Oops!

Oops! So- i totally forgot to say....

I went to meet my new cooperating teacher yesterday. I will be in a rural school, in a middle and high school art room. I observed three class yesterday and man was it different.

I am really not sure how she teaches because the students were working on several projects at once! Some were starting, some were ending, and some where doing nothing!

i asked if they have to teach art history and she said no, which i was surprised about. Then she said she actually had an art textbook! i was shocked! but she then said she doesnt use it. She said the principal is really into curriculum mapping, and that she has not yet been put into the schedule! So she doesnt have a curriculum, and I was very shocked and almost disappointed in this!

Well, hopefully when i am there for a while, i will see things different than i do now, cause im a little on the nervous side!!!!

Best Day Ever!

Hello All!

Can I just tell you that Wednesday of this week was the best day ever! I was observed for the second time in my placement, and I recieved a perfect 5! Yea for me!

The lesson i was teaching was a fourth grade lesson, on pop art. The students are asked to draw themselves from a mirror making a silly face, and then tracing over it with marker. Then, just like pop art, they are to make copies of them by tracing it! So they will have four good tracings. After the repitition part is over we will discuss complimentary colors and how they pop! And they will color their faces in compliments and mount the four images together.

Then-- if my perfect 5 wasnt enough, i was teaching my kindergarteners how to make an acordian fold book. we were working on the harold and the purple crayon lesson and this was the third time teaching it ( i have 4 kindergartens) and this group was able to accordian fold! it was great!!!!

thats all for today!

It's been a while!

Hey there!

It has been a while-- But I am still alive, barely, but still alive. Things have been busier and busier!

I am working on a bunch of different things right now, my CWS for Sage, my lessons for right now, my lessons (thinking ahead) for solo week, my kids are having an art show at the holiday concert and i am in charge of 2 grades projects, plus a display for a different grade!!

So, my thanksgiving break, was not a break at all- I even threw my back out. Yes... I got injured cleaning! yuck!

Anyways back to my projects. I am still teaching my CWS to the kindergarteners, but I am now also working with 4th grade, i have now taught 2 out of the three classes, I am tetaching my third and final pop art lesson on wednesday and being observed, ( wish me luck!)

When i am solo teaching, i will be working with K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.. I think, oh yea and the two special ed classrooms!! So i have been thinking of some ideas on what to do, but not sure what to do for all of them. I am thinking about doing marionette puppets with grade 6, so i will be making one to see if they are a.) interested and b.) can do it..

So thats all for now..

i will work on pics for the pop art faces, they are looking pretty good so far....

_____ and the ______ Crayon

Introducing literature and math in art, i used harold and the purple crayon, and then we made accordian books.

I read....





And this is how mine came out... I think it could be published globally!!!!!

yea I Did it!!!!

Wow- that only took me like three times, thanks Safari for unexpectedly quitting!

After the preassement, we did a larger version where the students were asked to create all the lines after matching their card with mine. ( i made a set of flash cards for each of the student tables, plus one for me to match theirs too) Then we worked on coloring in the lines, but instead we looked for shapes and spaces that we created from the lines.

As usual with kindergarten, some struggled and some got it. Some rushed, some were patient. I feel that with this lesson, watercolor would be better than crayon on crayon. hey - You live, you learn..And i lived through this lesson, and learned from it!


here are some photos, an overall and a detail, of a great example.....



Detail:

Assessments!

Hey There! Just thought you would like to see an assessment I have done for my kindergarten class about lines!

Instead of telling them i was testing them , i decided to play a game! what kindergartener doesnt like games?!?!

i only got one with all the right answers!!! which surprised me in a weird way! But here it is!





Then! There were these two... They didn't do so well, but at least they attempted something....

"My School!"

Hey there!

Ugh! I have finally found am minute to sit down and figure out how to post some images! so.. like i have been saying, i am currently interning at one of the 12 elementary schools in Schentady.....

http://www.schenectady.k12.ny.us/Elmer_Avenue_School/index.htm


Check out the site! Some of" my kids" art is on the site! Under the Fine Arts Section!!!

Prepping for CWS

I am still working on my Candidate Work Sample (CWS) and gathering all of my supplies and materials, and examples. Today I worked on my Crazy Line Art Example, and mimicked a piece by Wassily Kandinsky he made many under various versions of "Compositions".

I am posting from a different computer, or else I would be posting my images. I took some photos of my examples, a book I recently used ( Harold and the Purple Crayon) and some of the kids' work.

Its very interesting that I am currently working with 3 regular education classrooms, and a special education class. What is the most interesting is that the special education group has done really well with my lessons, and some of the regular education students are struggling! Maybe that means the special education group is a more a visual and hands on group! But- either way the groups and individuals are really starting to look at me as a teacher, and not just another person in the room! I am actually having to bribe the students to let me take their work to photograph it!!

More later, with images! I promise!

Teaching All About Lines!

Hello!

I am working on a five week unit with the Kindergarteners at my elementary school placement. The first thing I did in this unit was a preassment. So that the kindergarteners did not get nervous or freak out I turned it into a game they know well-Simon Says. But we called it Miss M says and they did pretty well following all the directions. I color coded which lines should have been which, and we are working on straight, curvy, zigzag, diagonal, vertical, and horizontal.

The lesson that I have completed so far is the lines and shapes lesson, very introductory. I made index cards with the words and examples of each line, and we did matching. I would show a card and they would look at their set and match them up. Then we worked on individual pieces, working very "abstractly." We did just 6 lines on the sheet, one of each. After going through each of the lines we looked for shapes and spaces made by the different lines and colored them in.

This lesson was very introductory and the next lessons included in the unit are more advanced.


I am still waiting to load some images. I will load the preassement from my only student getting one right, and then I will also include one of the "finished" pieces.

It's been a while!

As I said before, Graduate School and Interning have been keeping me busy and goinng insane! So.. Let me get you all up to date!

For the past two months I have been interning at an Elementary school in Schenectady. The first four weeks or so, I was observing and helping out here and there passing out papers, helping students during working time and helping keep the peace. The art room can be a crazy place, between cleanup and excitement of the projects.

Then the past couple weeks I have been mirroring my cooperating teacher ( who I LOVE! she has great projects!). She would teach one class and I would teach the next. It has been going pretty well, I am working on the things we have discussed for me to improve.

Some of the great projects we have done have been Blotter Bugs ( making secondary colors from primary colors) Torn Landscapes ( tearing paper to create mountains, trees, and leaves.) Shape Creatures ( using shape tracers to create "robot"like creatures) 6th grade Self Portraits ( students are using photos of themselves (we took them in class) and enlarging portraits) and then the basics contour line drawing, creating 3d froms, and value.

This coming week i will have a lot to write about, as I will be begining my 5 week Kindergarten unit. The unit is about the art element, Line. I will be pre and post testing the students, and doing 5 projects in between. I am incorporating Math and English ( literature) into my unit. I will be reading "Harold and The Purple Crayon" for one lesson, we will be discussing folding of paper and creating halves and quarter sections on a sheet of paper. We will be making a sculpture out of lines and we will be making a piece mimicing some of Wassily Kandinsky's "Compositions" pieces.

Again, I hope to load some pictures soon, As we start creating some art I will start taking some images.

Take Two!

Hello Out there...

Graduate School is busy, Student Interning is crazy.... That is my life at the moement.

Graduate School keeps me busy, morning, noon and night... If I am not doing schools work, I am doing school work...

My internship is in an Elementary school in Schenectady, and I do not remember school being that exciting.... Everyday is an adventure there. Whether it being a temper tantrum, or a kid saying the darndest thing....

Thats all for now, Sorry so short. Maybe next time I will have some pictures!

Night One!

Hello Out there in CyberSpace....

This is my first blog, and I haven't decided how I feel about this!?!

So for now I don't have too much to say, but give me a couple days into my Internship for the MAT program and I may have a lot to say.....

-Me