention he was giving to the project was far more than any other student.

Jeffery diligently working in both the top and bottom photo

Some of the final projects students created

Besides the newly introduced project, the students who missed class the week were encouraged to complete a monochromatic collage since they turned out to be a huge success.  The rest of the classroom was set up with centers for bottle cap towers, trashcan painting, and drawing.

Looking back on how far we have come I would say we learned a lot from the Saturday School teaching experience.  From classroom management techniques to material selection for younger students, we both failed and succeeded through trial and error.  Remembering our first day teaching I was so nervous that I didn’t think I was capable of being a successful teacher.  However, reflecting upon the final class everything went so smoothly and came so naturally that it was over before we knew it.  Eight weeks of teaching once a week is really not a long time but the amount that can be learned in this time is incredible and I think we used this to our advantage.