Monday, November 4, 2013

116, bilingual second grade
The students are studying their new fish tank. They are drawing the tank and the fish. I decide to push in and record dialogue, rather than pull them, because they are all engaged in this task.


Mrs. R- Tell me what you are doing today.
J- I'm drawing the fish. Right now, I'm making a title of the fish.
Mrs. R- Tell me about the fish.
L- There are two fish that glow in the dark.
Mrs. R- tell me more.
L- there's a frog in the tank. I'm drawing the frog.
Mrs. R- do they have names?
L- No.
Mrs. D- We haven't named them yet, but that's a good idea.
L- the frog was under a plant. Not a real plant. Like this. (Holds up cellophane from the breakfast utensils and shows me where the frog was hiding.)
N- do you why they call catfish? Because they have whiskers like cats. Walrus also have them, to dig, to find clams. Those big tusks are to fight with enemies. Their heads are like a helmet and they go boom! They break ice with their helmet heads! Never feed a walrus a fish because it will die!
Mrs. R- the fish or the walrus?
N- the walrus. They don't like fish. They like clams. So never feed a walrus a fish. And don't feed walrus meat to fish. They don't like it, either!

He has a pair of chopsticks and proceeds to show me what the walrus tusks look like.

N- I made seven fish, a sea snake and a sea star. They don't eat clams because they can't break the shell. I don't know what catfish eat.
Mrs. R- What do you think they eat?
N- maybe other fish, because cats eat fish. My favorite fish is the clown fish!

I move to another table.The drawings at this table are observational. There are fish tanks and an accurate number of fish and there's a serious attempt at realism and accurate details.
Mrs. R- tell me about your drawings.
A- I'm drawing the fish from the fish tank.
Mrs. R- tell me the fish. What do we know about the fish?
A- there's a glow in the dark one and a frog?
Mrs. Rose- is a frog a fish?
L- no.
Mrs. Rose- what is it then?
L- we don't know!
Y- one of the fish is big and one is little.
Mrs. Rose- so they are different sizes? What else is different?
L- the frog is much bigger and the fish are little
A- the frog is bigger and it eats bugs if it's hungry.
Mrs. R- what do you think the fish eat?
A- worms. And bears eat the fish!
A- I like his drawing! (Points to Y)
Mrs. R- what do you like about it?
A- it looks like a real fish tank and that's the pineapple. (The house is a pineapple.)

Mrs. Rose- what can you teach me about the fish?
An- the fish are shiny!
G- the fish eat.
Mrs. Rose- what do they eat?
G- they eat, um, leaves
An- leaves? No, I don't know what you call them. (Brings me the fish food.)
Mrs. Rose- they do look like tiny leaves!
An- I'm going to write a sentence about the drawing.

The children love to show me their work for criticism purposes. They are happy to get advice to improve their drawings. This is already a change from how students usually look at drawings, with great frustration if it isn't "right" on the first try.

118- I took a group to work on their playground. They made a lot of progress, but we didn't get photos today.  We were busy and messy!

108- Another group came to the studio for the second time, to work on their community clay buildings. We now have an animal hospital and a house. As they worked, they brainstormed other things they'd like in their clay community- trees, cars, people, the community helpers who work in the buildings.  I'm letting them choose if they want a roof, or if they want to make things inside the building, leaving the roof off to observe what's inside.  I figure we can make the roofs detachable or just not have them.  It's up to the kids.

112- Some kids finished their globes.  We're going to glaze the shells we made weeks ago, then we'll move on to a new project.  I think we'll see if the kids want to learn more about the continents they painted.  If so, each student can choose a continent (or work in pairs) to research and create an art project that tells us what they've learned.

101- preschool

The second group of students came in to create clay and found object portraits. One student, a boy who either had limited English or was perhaps in the silent period, became very animated with me for the first time. "I made a happy face! Look!"  He put Popsicle stick legs and made a puppet out of his clay portrait. His friend next to him used the same idea and they began a conversation as portraits. The portraits kissed and were friends. 

Portrait Puppet Friends

He then added other things to the face and said, "Now, it's a scary face!" Two other kids seemed to enjoy the puppet show, so they turned their own into puppets. The remaining two students worked independently. One was focused on a realistic portrait. She experimented with adding pipe cleaners that matched her hair color and even tried to curl them to represent her beautiful curly hair. Another boy held his puppet up like it was an ice cream novelty, causing the other kids to shriek with laugher. One girl used every single object on her tray. "This is a princess," she said. When a boy came in late, I wondered aloud if she would share her pieces with him. She was happy to help and it made her recreate her piece with more purpose and clear aesthetic choices.

104, kindergarten.  Their homeroom teacher asked if I could work on exploring shapes through art materials, so the students made clay triangles, which they glazed today, and the other students painted shapes at the easels.