It's been a while since I have posted some art work but we are seriously busy creating in the art room! It has been so hectic at school that I would get home and realize that I forgot to take pictures ( again ). I made a point today to stop, take pictures and edit them before I left school today!
My 3d grades have been working on some way cool abstracts. Some of the things that I am working on this year as a teacher is getting my students to use higher order thinking skills.
When I created this poster for my art rooms this Fall I researched many visuals of Bloom's Taxonomy posters. I took several and tweeked them to work for my room. I created a design that I thought resembles a watercolor set. I tried to choose words that would be age appropriate/art room usable so they made sense for my students.
We began the lesson by spending one 30 minute class comparing and contrasting the art of Romero Britto and Piet Mondrian.
I created 6 large posters that I placed at each one of our five art tables and one on my chalk board in the front of the room.
This sign is from a bulletin board outside my room with examples of the Ven diagrams the students filled out.
After I explained what we were going to do,one of the first questions I got was," How is this art?"
I replied with, " Looking at and analyzing the art of both of these artists will help you to better understand how they created their art work and will help you to make creative decisions when you are designing your own abstract/Pop art piece next week." I guess I answered the question well because there were no more questions/complaints about having to do the compare/contrast instead of drawing that class. Let me just say the classes blew me away! ( seriously, why couldn't I have been observed during one of these classes? ) They worked together, listened to each other's ideas, helped one another spell words and come up with words to express what they were trying to say. I asked them to look, really look and dig deep while analyzing the art works. They worked in teams at their tables for about 10 minutes. I walked around the room
going table to table listening to what they had to say and throwing hints as to what to look for when they were struggling to find something. Once they got going though there was no stopping some of them! ( now I know I am painting this amazing picture of discussion and analyzing but there were those kids/classes that had to be prodded! )
When the 10 minutes were up as a class we all shared what we found and I wrote what they said on a giant Ven diagram I wrote on a large piece of paper. I originally used the SmartBoard for the first one and then I remembered why I hate to write draw on the thing!
The next class we talked about some of those elements that the students found during the last class. I gave them the choice of creating a piece that was completely Abstract created with just lines of different types or creating more of a Pop Art piece that included the image of a familiar object with the background broken up with line. Either style had to include some patterned/designed sections but they could also have some solid color sections.
Most of the students chose to draw an image in the center of their piece. The kids are working so very hard on these and are really proud of how they are turning out! We talked about taking pride in their art work and taking their time to color them in. Next week will be the third class we will be working on these and the kids are hanging in there and are not rushing to finish. A few have finished but a lot of the classes need the third class to finish up. The next three pictures are works in progress. When the students are finished with their piece they will be doing a self-assessment of their piece.
Just a picture of what one of my students called " crazy art teacher legs " today. I love the patterned leggings that are out in the stores lately. Alas, many are too teenage for me... I found this pair last night at the mall while doing my Christmas shopping. The black and white design was too cool to pass up and it came in XL. A rarity since an L these days are sized for toothpick people! I paired them with a simple grey sweater dress and white infinity scarf. Not too young looking, just fun! Plus they are really comfy!
Tomorrow I will be loading progress report grades into the computer early so I can get it over with. I want to bake some Christmas cookies since I didn't take a day off to make them this year. I usually take a Personal Day and spend the entire day baking like a mad woman! They are forecasting 8 inches of snow for us here tomorrow so I stopped and did my grocery shopping on my way home from work so I don't have to go out tomorrow. I don't plan on going any where tomorrow!
Hope you all have a good weekend! One more week until Christmas Break and the natives are starting to get REALLY restless at school! ( that includes teachers too, not just the kiddos! )
Mrs. C :)
