Week # 4: Adventure Continued

Monday
Today went wooosh and I can't believe I've been there for 3 weeks already (although because of "spring break" - I use that term loosely - this placement is actually 9 weeks). It is an even week, meaning that we have 3 planning periods this week, which couldn't have come at a better time as I start preparing my lesson for the 3-D class and make revisions to the 7th grade lesson as I teach it this week. I helped out during our first block class this morning (8th grade) as well as doing final checks and preparations for the 7th graders. The 8th graders are now working on their tessarae mosaics, creating several design sketches, chosing a final (they are to use line and pattern and french curves, etc.) design and transferring it to the boards they sanded and gesso-ed last week. They also got a demo today from my teacher on how to properly cut glass with tile nippers ( wearing very stylish safety glass - woo) and then got to start seeking out their colors. I am doing this project with them and assisting the classes as needed - I still need to choose my own design though, haha. The situation with the one girl that is kind of the trouble child of that class is starting to subside, she sees me more as the ally now rather than the enemy - in fact she came to talk with me & my teacher today during our planning period about some troubles she was having (guess she knows a good resource when she sees one - my teacher is amazing, patient and very understanding). The rest of that class has also accepted me as a classroom fixture and even come in early to help out preparing the classroom or to talk - its really cute.
The 7th grade class went really well today with the intro to non-objective art and the 2nd set of sketches to music; unfortunately though I got to deal with the joys of a school under construction and how it can disturb learning. I was leading a discussion with the class and giving them information about abstract art and Wassily Kandinsky when they started drilling or jackhammering a neighboring wall - totally drowning out even the thoughts in our heads! After a couple e-mails and a trip down to the office, my teacher got them to stop drilling for the remainder of class - phew! I tried not to get frustrated and laugh it off with the students - it was definitely a bonding experience! The drawings today with the music were much more abstract - they were really getting it, and I think the final compositions they create (after looking at all their preliminary drawings) will be awesome! On Weds. they will get a color wheel lesson on color mixing and a demo on how to use water colors since they have not painted before - the color wheel lesson will be super fun because we're doing edible color wheels (iced nilla wafers - yum!). My teacher and I decided during our discussion of my lesson today (she was all praise) that doing a color mixing activity would be a good - educational - breather before starting into their final piece, plus it would be a fun way to learn how to mix both types of paint they will be using in their final.
I haven't started teaching this lesson to my other 7th grade class yet - they will get started tomorrow with the drawing exercise and then the intro/discussion, as they are a little behind b/c of assemblies - plus they work a little slower. I think I will make some changes with this class, asking them to start with lines only on their first drawings - using pencil, then colored pencil, then finally a mix of the other two and chalk pastels. Then we'll move onto shapes and more abstract things - I think starting with line will be a simpler and less overwhelming transition from realistic to abstract art. i also want to make it more of a discussion tomorrow with them about the ideas of abstract art - I love this lesson!
The last class of the day was 8th graders again - the ones that had major attitude problems with me last week when I was with the substitute. My teacher gave them a talking to about attitude and the way they go to and from lunch - I think it really made a difference and I think they are starting to get that they can't mess around with me. Althought there is still one guy that constantly mouths off - my teacher and I both heard him today saying f-this and f-that and he will have silent lunch tomorrow because of it. Also during this block, if it wasn't crazy enough getting divided by lunch, there was an unplanned fire drill today which meant class time got eaten up with the processional outside then in. I was informed during the fire drill, when I was trying to keep the students in line and such that "teachers were whack" - I responded to them by saying yeah, that's a feeling that all students have - in some way or another - but if we were whack, what were they? haha - oh this age group is such a joy.
During planning today my teacher and I got organized planning/prepping for the week and the next couple weeks - which will be split up by spring break - two days of school next week and a monday off the week after that we have monday off (all for "spring break"). I'll have to use that time wisely to prep my teaching portfolio (and my graphic design portfolio) and make sure I'm ready for the end of all this which is suddenly coming quickly!

Tuesday
Oh odd days are so special (and long). Today we had 3-D, 7th grade and then two 8th grade classes - which definitely kept us on our toes. Having two teachers in an art classroom makes things a lot easier because while one wraps up one lesson the other, prepares materials for the enxt class - at least that's how it goes with my teacher. The 3-D kids were working on their reposse illuminated letters again and got a demo on how to reposse - which is actually a new technique for me as well. Being in an art classroom has definitely been a learning experience for me in that I have had to learn several new techniques and then turn around and teach them to the students that same class period. It tests my ability to think on my feet and learn quickly for sure! So I learned how to do reposse and then got to help the students while they worked on their designs and then transferred them to the copper sheets using etching/reposse.
I taught the 7th grade class today - this is the one that hadn't started my lesson yet. I started them off with a little discussion about switching gears from realistic to abstract art, trying to find out what they already knew about abstract art and what their thoughts on it were ... that's one thing I really like about this age group is that you can take what they already know and run with it, finding things out through questioning and discussion. Then I got them started with the warm-up exercise (listening to one song, then drawing to two) - although I did things a bit differently than I had with the first class. This time I asked the students to start by simply drawing lines that represented the sounds they heard, using pencil or colored pencil (so they could warm up to the looser style) then they were allowed on the second song to start exploring more shape and color, with their lines. After this, I talked to them about it - discussing their reactions to the music and the color and lines they used. Then they watched the video and went through the power point - I took my supervisor's advice and incorporated more historical references, really trying to drive home the point of non-objective art and the novelty of it when Kandinsky first started creating. After that came another round of drawings listening to music and the change in approach and level of development was awesome! I think doing the before and after approach shows the students that they are learning, sweet!

Wednesday
Another even day - phew. I got to work with the two 8th grade classes we had today and help teach mosaics (glass cutting, design transfer and glass gluing); since I am working on one too right now, I have started sitting with a different table each class so I can develop better relations with some of the students (mainly the ones that are giving me problems). Safety is a major problem with the glass cutting, we've already had a couple pricked or cut fingers (we have a large supply of bandagdes on hand) and all the students are required to wear safety glasses while cutting the scrap glass with tile nippers, even still we had a girl get some glass in her eye today (the nurse got it out, she was ok, and promised to wear her glasses the whole time next class and be more careful). It becomes quite the racket in there with all the glass shifting and such, but once the students start in on the gluing they all become so quiet and focused - its awesome! They kept begging to work just 5 more minutes and not clean up "just yet." The mosaic project is apparently the "holy grail" project at our school - the kids get so excited and beg to do it.
The 7th grade class - the all girl one - started the next phase of their Kandinsky lesson today - delving into color and painting. My teacher and I team taught a color wheel lesson, first asking the students to fill out a color wheel on paper (primary, secondary & tertiary), then reviewing color mixing with them - using the sheet. After that we created edible color wheels, using nilla wafers and primary colored icing - the girls loved it and we are now their favorite teachers haha. It was kind of messy, but it was a fun way to drive home the idea of how to make colors and everybody got to eat 3 cookies and finish off the icing. I'll be teaching this lesson solo tomorrow with the other 7th grade class. Then after our lesson/snack, I did a water color demo - showing them the different ways water color can be used and how to use water color pencils. Originally I was going to have them use water color and acrylic on thier final, now I think we'll just do water color maybe? Lessons are definitely a learning process the first time you teach them! After the demo, they had the rest of class to experiment with the different ways of using the watercolors, which they enjoyed. On Friday that class will start their final compositions, looking at all the drawings they have done to music previously and creating one final work.
During planning today, my teacher and I finally got to test out the 3D lesson I want to teach after they finish their reposse. It will be creating cups and saucers out of plaster gauze (using styrofoam bowls and plates as molds), gessoing them, and then painting them to show a part to whole relationship. We tried doing the plaster gauze on the plate and bowl and it definitely worked - I super excited to start writing up this lesson and then actually teaching it. Time to go get to it!

Thursday
coming soon... along with Friday.