Week Six

What a week to see process and product come together! This week, we saw our students really move along in their projects and even complete a few things. Our highschoolers have been very invested in their projects, so we have figured they really want to get as much done for the show as they can. This past class served as a “catch up” day that proved to be very productive. We decided to set up “centers”: a work table, a print making station, a clay station, and a cardboard center. Since a lot of students still had a lot of carving to do on their linoleum blocks, we thought it would be best to encourage them to finish these first so that they could begin printing by the end of the class. While it seemed sort of “off” to have to hurry students along in their work, we understand that without having to push them to focus on their work they will not be able to put it in the show. Luckily, most students completed their prints and they look great! Everyone (except for the 2 students who were not in class) finished their shoes that look amazing as well. We set up the stations so that students first had to complete their shoes, then their prints. After they were done both, they were able to work on their cardboard sculptures. If they finished all of their projects, they were allowed to put a print on the collaborative print, work with clay, or create another cardboard sculpture or relief. This system worked well in that it created an organized system for students to follow when moving from one project to the next, as many students had multiple assignments to complete. We were hoping that everyone would finish all three of their prints as well as their cardboard structures, but most people only completed carving with a few prints.

Seeing that everyone is at different stages of working, we are now faced with some predicaments. We were hoping to get at least two new projects in, but we are unsure if that will be possible. The students still have a “play day” in which they can create a collaborative landscape with their cardboard sculptures and fine connections between each other’s prints on the collaborative muslin print. We have been discussing focusing our next lesson on collaboration and possibly incorporating another collaborative piece for everyone to work on while other students finish up the rest of their work. Depending on whether we can find the right resources, we would also like to try “Ebru”, a Turkish form of paper marbling. While we are not one hundred percent sure of how next week’s lesson will pan out, we were very happy with how this week’s class went and hope for similar success this coming Saturday! 

I thought this week’s class went really well. The kids worked really well and diligently on their projects the whole class. Well except for the beginning when we had the demo. I thought the demo that Katie did went very well though. It was through and the kids seem to pay attention and pick up on it. They were antsy and wanted to get to work. We did have a second part to the demo but decided it could be left out. It was about using two colors. I think leaving it out was good for now, because it would have been a lot for the students to take in all at once. It also shortened the demo so they had more time to work.

There was a really good pace to class this week as well. The students worked very well while still interacting with each other. We had created 3 stations this week. This was nice to break the students up a little and get them moving around. It created a nice flow and vibe. The students had some options and freedom, which they responded well to. This could be seen in their work, which seemed to be stronger this week as they were wrapping up the projects.

I also felt more comfortable in the setting this week. I think this was probably the best class we had yet. Katie and I got to go through lesson before class this week with the 212 students. I think this helped both of us as well to. The extra time discussing and going through the lesson helped us to keep on the same page and be more effective. This is something that seems really simple, but really pays off during class.

Maddie: post for lesson 6

 

 What a Relief Printmaking: Exploring Patterns in Nature

Part 1: Presentation/Discussion and Four Element Stations

Overall I am pleased with how the lesson went :) I think that the lesson was most successful in the beginning when we had discussion.  The students seemed to be engaged and could even naturally lead me to the next point I wanted to make. They are so intelligent!  The discussion and powerpoint presentation was based around patterns, in particular, patterns in nature.

The students got to explore patterns in nature using the four elements, which has been the constant thread throughout the entire unit.  They rotated stations of water, earth, wind, and fire. 

In the earth center:

Students got to use magnify glasses to observe detailed patterns in gemstone, leaves, plants, flowers, bark, seeds, and lavender petals.  They then sketched what they saw.

In the wind center:

Students got to listen to wind chimes by a window.  They got to draw what the sounds looked like as patterns.  They discovered that wind chimes are often played in meditative music.

In the fire center:

Students got to observe an incense burn.  They drew the patterns of the smoke.  They discovered how incense is aromatherapy and could help relax people because of the smells.

In the water center:

Students created patterns in water by mixing it with lavender and olive oils.  The students drew the patterns they saw with the magnifying glasses provided.  They also placed a sheet of paper onto the oil and water mixtures to create patterns on the paper, which was then stuck onto the window to shine light through the patterns.  Students learned that olive oil can naturally heal dry/irritated skin.  They learned about how lavender oil is used in relaxation massages.

Images from the Water Center:

Was the earth, wind, fire, and water stations successful?

I believe that the stations worked well!  I would maybe adjust them for next time by shortening them to 5 minutes instead of 10 because the activity was just meant to provide students with inspiration for the final printmaking project.  I believe they were inspired enough within the first 5 minutes.  This would allow for more time to work on the actually printmaking.

I thought that the sketches the students made were very thorough!  I noticed a few students actually taking notes and writing terms down such as "lavender oil.  I was initially concerned about the sound levels of each station competing with one another, but I was pleasantly surprised at how there were no conflicting noise.

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Part 2: Relief Printmaking: Individual Prints & Collaborative Tapestry

After the students saw each of the four elements stations, they got to watch a demo for drawing into the styrofoam.  I think i could have chosen a better area to demonstrate.  For some reason, I did it in an awkward corner and the students focus was all over the place.  

I wish that I had gotten better styrofoam to use as the inking plates.  The one I got was covered in plastic, which made it a little more difficult for the students to draw into.  It wasn't a disaster, but it could have been better.  

My original plan for the printmaking was to have students practice printing on fabric and paper, then work on a collaborative tapestry that they could print on, collage on, and in a later lesson add paint, beads, and other textures.  Since I tried to pack a lot into the lesson, the students pretty much ran out of time to work on the tapestry.  The prints they created on fabric and paper looked so great though!!  Katie and I plan on providing the tapestry next Saturday for students to collaborate on.  

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Part 3: Final Thoughts

Something I wish I did better was documentation.  Even though I was the lead teacher, I feel that I should have attempted to take more photos and write down more stories/ideas of the students.  After the water station, I didn't take any! (I wish I had final product photos to share on this post!)

I also feel like I need to improve the fact that I let my emotions get the best of me.  Once I start to feel slightly overwhelmed, I tend to loose my collected-self.  I let my feelings override my presence to the moment.  I feel like the demo I gave showing students how to make a print was all flustered because I knew that time was running out.  Something I can do to work on this is changing my perspective.  It shouldn't be about me and my emotions, but about the students and their needs, ideas, creations, and teachings.  

Overall, the students made me so happy.  They are so eager and willing to try new things.  It is rewarding to see a lesson played out and students enjoying themselves.  :) I had the best support I could have ever asked for from Katie, Myoungsun, and the guest helpers from 401!!!

Calder and Color: Lesson 6

This week, we needed to continue our Alexander Calder inspired lesson, where the students were constructing their own wind chime mobiles out of their chosen found objects. At the start of class we introduced our guest visitors (who ended up being a very big help during our lesson!). We reminded them of what they were working on last week, and how Calder’s artwork related to our theme of movement. We showed them once again, how to wrap wire around a popsicle stick and add tape to it to hold it together (explaining how to connect the different parts of the mobile).

After the students worked on their mobiles for the first half of class, as everyone finished up, we decided to move to our next lesson activities. This lesson involved the experimentation of color movement. Specifically, we did a demonstration on how watercolor paint moves and reacts differently when it touches the water on the paper, and how it blends with other colors to make new colors.

Next, we did a demonstration introducing Japanese marbling. A few students at a time would be coming up to make their own Japanese marbling paper. While these students were making their marbling paper, the rest of the class would be experimenting with watercolor.

The students got to drop the different colors of ink into the bucket of water.

They were so proud of their finished Japanese marbling's.

Student's finished artwork.

What We Learned:

1. Doing Demo’s- We learned that doing a demonstration on basic art techniques is much harder than you think it would be and it takes practice. We may know how to do something but actually explaining the process is very difficult. Also, It is important to know when and where to do a demonstration. We did our watercolor painting demonstration and our marbling demonstration back-to-back and we think that caused problems when the students began to start the water color experimentation because they forgot the directions on what to do and how to do it.

2. Transition & Timing of Lessons- Although we really only needed half of the class to finish last week's project, transitioning went poorly and we underestimated time. We felt like we were sort of rushing students to finish their mobile project, just so we would have enough time to do the water color and marbling demonstrations (which we ended up doing 15 minutes behind schedule). We feel like we should have spent the whole class finishing the sculptures and making them more elaborate since we were more rushed to finish the second project. Also, because we were rushed to finish the second project, some of the students didn’t get a chance to do the marbling and were very upset about it, although we are finishing them next class.

3. Too Much Paint and Paper- When we demonstrated watercolor painting, we explained that each student would get a strip of paper to experiment with, a larger piece of paper for their “good” water color painting, and a piece of palette paper that was also white. Because we passed out all three of the papers at one time, the students were very confused with the directions and what to do on each paper. Some of the students thought the palette paper was the paper they could paint on. Also, even though we told the students they could pour their own water color paint on the palettes and to only pour a dot the size of a fingernail, they still were pouring out more paint than we had instructed them to do so. This involved squirting the entire tube of paint on the paper. This aspect of our lesson really showed the age differences of the students. Those who were older picked up on our directions, while others probably needed more instruction, explanation and reminders.

What went well:

1. Snack Time- We prepared snack in the morning before the students came, however, we hid it behind mini tri-fold boards so they wouldn’t get distracted by it sitting out (Last week the students sat right next to snack during story time and routinely interrupted us, in the middle of story time, asking when snack was). After the demonstrations for our second activity, we announced that the students who were hungry were invited to the snack area for snack and a juice box. This worked very nicely because some of the students weren’t ready for snack and got to continue working, while others who were hungry could eat their snack and then go straight back to work. The students took their time getting snack, it wasn’t chaotic and they sat on the carpet in that designated section of the classroom.

2. Marbling Center- The students were very interested experimenting with the Japanese marbling ink. They loved watching the colors drop on to water and “explode” across the surface. They then enjoyed swirling the colors, although some of the students learned that mixing too much would cause all of the ink to sink to the bottom of the water. Unfortunately not all of the students were able to marble due to time but they seemed very excited that they will be able to work on this next week!

Recycling/upcycling- week 6

Recycling Part Two: Upcycling

This Saturday, we decided to extend the lesson from last week and continue with work time on the plastic bottle sculptures.  Just as last week, this week we set the classroom up in centers for manipulation (puff paint, hot glue guns, and heat manipulation).  We decided that the acrylic paint was too messy and required a lot of set up/monitoring but we still included puff paint which the students really seemed to enjoy.  

Although we were pressed for time to finish the plastic bottle manipulations and move on to assembling the sculptures themselves, the students understood that we only had a limited amount of time to work at the stations so we could accomplish a lot within our 2 hour time restraint.  We announced at the beginning of class that we would only have 10 minutes of sketchbook time.  They understood and were very cooperative.  Only one student was unhappy about only having 10 minutes of sketchbook time... Milo.  Milo has a special visitor every Saturday that observes him and asks him questions about his sketches.  Milo loves that time and realizes that he receives positive attention every Saturday.  Although Milo is extremely respectful in class, I have found that he can sometimes act a little bit pretentious.  An example of this is that this past Saturday, Milo asked me if he could spend more time on his sketchbook than his other classmates instead of working on the project so that he could talk to his visitor more about his work and not work collaboratively with his classmates.  I understand that this has been a constant debate in our Saturday School class... should we allow our students to choose what they want to do?  Stray from our precisely crafted lesson plan?  I definitely think that it's a give and take kind of situation in our classroom.  We need to teach our students how to compromise and that begins with the decisions that we make while  we are teaching.  A lot of our students were absent this week so it cut back on a lot on foot traffic when we were doing the centers which helped make it easier to manage.  

After the students had about a half an hour to work on their own plastic bottles, we had our students form groups of 4 or 5 to assemble sculptures reminiscent of Dale Chihuly's blown glass sculptures.  Dana did a very short explanation of how to assemble the sculptures given the materials provided.  Instead of having the students gather around a demo table, Dana stood in the middle of the classroom while the students were at their desks so they could all equally see her as she explained.  Usually, we have the students all gather around a table to demo, but this worked really well so that everyone could see the steps.  In past weeks, when we've had this kind of demo it has been difficult for all of the students to see because they are crowded around the table.  Keeping it shorter was better too so that the kids could stay focused and had more time to work on their sculptures.  

Melt downs are scary when you have one.  When a student has one it's ten times worse!  I figured that out the hard way.  Tori is usually a calm and collected young lady.  She's focused and usually has a great time in class.  Little did I know that she is a perfectionist.  I'm sure that as an art teacher, we will all experience this kind of student. One little problem and her whole world comes crashing down.  My instinct to her melt down was to laugh because it was just ridiculous.  I know that sounds insensitive, but I really did have to keep myself from loosing it.  One thing that I did realize, is that I need to increase my sensitivity.  To Tori, a water bottle coming unglued was all it took for her to lose perspective of the entire project.  She was so focused on one accident that everything else was making her really upset.  I can completely relate to that situation (not the water bottle issue!), but a small bump in the road getting me all flustered and unfocused, it happens to everyone!  What I'm trying to say is that although our students problems may seem ridiculous to us, we can most likely relate on a different level.  We need to put ourselves in their shoes.  My solution to Tori's meltdown was to refocus her.  She was so angry that she was shaking.  I had to ask her to put her broken project aside so that she could refocus her attention more positively by first focusing on her deep breathing.  As her anger was increasing, her breathing became more and more shallow.  After she calmed down I told her that I could help her to fix her problem.  After I helped her fix it, she was happy as a clam!

After the students had an opportunity to put their collaborative sculptures together, we visited the Palmer to see Dale Chihuly's blown glass and they LOVED it.  It was the perfect ending to a whirlwind of a morning.  By the time we visited, they got most of their energy out, but still had just enough to focus on the questions that we asked them.  The students got the idea to look at his sculpture from multiple perspectives so they rushed upstairs to take a look--they were in love!  

Mallory & Jen Week 6: Musical Junk

Musical Junk

Saturday March 31, 2012

      This week our lesson was framed around musical junk.  In our discussion at the beginning of class, we talked about sounds and instruments, and how sounds are made.  We then talked about how sounds and music can be created using junk materials, and followed up with showing the students a video of STOMP, a musical group that makes music from non-traditional materials.  The students loved the video, and also enjoyed shouting out all the different types of junk that the musicians in Stomp were using to create their music.  We showed the students several different types of junk instruments, and informed them that they would be making their own junk instruments in class.  We followed this with two different teacher examples and discussed how many different sounds each example could make.  To our surprise, the majority of the students wanted to make an instrument, which was wonderful, however we began to see the most of the students were making their instruments just like our teacher examples.  We tried talking to them about how to use other materials to make different sounds, but they continued to do exactly what we did in the examples. 

       We also planned on recording individual sounds from their instruments, and editing those sounds with the students the following week in garage band so that there would be a final composition of their sounds, but since most of the instruments they made were very similar, we might not do the editing part.  We did take students in groups of 3 or 4 into the sculpture room and recorded the sounds, so the students had a chance to listen closely to their class mate's instruments, which was a plus.  All in all, the instruments themselves did not turn out how we would have liked them to, but the students still learned about using junk in yet another way to create art and music.  They also developed an understanding for different sounds that can come from different objects.  Conceptually the lesson went great, the students were engaged, and they were still learning valuable information in regards to our unit.  

Below are some photos of students working on their instruments.  One of the photos is of a student who is typically hard to get engaged, and he was excited and engaged in making his instrument this week, which was awesome!

 We also continued the other centers this week.  Below are images of more miniatures.  The students started using their snacks and juice boxes in their scenes!

Below, Rosie and another student work on the straw light.

As usually, Sophie finished her instrument quickly, and spent the rest of the class decorating her trash can.  We always put some sort of video on during snack, which Sophie usually doesn't eat, but she always sneaks a few peaks at the video!  This is the only thing that can pull her away from her trash can for a few moments!

 Things to consider:
We've noticed that some of the centers are becoming a bit stale, so we are going to take the class mobile down, because a student mentioned that he thought it was getting too long, which is true, so we will retire that center and replace it with a new one, involving bottle cap structures.  We are also thinking about continuing the mosaic in a more individualized way, in order to allow the students the opportunity to continue to think about patter by "adding" to the class mosaic individually on separate boards.  We are also going to try and refine the class activity more, so that the students can dig for deeper meaning and understanding within the activities.  They have already grasped why we are using junk, so now we can push for further development and understanding.  We are developing a new activity for this weekend, which will involve color and collage, and are working out the details of a game involving students trading objects that "'don't fit" in order to go to the next step which will be making collages with colored junk. 

Katie Hopkins reflection to lesson 6

Unit Title: Exploring Nature's Elements Through Art
Lesson Title: What a Relief Printmaking: Nature Inspired Patterns
Grade Level/Ages: Late Elementary/Ages 8-9
Instructors: Katie Hopkins & Maddie Tyska
Day /Date of lesson: Sat. March 31, 2012
Room No: 204
No of Students: 22

REFLECTION
Maddie was the lead teacher in this lesson and she did an AMAZING job! She was really prepared and had really clear directions and tips posted around the room. Maddie did a good job practicing with the materials while writing her demo instructions. She seemed really confident during the discussion and made concrete connections when discussing patterns, by pointing out patterns in the students clothing. During the discussions, I sat on the floor with the students and I could tell they were really happy to have me sitting next to them, and I was glad I could video tape their responses from their eye level. During this class I noticed the kids were really showing their personalities more than other classes and it was very interesting to me. There was a lot of laughter going on and I smiled a lot, which made me realize how much I love these students!

We had 4 stations (earth, wind, fire, and water) where the students were split up into groups and did drawing/observing activities at each station. I was at the fire station, the visiting art ed students were at earth and wind, and Maddie was at water. At the fire station, I had incense sticks for the students to observe the patterns in the smoke while the incense was burning. A few students observed the ribbons they saw in the smoke and we talked about drawing ribbons that look twisted and three-dimensional. We also talked about how our minds and bodies felt around the incense. One student drew a picture of a throat because he could feel the smoke tickling his throat. I thought this was a good connection between an observing- feeling- drawing. We noticed the students took the observing part seriously and were labeling their sketches with words.

After the students went to all 4 stations, Maddie gave a demonstration on printmaking, and the students were eager to get started! I really liked how the students were using their earth/wind/fire/water sketches for a reference for their print design. Their designs were really unique and original. Our unit theme focuses on the transformation of drawing to another medium and we can tell the students understand this concept because their projects relate to their primary sketches. By having them draw before they use another medium, is showing them how an idea can be shown in multiple layers. We noticed that most of the students like to do their drawings in uni-ball pen compared to pencils.

It was very exciting to see the students mixing ink colors with the rollers. They had to communicate with each other to share the tubes of ink and the rollers. Maddie provided them with paper and fabric to print on so they had options. One student didn’t like his printing plate, and he made a great color mixing the ink, so I told him he could just roll the ink straight on to the paper. He loved it! And it came out looking really cool because of the multiple layers of ink!

Changes: make the 4 stations 5 minutes instead of 10. I also would have gotten different Styrofoam plates for them to carve into because the plates we had were difficult to carve into because they had a plastic film on top of the foam.



sketchbook drawings


being creative



directions


Water station- water and oil on paper


fire activity


sketches from the 4 stations

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using observations for print making design