Week of May 6-9

This week was a different kind of week!

On Tuesday, our students had a half-day.  I spent the morning in my regular classes.
118 and 116- We held a whole class critique of our observational drawings of the local fauna.  This was really beneficial to the students. Ron Berger really knows his stuff. One student, I, had a drawing that was very "symbolic"- he drew a raccoon and it had a human smiley face.  After the critique, he was determined to draw from observation and he's been showing me drawings of racoons since then that he's done in his spare time.

112-  The students continued their drawings of local fauna.  I had a breakthrough with S.  He was really struggling and having him trace the lines and trace the drawing on acetate didn't help.  I sat him down with D, our observational drawing expert in that class, and myself and we both went slowly, demonstrating the technique with him.  This is the second time this month when I had a student who really struggled to understand suddenly get it.  It really shows that anyone can learn to draw. It's not only for those who are born "talented."

Wednesday was a day of training for the Art Department.  I love those days.  I learned about incorporating the common core ELA shifts five and six into the curriculum, learned about new materials (water soluble oil paint) and new techniques.  These conference days are not only fun and informative, they're rejuvenating.  They make you want to run back to the classroom and start teaching immediately.

Thursday and Friday were ALL DAY field trips to the Burchfield Penney Art Center and the Albright Knox Art Gallery, with a picnic lunch in the park in the middle.


We started by pretending to put on tall boots and flashlight helmets so we could "walk" into the video by Alberto Rey that features the tunnel in which the Scajaqueda Creek runs.

We talked about shadows and light.

 Our picnic lunch was so much fun!

The kids said this squirrel thought the sculpture was a real tree.  This was the start of jokes about the squirrel looking at his reflection and being confusion by the shiny tree.

 Second Grade Trip:
Our observational drawing practice is really paying off!

At lunch, the students showed off their many outdoor talents, like splits and rolling down hills.

 The students noticed that the fishermen were catching catfish- the SAME catfish they were studying in class.  They noticed litter in the lake, too, and you could see the connections being made. What a fortunate coincidence for us!

My tour today didn't feature any rooms of the Albright in which photography is allowed, so all I have for our afternoon is some of the outside sculpture.

 As an active supervisor of students on the trip, it's difficult for me to record their dialogue, but I was able to grab a few connections:

On the Tunnel video:
Yalin- It looks like the inside of a whale.
Eliani- Mrs. Rose showed us a picture of a whale that was on the beach.
(We were talking about the size of a blue whale, so I showed them a photo from a recent event where a deceased whale washed up on the beach in Canada.  The humans standing near the whale in the photo enabled them to grasp an understanding of the size of whales. They also thought a dead whale was pretty interesting.)

Grand Island Bridges by AJ Fries:
Layla- We're in a car, driving down the road.
Joe- We couldn't go to Fantasy Island on that day because it's too cold. There's snow!

They next tried to guess if the artwork is a photograph or a painting.
Layla- It's a painting because someone painted it.
Yalin- It looks like the car goes fast and you can do that in a painting, but a photograph looks like it's standing still.
Joe- It's gray and white, so it looks like a photograph.

We compare the artwork to another work. The docent instructs them that their answer must include a reason to explain their thinking. This is creating an argument based on a primary source using evidence from the text- a perfect example of hitting the Common Core ELA standard.

The students give reasons for their guesses and are surprised by the results. They inspect the painting closely to see that it is, in fact, a painting. If you look closely, you can see the brushstrokes. Those who guessed it was a photograph were amazed by the artist's skill.  They looked at the photograph and could not see brush strokes.  I thought this was an excellent presentation by our docent and I loved that they could compare, contrast and argue all in one short critique.


At the Albright-Knox, we looked at a painting of a cave in the water.

Docent- Can you go into this dark place?
I- Yes. It's the tunnel!
The docent was looking for a "no" I suspect.
I- Yes, you can. The video did.
I explain that the video he was referring to is the video Alberto Rey made that is on display at the Burchfield-Penney and that the artist walked into the tunnel, which looks a lot like the painting of the cave at the Albright-Knox.  I was impressed that he was comparing a work on video at one gallery to a painting at another gallery and making those visual connections.

I was impressed over and over again with their answers and with the recollection and connections they made from all of the learning that has taken place over the last few months.