Monday, December 16, 2013

120- I brought the last group in to paint their masks for the Holiday Program. They enjoyed painting.  When they finished, I let them paint superheroes on paper and I showed the girl in the group how to fold paper to make a paper doll chain.  She was really excited and I expect to see a bunch of these chains popping up in their classroom.

112- We made peace posters to go along with the first grade peace project. The students brainstormed what peace means to them, we read the Peace Book, they wrote what peace means to them and then drew a picture to go along with it.

108- I pushed into their classroom while they made illustrations for the video they're making on Peace. I watched them struggle to understand how to work as a group on one artwork. Some groups were more successful than others at figuring out how to do this.

Here's some dialogue from a group who was able to work really well together:

Roshelys: we can make the water here and a person throwing garbage in the water

Jayla: yes, that's good

Alex: but we don't want them to throw garbage in the water

Jayla: we're trying to show them that it's the wrong thing

Alex: they might think we're saying to do that

Roshelys: we can put a person saying "no!" That way they know we want them to stop throwing garbage in the water

Alex: ok

Roshelys: let's make an octopus

Jayla: we haven't heard from you, Megan, what do you want to draw?

Megan: I want to draw a fish.

Their final piece. There was debate about whether or not the garbage-throwing girl should be smiling.

Teacher- Explain to me what you're doing

Ar- everyone is eating chicken wings and pizza

Av- the chicken wings are different because we don't know how to draw chicken wings that much

We look up photos of chicken wings and draw one from observation. Ariana sets to work correcting their chicken wings.

M- are we done yet?

Av- no! We just started.

M- do you want to help me draw a chicken wing?

Av- I can help you draw a chicken wing! Hey- isn't the skin of the chicken wing orange?

Ar- it can be brown, too. The red means it's really hot. The orange is more greasy.

M and Av discuss Mo's lost voice, after Mo silently points to show me her work.

Ar- these are enough pieces for everyone in the world. Look at all of the chicken wings in the world! We have to draw more people!

She tries to motivate some less enthusiastic group members, while coloring most of it herself.

M- we are done!

Ar- no, we aren't! We still need to draw more people.

M- oh and we need to color the pizza cheese.

I suggest that maybe the other three group members take Ariana's suggestion and draw more people.

J- I'll draw a baby.

M- I still don't know how to draw a chicken wing. Is this right? I'll color it gray.

Teacher- Are chicken wings ever gray?

M- my mom likes the color gray.

Ar- but chicken wings aren't gray.

Teacher- Is everyone cool with the gray chicken wing?

They don't mind.  I asked because I thought the lack of realism would bother them, but they are more creative than that! 

Ar- that can be a chicken wing from the future.

M, incredulous- how do you KNOW that?!

Ar just keeps coloring.

Ar: hey! Why didn't you guys color this in?

J- I did! Here.

He colors it more.

Av draws what looks like blood on someone.

Ar- Don't draw blood on them!

Av- it's not blood! It's just his shirt.

Peace is having enough pizza for everyone.

118- I brought some students down for various projects.  Two students continued to make a large paper doll chain for the Holiday Program. One student needed to make a large pink eraser. Two other kids needed to make a plastic ruler. Lastly, I had the peace project students continuing their peace projects for the art show. 

The plastic ruler is SO COOL. I offered acetate paper and the kids were like, "YES! THIS IS PERFECT!" We folded the piece to mark where the center was and we used a regular sized ruler to measure where the lines were supposed to go.  There are a few mistakes, but that won't matter on stage- you'd have to look closely to see that some centimeters are a bit too close to each other. They wanted to color it with marker, but I offered paint and they quickly accepted that idea instead. 

Making a large "plastic" ruler.

The leftovers from the paper dolls looked like icicles, so we hung them. :)
No one will accuse us of wasting anything! 

Rolling paint onto the plastic ruler

Ta-da!

A strand of paper dolls, ready to be decorated.

101 and 103- The preschool classes need help with their fine motor skills, so I decided to give them construction paper, scissors, pencils and glue.  I reviewed sqaure, rectangle and triangle shapes with them and wondered if we could cut out those shapes and somehow make houses with them. They went right to work. Some are more clear-cut than others, but the intention is there and when you speak to them about it, they will tell you exactly what they are making. 

Hunter's house has a circle of shapes arranged around it in a specific manner.

Jazlyn- "I'm making downtown. I'm showing a lot of things and a lot of stuff. Some of the houses have elevators and windows." 

Keity's house is very obvious.

Aiden's house is also very obvious.  He chose to cut his background paper.

Angel was excited about his triangles and rectangles. 

Brian has good cutting skills.