Op Art Lessons

For my final unit at the elementary school I focused on the Op Art movement with most of the grade levels. Here are some of the examples of what the students accomplished.

4th grade looked at artworks by Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely. They learned about illusion in making their cone shapes appear like they are 3-dimensional. They practiced creating value with color sticks.

3rd grade worked on something similar, creating an illusion of fabric. They learned how to blend with oil pastels and to create highlights.

The 6th graders also looked at famous Op Art artists and practiced their weaving skills to create these neat looking pieces.

For the exceptional education students we did some printmaking using the Op Art texture sheets. The students loved layering prints over each other to create new illusions.

Hard to Believe it's Over

I never thought I'd reach the end of student teaching, but I actually did it! Back in August 2011, this week looked so far away. I definitely feel ready to take on an art class of my very own, and I hope the job hunt goes smoothly as I look for anything I can get (hopefully in an art area). I know with my elementary placement that I did not have as much time to blog about activities I was doing with the students, but I have some stuff that I will get blogged soon!

Back From Holiday Break

This week, coming off the holiday break, was interesting to see the student attitudes being more relaxed, ready to learn, and eager for art. It was as if I was teaching a whole new group of students, which was great because I had 5 new lessons to introduce. So with the New Year, came a clean slate.

Each lesson I taught the students were incredibly engaged with. With most classes, I planned to do Op Art lessons, so they were very excited with the images I was showing in my Powerpoints and in my handouts to them. It was easy to start conversations with the students regarding these artworks. There was so much for them to look at visually with line, color, and shape. Each class had lots to contribute in discussion and conversations.

In preparing my Op Art lessons, I found it hard to find lessons on this movement to teach to Kingergarten and 1st graders. However, I was able to adapt their lessons to focus more on positive and negative space and projects that still “fooled the eye” to some extent, which still tied into Op Art. I realized how nice it is to tie in the same Big Idea with all grade levels. It not only keeps me in the same gear with all my classes, but the students are interested and can understand what the other grade levels are doing as well when they see in progress work.

I enjoyed being able to adapt Op Art for the exceptional education students. My cooperating teacher had these greats sets of Optical Illusion texture sheets. I did a printmaking lesson with them where they rolled ink with a brayer in a pan and rolled the ink on the texture sheet. They then put paper over the texture sheet and rubbed. When they were finished with one color, they could do another design and overlap the two. This created some very interesting prints. The students were more engaged with this lesson than any lesson I had seen or facilitated at this placement. It was one where every student could feel successful. Even the students who normally refuse to participate in art were engaged in making prints. Once they realized how simple it was they seemed empowered to keep making more prints. It was really great to see how pleased they were with their work.

"Hanging" Projects

This was a week of Day 2’s of art projects across the grade levels. My goal was to have these projects finished this week in order to start something new next week, or at least after the holiday break. That didn’t seem to work so well. I began to think about “hanging” assignments and whether to move on when students aren’t completely finished, or to give them time to finish as a whole. When classes meet only once a week, it’s hard to just keep going on a project week after week especially if other students finish early. My CT talked to me about this and said she usually has a lot of “hanging” projects just so the students get as many projects for their trimester as possible. I just have issues with students never finishing assignments. How do you grade students on unfinished work? This is a challenge for me to think more about.

I’ve also been challenged with classroom management for projects that finish earlier than expected and finding things early finishers can work on until class ends. One thing is to give jobs to students who are done, but there are only so many jobs to give, especially when students are still using supplies at their table. I found that most students love “free draw” and giving them the option to grab paper and draw whatever their hearts desire excites them. The other is “choice time” where they can grab building toys or puzzles to work on at tables. But managing this is difficult because once students see one student who is drawing or having “choice time”, all of them start to say they are done with their project just so they can join in. I need to work on stating my expectations from the start of class and repeating those expectations more.

Brighten Someone's Day

I woke up one morning just not feeling the day to come. Nothing in particular happened, it was just "one of those days". Well, I came into school for the morning and a parent with her two kids (my students) stopped me in the hallway. She wanted to compliment how great the 1st grade paintings and collage environments turned out. (They were left along the wall on the floor to dry by the art room). Just this little compliment made my day and changed my mood. I really love when that happens.

This is a lesson to go along with Giraffe's Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. They first draw giraffes that they watercolor, then create the background of the moon and stars, followed by the foreground of leaves and vines. Finished artwork images to come!

Elementary Displays

Over the past couple weeks, I have been doing different weaving lessons with 2nd-5th grades. The 2nd did paper weaving where they designed their own strips in unique ways. The 3rd graders did some weaving and unweaving using burlap. The 4th graders did warm and cool color watercolor weavings with stamping. The 5th graders did cardboard loom weavings with yarn. Here is the display of samples from 2nd-4th grades.

With the Ex. Ed. classes, we looked at Owl stories and images and made owl puppets using torn paper and cut shapes.

100% and Management

This week was my first week taking over 100% of the classes at the elementary school. It has been busy, but manageable. Teaching all the classes, I see my lessons evolving as I teach them over and over to different classes of the same grade. I take note of what works with my lessons and adapt them. Different classes have different paces and attitudes and that really dictates how I run my lessons. With some classes I can add elements to, with other I have to cut. I think that this week I have truly learned about being flexible with my lessons. This week I had two lessons that I have had to really change and adapt to and I had to be more impromptu in teaching them. This all happened because of suggestions from my CT to try, and I was willing to trust her advice and see if it would work. It did all work out and I proved to myself that I could do it and follow through with it successfully.

6th graders started their trimester this week and I was able to see how to welcome new classes and go over rules of the art room and safety procedures. Middle schoolers have a completely different attitude about them and I realized how different my teacher voice gets around the different grade levels. With 6th graders I have to let them know I’m business and get them “re-trained” for art room behaviors and routines. I’ve realized my management issues are the worst with Kindergarten and 1st graders, as well as 6th graders. The grades in between seem to police themselves more and follow directions. Overall, with my most difficult classes, it involves a lot of repeating and holding the students accountable for their actions. This is a challenge I will be working on throughout this student teaching experience. I am taking any suggestions my CT gives me for ways to get students attention, but I haven’t found one that works 100% of the time.