Tic-Tac-Toe and painting like CRAZY

GOOD MORNING. #painting #sobright pic.twitter.com/OvexvFl1ZV
— Breanne Kanak (@MsBreKArt) November 29, 2013

If that doesn't describe what I've been up to... I don't know what does haha

Giving myself a break til Monday.. I think it's coming along! :)

I have been working ever-so-diligently on painting and lesson planning and lesson designs and presentations and EVERY LITTLE THING.. This break has been very productive. 

My Students with Special Needs course required that I develop a Tic-Tac-Toe lesson plan in my content area. IT WAS SO COOL. Choice can bring such a different dynamic to the classroom environment and communicates to students that they have control over their learning. This is my first Tic-Tac-Toe assignment, so be gentle.

This was a really fun project to put together for my art lessons. I had to think harder about what the students were actually creating and accomplishing by learning or doing each project. Looking at the board now that I have completed it I realized that almost every project has application as a main component. Art Education as a practice is based on application of both prior and new knowledge. Giving students the option to choose between different assignments puts the learning in their hands. They can take control of their learning processes and goals. I wanted to be sure each higher order thinking skill was addressed at least once. Synthesis, Knowledge/Comprehension, Evaluation and Analysis were not used as often as Application. By nature, art calls for creative thinking, making, doing, and knowledge. It is my responsibility as an art teacher to be prepared to provide different assignments than what is planned. I naturally think on my feet; so do students. Sometimes they just want to approach an assignment differently than what is planned. I will be utilizing this in my lesson planning in the future!

Ms. K

Snark the Tomato Dragon

Hey everyone!

My professor gave our class a little side project this semester. We had to create a stop motion animation video using an iPad. Totally new experience! I created a flip book of sorts to use in the film and I think it worked fairly well. I haven't made a flip book cartoon since.. at least middle school. Definitely something I would want to try with students :)

Enjoy my little journey into filmmaking with Snark the Dragon! He used to be a tomato before.. magic markers?

Snark just seemed like an appropriate name..

Ms. K

Day Three - Weekly News "published"!

I knew this day would come! The last day of teaching 5th grade :( I think today really brought everything together, though :)

Day 3. Students will continue to work on their illustrations, finishing on day 3. Students will display their headlines on a ‘calendar’ on the board, pinning their drawing underneath the corresponding day for their groups. Group discussion will follow.

When I got to the classroom the kids knew what to do! They got back into their day groups and the students who weren't finished had about 10 minutes to complete their drawings. I wanted to give the groups enough time to put their drawings on the "week". 

I think the kids were just wired today cause there were little arguments popping up everywhere. For example, I asked one student from each day group to raise their hand so I could count the groups. I made the mistake of calling those students "representatives" and then it became a competition! Little arguments started happening in groups, mostly because of some kids who were much more high-strung than their peers. Luckily there were some aides in the classroom to bring the students back to base level.. I didn't notice them until today, though. Their students, students with special needs, were behaving exceptionally well when I was in the room on Monday and Wednesday. I received lots of compliments :)

Students were much more territorial about DAYS, too! They all wanted to be Wednesday or Thursday.. I just didn't get it haha. I ended up assigning days because voting was too much for them to handle as groups and I wanted to move on. Sometimes you need to know when to put your foot down.. sometimes more than once!

Good teamwork with the kids switching out helpers!

Everyone had a chance to share their news story.  

I got SO MUCH FLACK for being a Blackhawks fan haha

Some students talked at length about their stories, others just read the headlines.

Students, teachers, and aides enjoyed this assignment!

Here's the whole gang! SO many 5th graders, guys.

All in all I believe this lesson was extremely effective and fun! I like playing on the humor of students because they always say ridiculous things. There was so much personality packed into the classroom and each student had a different story to share. I think this was a really good lesson to get students thinking about literal meaning, interpretation, and to get their imaginations going! The teachers were really impressed with the students' work. So much so that the classroom teacher is going to display the Weekly News in the hallway outside the door! The whole 5th grade is going to see what my little kiddies were working on all week. I'm so proud :)

And here's me with the crew! :) I got to stand with my star pupil,
Mr. Perspective master of the 5th grade class!

One lesson down.. one big one to go! I have to complete my final lesson for this semester. I want to create a 8-12 lesson based on one of the drawings I did in high school! I promise I will upload a picture.... as soon as I get it back from Illinois! The artists I am using as examples are Rob Gonsalves and Sandy Skoglund. I am pretty excited about it :) After that I have the teleconference lesson with Africa at a local high school.. I think if I get good marks on this new lesson I am writing, and feel confident about it, I will try and teach it to the students at the school next semester. 

Okay, I have spent too much time on here already! Back to the books. 

Ms. K

Day Two - Weekly News

Today was an interesting mix of productivity, creativity, and motivation. For me and for students!
I started my day with a painting critique, which went very well.

I'm smack in the middle with my snake on my shoulder. Good times.

The minute I walked into the 5th grade classroom the kids were all excited and taking out their papers from Monday. I didn't mean to be such a big distraction but they were more than ready to work!

Day 2. Discussion and viewing of Eric Wedum’s work (visual board, teacher sample). Explanation of project.

·      Students will begin to illustrate their headline story. The headline will be glued to the image in a visible place (top or bottom of page). Filling the page and creative interpretation are key!!

Some of the kids who were absent on Monday showed up today but luckily I had extra headlines and got them on track and working before they had a chance to be confused. I'm pretty proud of that 'back up plan'. The classroom teacher was impressed as well :). I'll have to remember that for the future.

I did a short introduction to Eric Wedum and his work to get the kids thinking about literal meaning and interpretation again. They really liked the examples I provided and kept coming up to check out the visual board I put together (picture in the works!). They got a chuckle out of his style and I think a lot of them were inspired by him.

The kids went back into their day groups and took out their colored pencils. They were orderly and (mostly) quiet. The classroom teacher did not have to do much of anything to keep them in line today, but she did mention "Ms. K has a lot more patience with you than I do!".  All in a day's work, right?

This is a big day; I figured out how to embed slideshows! I hope that it works across formats (Mobile, etc.). I took lots of pictures of student drawings. There are some great ones in here haha!


Most of the kids took the whole class time to finish their drawings but more than a few finished early. When asked what they should be doing I told them they could be my 'helpers'. Their task was to walk around the room and see if any of their classmates wanted or needed help with coloring or ideas. It worked out perfectly! Teamwork helped some of the less motivated kids talk about their ideas and students with Special Needs had helpers if they needed them. As I said before, the teacher pretty much took the day off haha

Okay.. I know that we as teachers are not supposed to pick favorites, but this guy was my shining star! He didn't like his old headline choice from Monday so he chose a new one "Can't Crunch the Pizza Data" and just ROCKED IT. I helped him a bit with learning about perspective because he wanted to "make the room look bigger and more REAL". He figured out the little pizza room on his own "I drew this line to look like the floor". He has an excellent understanding of space - he could teach some college kids a thing or two, I'll bet! I drew an example of a floor in perspective on the back of his paper and from there he was off. I was so proud, and so was he! :) He kept adding more things in the lab and details as he worked. We figured out that if we erased certain lines on the edges that that would create a wall and floor separate from each other. I can't wait to see the final product! Okay, I'll stop gushing now. I'm just really excited :)

CHECK OUT THAT PERSPECTIVE!

Unfortunately the class had to end. We cleaned up our work spaces and the kids were trading stories and headlines. Good thing I have that planned for our last day, Friday! KWLS will also be finished on Friday. I wonder what the kids will write about what they have learned?

The classroom teacher thanked me for being respectful and several times came up to me to cheer me on. She really liked the lesson idea and she was impressed by the imaginations of her students. That's what I like to hear! The students gave me a round of applause and then bolted to their lockers. It was an early release day after all!

I am pleased with the way this lesson is going, for sure. The pacing has been pretty much right on and the kids really like the idea. I think they also like sharing with their classmates, teachers, aides, and of course with Ms. K.
I never really saw myself as an Elementary Art teacher but this experience might change my mind... That's what it's all about, I think.

Time to get ready for work! And work and work and work... I'll post again on Friday with the final results of Weekly News :)

Ms. K

Day One of Weekly News lesson plan (5th Grade)

I have returned! 
I survived my 24th birthday (Seriously, survived. There were tornadoes involved) and spent some quality time with the family. It was a much needed break considering everything that is coming up in the next few weeks before classes end....

Today was my first day with the 5th graders and I introduced them to my Weekly News lesson plan. Excerpt from the lesson plan below, but I added some things to the lesson for today.
For instance, we mapped out a newspaper on the ELMO to help the kids learn about formatting and what kinds of messages newspapers create. They really know their stuff - headlines, text, titles, captions - I was impressed! :) And I liked having the ELMO as a visual aid for sure. 

We also did a KWL in each group. The kids were really excited about the KWL activity - lots of participation and feedback on that one. 

Day 1. Students will be divided into groups of five, made to resemble each day of the week (Mon-Fri). 
*-- I did not divide them up into day groups yet. There was SO MUCH going on - I will save that for Wednesday's meeting.

Students need to find 20 words or headlines and clip them from newspapers.
*-- I had the kids compete in their groups to see which group could get 20 words first - the winners got some cool toy dice. Competition was a big motivator for the kids!

Speaking of motivation: classroom management was KEY with this group. Their teacher uses a concierge bell to get their attention and get them on task. That worked.. mostly. The kids were really engaged in working together to find their words and headlines so they kind of lost track of volume. It was a delicate balance of attention and noise levels... duly noted for future classes!!

·      Students arranged words into new headlines and glued their headlines onto the top of their drawing paper. That was their end goal for the lesson today. Some of the results are below haha

"Are you just gonna draw a bunch of sweaty dudes?"
"yeah, probably"
hahah

Keeping it local!

BEES AND GHOSTS - COOL. TERRIFYING!

"I think I would have sore teeth"

Love it - this student actually did two!

Ohhh, the visuals are gonna be great haha

On their KWL sheets I had them record words they weren't sure of, questions they still had, or problems they needed to solve. I collected the sheets and they will be finished on Friday as part of 'critique' and discussion. The KWL sheets became a competition of sorts: "Let's see how many things we can come up with!". Timing that activity was a big help to keeping the kids on-task. Most of them worked at a similar pace and I walked around to make sure everyone's voice was being heard.

I think the best part about this lesson plan is the open-ended results. I love being able to motivate the kids with humor, imagination, and fun. They definitely were more engaged when they were laughing about each other's headlines and found words. Some students were not paying close attention so I needed to be aware of the ones that needed more help. The classroom teacher did help to direct students a little bit, but thankfully she mostly directed confused students to ask me the answers. I was definitely, mostly, in charge! As much as you can be with alien 5th graders.

The kids were really helpful with cleaning up and putting the room back in order. Lots of them wanted to start drawing today but if I have learned anything from working with K-5 kids, it's that pacing is EVERYTHING. Wednesday we are going to start drawing and the kids have a half-day so we can finish the drawings on Friday and do group critique. I hope the next few days go as well as today went! Wednesday we will be learning about Eric Wedum's work/blog and doing drawings. I have been bugging him on Twitter lol "I totally love this idea" blahblahblah. I think the kids will have pretty impressive work, judging by their headlines!

Time to head to work - I've been gone since Thursday. Back to reality, right?

Til Wednesday, 
Ms. K

Update and Lesson Idea!

This semester.. holy jeeze, man.
I am ready for the new year already! But so many things have happened in the past few months....We will focus on the good.

Last week I was able to schedule a meeting with a local high school and it sounds like I will be working with them to develop some art lessons and programs for students! The teachers I met with are looking for a complex and very involved program which could include interactive and Skype art classes, multiple media explorations, interdisciplinary and cross-curricular units, among other ideas. I AM SO EXCITED. I want to start today! Unfortunately I have to wait until next semester.. but that doesn't stop me from planning in advance ;)

In other news we will be teaching at a local middle school next week and I had to develop a lesson around an in-class activity my professor came up with. He had us putting together newspaper poetry wherein we were cutting out words from newspaper headlines and advertisements and rearranging them onto pieces of paper.... I saw it as more of a language arts lesson to be honest.

I found an artist online named Eric Wedum who had a blog for awhile that featured illustrated headlines http://f-ckyeahheadlines.com. I thought this would be a more art-centered way of having the kids work with newspaper cuttings. I have included the lesson, with teacher sample, below:

Weekly News

Rationale For Teaching: 
Newspapers are one of many ways we gain knowledge of events in the world. However, the headlines can sometimes be fairly vague and even confusing!

Spicy vegetables are so terrifying...

Enduring Understandings: 
Newspapers are a method of visual communication. 

·      Headlines in newspapers have a lot of information to cover in few words.

·      Interpreting headlines can lead to misunderstandings.

·      Font usage communicates which stories or words are more important than others.

·      We are in control of our understanding and knowledge of words.

Essential Questions:

·      What is interpretation?

·      What words can we gather and learn from headlines and advertisements in newspapers?

·      How do we interpret words into visual language?

·      What messages are found in the media?

National Standards:

·      ART.VA.II.5.4 Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

·      ART.VA.IV.5.3 Demonstrate how history, culture, and the visual arts interrelate in making and studying works of art.

·      ART.VA.V.5.1 Explain how visual arts have inherent relationships to everyday life.

Artists/Artworks (images for instruction): 

“Natural Deodorant Unable to Perform During High Pressure Situation”

“CDC: Beware the leafy greens, poultry and dairy”

“Heat Forces Chocolate Maker to Close”

Books and Links:

http://f-ckyeahheadlines.com

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/00-2/lp2174.shtml

Vocabulary:

Newspaper, headlines, stories, creative writing, interpretation

CREATIVE PROCESS:

Day 1. Students will be divided into groups of five, made to resemble each day of the week (Mon-Fri). Students need to find 20 words and clip them from newspaper headlines and advertisements.

·      Students arrange words into new headlines and glue their headlines onto one sheet of paper for the whole group.

Day 2. Discussion and viewing of Eric Wedum’s work (visual board, teacher sample). Explanation of project.

·      Students will begin to illustrate their headline story on a new sheet of paper. The headline will be glued to the image in a visible place (top or bottom of page).

Day 3. Students will continue to work on their illustrations, finishing on day 3. Students will display their headlines on a ‘calendar’ on the board, pinning their drawing underneath the corresponding day for their groups. Group discussion will follow.

Elements of Art: line, shape, form, color, texture, value, space  

Principles of Design: pattern, variety, proportion, emphasis

Assessment Strategies: 

·      Pre-assessment: (prior to creating or discussions):

o   KWL- What do you know about newspapers?

·      Formative Assessment:  (During creative process)

o   Draw

o   Peer critique

·      Summative Assessment:  (After creative process)

o   Group presentation

o   Group critique and conclude KWL

SO That's the gist of it... We will be teaching the 5th graders on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of next week. I have high hopes for the imaginations of the students :) Just in case there are any sick or absent students I also cut out some 'sample' headlines to work with and interesting or fun words.

I will post again after the practicum is over - until then.. time to sleep. And dream up wonderful lessons to teach to at-risk high school students.

Ms. K