School 33 Reggio Emilia Atelierista Blog

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

First Grade- I brought in a new group today. We'll call them group two. They were enthusiastic about starting the portrait lesson.

Second Grade- I brought in Group One to finish their portraits. They finished early in the period and then I gave them time to work at the easels with markers. Working at the easels is really exciting- they get to work on huge paper and create artwork of their choice. Every single student made a second portrait. Every single second portrait was created using colors that are not realistic. I thought this was an interesting observation. In my lesson plan, I was going to have them compare and contrast their work with a partner's work, but when opportunity strikes, we take it. I had them look at their imaginative portraits and compare those with their observational portraits.

This was really excited for two students in particular. They created portraits of vampires as their free time drawing. As they worked comparing and contrasting the two drawings, they had this dialogue.

<Talking quietly to each other.>
E- Miss, we think this would be a good display on the wall.
K- You could hang our portraits and this paper and the vampire paper together.
E sets it up.- Like this.

The comparison was:

vampire vs. not a vampire
wings vs. no wings
not happy vs. happy
both are portraits

That's as far as we got today because the students had to get back to class, but I'd like to pull them aside for another conversation about this piece. Perhaps they could redo their identity panel portraits so we could hang this as a display in the room or in the hallway. I want to honor their vision, since it was pretty great that they thought of turning it into a panel.

Kindergarten- I took some kindergarteners from 104 to work on their portraits again (and some for the first time.) I found a great app that will help me when pulling students from different rooms at the same time- teacherkit. It works right on the iPad, so I'm able to create class lists for groups of students of my choosing, track their attendance, track their behavior and even track their progress. I tested the app out on this group and it was really helpful. Now I have a much easier way to keep track of which students have been to the studio and who needs more time with me.

Pre-K 103- I had the whole group in the studio, divided into two groups. The students who finished their portraits worked on color mixing with fingerpaint at the easel. The other students continued on their portraits.

One go-getter completed a painting and then had time to create with markers at the easel. I thought the composition was pretty interesting. She titled it Halloween 2. Her painting was Halloween, so this is a companion piece.

101- I brought a small group in to focus on their portraits. A few students finished early and when given paper, they produced more portraits. This one is of me. I think it's a striking resemblance. :)

I love the period I have at the end of the day every other day- it's an hour block with 118. An hour gives us so much time to work and create and reflect! I brought the same group in to complete their portraits and everyone finished. When the students were finished, I had them work at the easels with markers to reflect on the provocation question, "Why do we make portraits?" They thought of things along the lines of creation for identification, but I hope to rework the question as we go to have them reflect upon why people take photographs, selfies, and create art that shows people. I want them to go deeper, thinking about the human need to record our images in art.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

First grade- The group I've been working with has been a mixed group from both first grade classes. Today, all but one of these students finished their self-portraits. The one who didn't finish is really taking her time and putting in a lot of effort, so we'll have to give her some opportunities to finish as the project progresses.

After yesterday's class, when a concerned student brought up the subject of war and terrorism, the teachers and I decided to address the issue with a provocation, How do we stay safe? I wrote that question on a large sheet of paper and the students talked with each other about it. The focus of the first draft kept going back to weapons that can hurt us. After some redirection, the boys drew images of running away from trouble, as well as images of police and firefighters. Yay! We're heading in a helpful, positive direction now. Their group has finished, so I will revisit with them in a week or so to see if they've thought of more ways we can stay safe.

This is the only student who hasn't finished, but it's because she's
layering color over color to try to accurately portray her skin tone.
I think she's taking inspiration from the cover of the pencil box!

Some sample portraits. Some students wanted to do a second draft and I'm so glad that drafts are such a productive tool for them.

"It's raining in the first one and snowing in the second one."

She decide the first portrait wasn't accurate in color or line.

This student created a better proportioned second drawing, but we
had to discuss care for our paper- she was carrying it around and it became
crumbled.

How do we stay safe? provocation.

A student working on the poster.

Monday, September 8, 2014

We are still working hard on our identity portraits, while also comparing and contrasting portraits by famous artists.

First grade- I brought the same group down that I had on Friday and they progressed with their work. I have a few students who want to add fun colors instead of realistic colors, so tomorrow I plan to start the time with a discussion on why we use real colors and when it's fun to use other colors.

While they worked, one student brought up the topic of terrorism and war. He saw something on the news and he was very upset about it. I assume he's talking about the ISIS terrorist group. Knowing that we will be covering the topic of community helpers, I ask him a few questions. (Note- this is edited because the conversation went in circles and off-topic for a bit.)

W- They are going to kill persons and throw bombs. They put something in the hole and they put fire in the thing and they go like that <pretends to throw it> and it goes there and explodes...

Teacher- Why do they want to do that?

W- Everybody being bad. If somebody be bad and everything, they going to kill everybody. If one person is bad, they will kill everyone.

Teacher- Who will protect us?

W- The United States. <A little later> The police.

J- My dad, because he's real strong.

W- All of them can help us <the police and the dad, I assume.> They are going to get a plane and drive it to everywhere. You know the plane of the police? They will get that and drive it everywhere.

I- Then the police will change to an army suit and join the army and shoot them.

W- The army gonna help us.

I- The good army.

W- They our army.

Though this is a dark subject, the student clearly had a need to get it off his chest. The other students helped him solve a problem- who would save us? Now I have to show this dialogue to my colleagues and discuss how we can use the information we've received from the students.

Edited to add: I met with Mrs. Wagner, Ms. Boyd and Ms. Donner yesterday and read the dialogue to them. We decided that I would set up a provocation called, "How do we stay safe?" to encourage talk of community helpers and safety in our community.

Second grade- I began with a new group today. It was interesting to hear my students from last year explaining tips they'd learned the year before.

L- No, the eyes are here. In the middle.

Most of the students who were here quickly drew their portraits with pretty good results. The students who are new to our building were more reserved and took their time observing the other kids before plunging in. I think it's a good observation to note that our students who were here are pretty comfortable with the supplies and provocations. They didn't regress at all over the summer.

K- I brought kindergarten in for the first time. They had an interesting class because when we began to work, one student, S, decided he had a problem. He wanted the mirror to stand up on its own so he could look into it without holding it. I let him go to the wood shelf and see if any of the objects over there would work to prop up his mirror. This led to most of the class going to the shelf and experimenting with different objects. They excitedly shared their observations and were quick to switch objects to one that worked for someone else. It seems like letting them get off task, if one weren't used to this approach, but this was a great opportunity for them to try to understand physics and leverage. Once the problem was solved, they were able to concentrate on their drawings.

"She got it to work! Look at hers!"

A simple solution to a problem.

103- The pre-k students from this class came in for the first time today. We started drawing portraits. The results were all over the place. The students who were successful at creating a portrait will have the chance to work freely on the easels next class, while I work more closely with the students who struggled.

Second grade 118-

My students from 118 began their portraits today. They helped me create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting two self-portraits by famous artists and created their own portraits.

Friday, September 5, 2014

This was the first "real" day of teaching, since yesterday was more about getting the students acclimated to their classrooms and the school environment. My students from the previous year came into the studio and hit the ground running.

Our first provocation of the year is "Why do we make portraits?"

We compared and contrasted two portraits by famous painters.

The students then worked on drawing self-portraits.

I was really pleased with the results of their first turn in the studio.

I repeated this lesson with my second graders. I want to use these portraits as a baseline so the students and I can see how much progress they make this year. In June, we'll repeat the provocation and see if their answers change and see how their skills progress.

I also had the new pre-k students come in and work on portraits, which gave me an idea of where their abilities are as we start out on this journey together.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

We're BACK!!!

What a great summer! Once you start teaching in the Reggio Approach, even your summers off become filled with inspiration and ideas! A group of teachers traveled back to Becker Farms, where the first graders went on a field trip in June, bringing our own children and picking berries with them. I explored the Charles Burchfield Nature Center with my daughters, which is a place where we saw Burchfield's work on placards and skipped stones in a very shallow creek. I hope to bring the students there someday!

Even a trip to IKEA on my family vacation turned into Reggio inspiration.

Ikea published stories from schools in Reggio Emilia

We had quite a few sessions of professional development over the summer, as well. There was time for reflection and time for planning. We met with our Reggio consultants, the Cadwells, for four of these professional development days and created a theme to base our year upon.

What is Nature?

This is our big theme and we will tie our projects and lessons back to this theme as we move through the year. Nature is such a big, broad term. We can reflect upon human nature, the nature of learning, the nature of animals, and nature as in the Great Outdoors. We look forward to this year.

Today was our first day with students. It was a busy day filled with reunions and introductions. We were very excited to hear the reactions of the students to our rooms. The atelier has changed locations. I felt like it was an opportunity for me to design a Reggio-inspired room, on my own, based on all of the experiences I had last year. I want to share images from the atelier and from the rooms of Mrs. Holden and Ms. Boyd. The visit we made to the Opal School in Portland gave us a better understanding of what a beautiful Reggio-inspired environment should look and feel like, and we used that invaluable experience in designing our rooms for this year.

The Atelier Before the Move: