I ALSO FINISHED MY EDTPA PORTFOLIO!!!
During my free time I am watching demo videos for the upcoming projects since I will be teaching clay to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Sixth will be making clay rattles, seventh slab buildings, and eighth slab shoes. I am working on my lesson plans to really be successful and helpful for me. I have step by step procedures and what I want to talk about and cover, questions I will ask during the demos, and step by step instructions for the demonstrations. These are longer demos, so I will demo one day and then the students will do the project I demonstrate the following day.
This week I also put up my display case of the Alexander Calder Wire Sculptures. It looks very nice on the black background. The students get to display an artist statement, a title/name card, and their wire sculpture either hanging or standing on the shelves.
The high school studio art is coming along. This week was very distracting both at the high and middle schools due to homecoming week. The high school students are learning that they really need to get going with their projects and finish up their work quicker, especially the AP students. I ran studio visits this week on Friday and the students shared one of their books about an artist or style that they are using for inspiration from their pieces.
Fifth grade finished their animal designs and then continued on to make patterned fish using found objects as stamps and tempura paint. The students got to choose four colors on black paper, then the fish was cut out. Next they are making clay fish dishes. My CT rolled out slabs, the students traced a fish pattern, and then used the found objects to make imprinted patterns in the clay. Then the students got a banding wheel, a paper bowl, draped the clay fish over the paper bowl, attached a coil or slab foot on the bottom, wrote their name on the bottom and then left it in the kiln room to dry.
Sixth grade is continuing to learn primary colors and mixing secondary and intermediate colors from the primaries in shapes on their Picasso inspired portraits. It was pretty impressive to hear some of the very low students recite the intermediate colors, when only a week or two ago on a pretest they did not know the primaries!
Seventh grade finished up their pinwheels and then I began setting up and teaching the students still lifes. Seventh grade has never done a still life before like this, so I had them travel to each still life, rotating clockwise to all four every 6-7 minutes. At the end of the day the students set out all four of their large marker drawings and talked to their partners and decided which was their favorite. The following day I did a demo on using a pencil as a tool for measurement and angles.
Eight grade finished their wire sculptures, Frank Stella pieces, and then I began teaching still life lessons. The eighth graders did still lifes last year, however they will be finishing them in a different way this year. The students chose which still life they would like to do after the demonstration and then continued to do a sketch of the composition of the still life they chose. Next I demonstrated the final pencil drawing and cleared up any confusion that came up during the sketch. The students continued on silently drawing their final piece. Friday I did a demonstration similarly to the seventh grade to teach how to use a pencil as a tool for measurements and angles.
This week was pretty chaotic, because so many things are being finished up and the students are all at different places in the projects. A lot of students are coming in during their resource time to finish up work that wasn't finished. Students are not punished for having things done on the ending date, because many of these students put extra time into certain areas to do an excellent job with their artwork. Teaching still lifes was successful. All of the students worked quietly during work time, which is completely necessary for still lifes because they students need to be so focused. During seventh grade I turned on the radio while they were working at each station. At the end of class my CT asked the students whether they liked working on still lifes with the radio on or if they liked it better silent. I did not realize that normally when she teaches this lesson she keeps the room silent. The results showed that most of the students liked working with the radio, but I was surprised that many students liked the silence as well. I asked eighth grade the same question, and most of them liked working with music as well. I am thinking about doing a little bit of both for the following drawing days.
Things to work on:
- Quit saying "So..." so much
- Relax while teaching
- Take time for students to raise hands, and really look if anyone has his or her hand up
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