Week 14 of Student Teaching: Bell Animals, Twinkling Lights, and Learning to Draw Stars

Wowowowow

Wow. Life has taken some interesting, exciting, and unexpected turns. All for the good, of course, but the turns sometimes get in the way of me getting things done.... and I feel bad about it but blogging will always be here. AND I have a lot to share and catch up on in that department so let's get to it!

Week 14 was marked by the happy return to school after a much needed and enjoyed break from school days. I am always thankful for Thanksgiving as it serves a worthy purpose of being a week-long vacation from thinking about school (ha!) and grading (HA ha!). I look forward to the days where I will be responsible for planning and teaching a full year from start to finish -then I am sure I will truly realize the worth of little vacations like these. I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving for the time with friends and family and the extra work time.. But again I digress.. Back to work!

Monday started off with students in ceramics - working on their various projects, ideas, and clay messes. Though truth be told I was probably the worst ceramics student in the classroom... embarrassing, really. But I tried to learn along with the students about construction techniques, clay handling and care (like not dropping or smashing things carelessly...or angrily), glaze combinations, and so on. I was happy to be learning under Mr. Keller's students and gathering their expert advice for making decisions about my own work.

In Drawing we were sending the kiddos into the hallway to work on their perspective drawings. The hard thing with this group was keeping them focused.. they love to talk and visit and gossip and get other students' attention.. the 'they' being a select few students, but still, a tricky bunch to keep on target. Mr. Keller and I were trading responsibilities and objectives with this lesson plan - helping students find the correct perspective lines and approaches to their drawings. I spent more time watching and listening to Mr. Keller as he walked students through his tried and true techniques for perspective drawing and tried to pull from my own experiences and knowledge. It's easy to say you know something; it's much harder to explain how and to teach it. Perspective is one of those somethings I need to work on more before I will be comfortable teaching it regularly.

7th Grade was cranking out stained glass windows of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And COLORS they had in abundance, wow. Mr. Keller and I both discussed maybe, for next time, teaching them more about arranging their colored tissue paper in more orderly ways - or having them do selective color. I think I mentioned in the previous post.. this lesson did not go as smoothly as planned- sometimes it's all about the information and examples you present with your lesson objectives.

rainbow art and sports inspirations

This one is still and will always be my favorite -
Thanksgiving and all the smells!

a vibrant and gestural campfire

The fourth of July fireworks and flag, complete with Mr. Keller hiding in the background

I snuck out to fill the display case with some student work -
LOOK AT THE PAINTINGS :D
So proud

Down at the elementary school I was in charge of the 'mixing colors of paint' lesson. Now.. these students have been taught how to handle paint, clean paint, set down blotters, clean brushes, step-by-step for years since kindergarten. Which is AWESOME. But you can never predict the behaviors of 5th graders. Luckily for me they were in a creative and also a LISTENING mood and we got a lot of really great colors made :) We focused on re-learning the color wheel, naming color groups and families, and then finally painting. I especially liked this student's solar system - she begged me to use black paint for the background but unfortunately we ran out of time... Next time, lady. I promise.

Just a cool thing I found to round out my day :)
I liked it and wanted to share it with you

Tuesday was exciting for many reasons! One of which was I got to deck out in my new Star Wars earrings from my wonderful friend Sarah. I was proudly displaying my support of the Rebels all day long at school and was pointed out by students to be the "cool nerdy teacher". Yeah, Thank you.

I had a break from teaching ceramics today as they were learning about glazing their paddle vases. The advanced students kept working away, though - really cool and fun ideas all over the room at this school :)

In Drawing we were once again in the hallways having the students measure and remeasure, sight-measure and then check with tools, and so on and so forth. Mr. Keller and I again traded posts making sure kids were staying on task and also sharing tips and tricks for mastering perspective drawing techniques.

this student was really struggling and Mr. Keller and I both worked with her a lot

One loooong hallway!

This one was going to have a river with tributaries flowing out of the doors. COOL!

working on capturing the visual tricks perspective plays on our brains..

a windy twisty hallway

stairs, man.. just.. so many stairs.

7th grade was working on stained glass windows and making a pretty good show of it! So many color combinations and experiments happening...

I almost forgot to mention! I was getting started on a new lesson today - ceramic bells :) I will post the lesson later but I was so excited to be facilitating a ceramics lesson! The goal was for students to choose an animal and render it in clay as a functional object - a bell. We listened to a recording of Japanese wind bells and meditated on the sounds they made, reflecting on the tranquility we felt, memories we had... it was all very Zen and calming and necessary to quiet them down because they are a bunch of 7th graders. The goal for students who finished their windows was to do sketches for bell ideas. I snapped a few pictures of some of them - I think they were excited to draw more than anything else :)

At the elementary school I was observing a 1st grade painting lesson - brush strokes! The main idea here was not to mix colors, as I quickly learned, but to apply different patterns and brush strokes to the paper to experiment with movement of the brush and proper use of the tools. Coooool lesson!  Kindergarteners were working on making hats! Just as fun as it sounds :) They had long banners of paper which they then applied coiled, step-folded, and decorated paper to with glue. After that they drew patterns and lines all over everything to decorate their hats. The last step was to bring them up to the front of the room where Mr. Keller stapled them together to fit on the little heads - no, he did not staple them TO the children. Jeeze, people!

they were too cute to not take a picture of, really.

This was one of the cutest things ever...
This little girl really really wanted to learn how to draw stars, so we drew together and practiced
She gave me this at the end of class. So proud :)

2nd Grade was working on mixing colors and they did an awesome job! We went over our color families and proper painting procedures without much issue :) The goal was to learn the secondary colors and then apply that knowledge into painting a rainbow with all the colors. So many colors - and no wrong way to do it!

had to throw a panorama in there :)

Wednesday started off with kiln Christmas - the advanced students made some seriously awesome glaze combinations on their ceramic pieces!

some more twisted vessels in the making..

Ceramics students had their block day today - Mr. Keller was introducing the slab vase for their new project. This was a cool-looking project. Students had to use a template to create the form of the vase - think of it like a paper model of the finished product as a blueprint. Lots of students were not ready for this project as they were finishing up others or devising ideas for the twisted vessel project. Pacing of projects is important for this group; so many different ability levels are presented and everyone needs something to work on at all times!

Block day meant we had our double time for 7th grade. Stained glass windows were being finished up, bells were being drawn up, ideas were being formed...we went over the proper handling of clay, distributed clay chunks, and started talking about techniques for forming the bells. We learned how to wedge clay - Ms. Kanak took full advantage of the double-long class meeting, for real. We worked at mastering the art of wedging and talked about WHY we wedge, WHEN we wedge.. all the good wedging knowledge. We also learned pinching techniques - re-learned, actually. One of many benefits of a k12 art education system - and started to form bell shapes with our clay.

Wabeno decorates their hallways for the holidays - so pretty!

At the elementary school I was working with one of the fourth grade class on their rainbow drawings. I think I have written about this class the most.. but really. They were my biggest challenge, behaviorally. I have notes written from this teaching day: "reinforce voice levels AT ALL TIMES", "expectations", "discourage splatter/messy painting." Some of the students in this group really REALLY wanted to finger paint and smear paint all over their papers... ugh. We had a couple of completely ruined papers from brownish blackish yellowish paint mixtures. I figured out which students needed to have their seats moved or at least needed an extra dose of reminders of expectations throughout the class period. On the other end of the spectrum there were some seriously talented painters in this group as well! I just wish that their behavior was in conjunction with their artistic skills..

Thursday was another block day - started with Drawing and we discussed ALL the things. Mr. Keller and I took another look at perspective drawing techniques. I presented an exercise to students about proportions and placement of objects/figures in a 3D space. I showed them an image of a room drawn using perspective. After discussing the importance of the directions of perspective lines, vanishing points, horizon, eye-level and all other things that are just such a handful and a half to teach I asked students to tell me where we would place figures in foreground, middle ground, and background positions. We then discussed why and even added in depth cues.. it was a lot to process, but from what I could see the students' drawings improved immensely as they started adding their fantasy elements into the compositions.

The rest of the day was one long prep period for me to get work and grading and planning and correspondence with family and teachers done. So needless to say I left school early and worked my little teacher bottom off all afternoon. I had to coordinate my graduation plans and finalize lesson plans and do my last surveys for student teaching.. it was all coming to a close... and reality was hitting pretty hard!

Friday was a diligent work day in all three high school classes. I did not get any pictures from the students cause I was busy walking around and co-teaching and observing and coaching and ahh! Everything. All the things. It was productive. We will say that.

At the elementary school I was set to teach the full afternoon - and teach I did!
The other half of the second graders were learning about mixing colors and painting rainbows. Some of them even got to paint extra pictures after their rainbows were all done and squared away! There were a couple of students in this group who were struggling with listening.. and voice level.. and following directions. It's amazing to me how early students show signs of defiance and a need to be right and in control - 2nd grade!? it's crazy. I reviewed proper use of paints and brushes to preserve supplies and teach correct use of materials... some of these students just really wanted to scrub their papers with their brushes. Oye.

6th Grade was working on finishing up their weavings today! I really think this lesson would have gone smoother if I had more time to spend with the whole grade on a more regular basis. Between in-class meetings and push-ins I did what I could to not hurry but motivate students to finish their weavings. Their results went all across the board - some students obviously took the time to listen and follow directions, while others rushed, and still less than a handful of others gave up on the project entirely. With more one-on-one time with students I think we could have done more with this concept and I know that the majority of students were pleased with their final weavings..

This last lesson of the week was one of my favorites of the whole semester: Drawing Animals with Invented Textures. Students were exploring the use of texture and pattern in their drawings to fill space and suggest animal textures (fur, hair, spikes, you name it!). It was a lesson out of the classroom textbook for their grade but we had a lot of fun drawing both real and imaginary animals on our papers. We used marker to draw the outline of our animal or creature and then filled in the body with textures that suggested what the animal felt like.

bigfoot with a fro

imaginary star creature

Some students really got into this assignment! They invented creatures and with those creatures came the textures, lines, patterns, and designs. We did some examples on the board of repeated lines to form patterns and looked at images of textures and patterns we saw in nature. This lesson was so fun! One of the main challenges the kids had was deciding which creature or animal they were going to draw for their project... that can be a major roadblock for students of all ages. "What do I draw, Ms. Kanak?" Whatever you want! I had to give some students ideas for animals but after they had a few most of them got right to work.

This one made me laugh...
a two headed dragon carrying off a balding man
What?!

Some students went the more methodical route and just filled the inside of the outlined animal with their patterns and textures.. but some of them incorporated lots of different colors and even words into their drawings! This one below was my favorite - look at the gestural lines and patterns and colors! I love it!

As I finish typing this post I can't help but feel proud. I went from being darn-near terrified of teaching littles to happily sitting down to create teacher samples and working very hard at classroom management for a more harmonious class hour with many grades. At the end of this week and after looking over all myself and my students had accomplished I had a big realization : I was ready. Not ready to be the best teacher ever, because that takes time and confidence I am still working to build, but ready to take on the challenge of maybe, just maybe, learning how to become a better teacher, classroom manager, planner, and learner. It's an extremely humbling experience; being in the presence of such raw creativity that children possess and having to be constantly ready to foster that and motivate them to Want to share it with others.. or even to share it at all. 

I am reminded of when Payton, that little tiny little kindergartener she is, came up to me and asked to learn how to draw stars. She had seen them everywhere, so many times before, but she just wasn't sure how. I took the time to show her, step by step, line by line, the slow process of drawing that seemingly simple symbol I had learned so long ago. We practiced and got turned around a couple of times, but eventually Payton was happily drawing stars all over her little construction paper hat and eventually on a manila sheet of paper with her name scrawled across it - a sheet of paper I proudly display in my teaching "relic" binder to remind myself of the journey we took together to make stars appear. 

My main goal for teaching littles, apart from learning some expert ways to rein them in for directions and attention, is to set objectives that are realistic. One thing at a time, Ms. Kanak - Rome was not built in a day, nor are children taught how to mix colors, create patterns, do color washes, and resist techniques in one day's time... I will strive to make the time to reach those students who aren't so sure of themselves in other areas or medias or subjects. I tend to get ahead of myself and sometimes ahead of my students in terms of their abilities - sometimes it needs to be one step at a time to build up the confidence to move forward. They need that extra reassurance and time and a reminder that stars can be made in one day.

The next post will be my long-postponed final post from my semester of student teaching. It's sad to think that it's over.. but it's exciting to look forward to what happens next.

Until then, 

Ms. Kanak - signing off.