Won't You Be My Neighbor?

This was a summer of change. I got back from a long trip and immediately found out my parents had sold their home of 30 years. I traveled down to Virginia to help them pack up, while meanwhile, I continued to search for a new apartment in New York. Long story short... I was not able to find one, after three months of searching, (literally) hundreds of e-mails, and phone calls and about a dozen in-person interviews. I managed to get a sublet for September, but at the end of the month, I was forced to make a tough decision - to resign from my job (it's harder to teach when you're homeless) and leave New York.

Happy Halloween!

This year, I've started creating and implementing six-week units that draw inspiration from the Common Core themes. Halloween falls right after the first unit, so some of my classes took the week off to work on special Halloween projects. In other classes, students managed to get in spooky themes even though their long-term assignments weren't Halloween-based! Here are a few of my favorites: 

Annabelle, Grade 4

Spider Webs

I promise, I will post artwork done by students in other classes than Kindergarten this year!  But I love these spiders that the K kids did with craypas this past week, and wanted to share a few of them with you.

For this lesson, key words were vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.  We also talked about straight and curved lines.  While they were drawing, students listened to a story about Anansi, a very tricky spider.

Mona Lisa Smiles

So, first the good news...  as of the second week of this month, I'm teaching art again, this time at two Catholic schools up in the Bronx.  This post features artwork by a few of the Kindergarteners at Saint Ann School; expect to see more in the near future!

While I'm waiting on supplies, I'm trying to do lessons that don't rely on lots of materials.  This is an idea I found on Pinterest, and is originally from Artrageous Afternoon. Side note - Pinterest is an amazing tool for gathering art lesson ideas.  Since it's visually-based, you can gather a bunch of project images in one place, and the how-to is usually just two clicks away.

Back to the lesson... first, I introduced the class to Mona Lisa, by showing them her picture in the book 'Cave Paintings to Picasso', by Henry Sayre.*  Several of the kids raised their hands when I asked if they'd seen her before.  A few of them told me they'd seen the picture in a book, or on tv.  Next I walked around with the book, and asked each student to think about how they thought Mona Lisa was feeling.  (Thinking without verbalizing is a skill some Kinders are still working on - several told me "happy" or "sad" right away.)  Then, I polled them by asking them to raise their hands if they thought she was feeling happy, sad, upset, excited, worried, etc.

I told the kids that even though Mona Lisa's portrait (a word we learned last week) is perhaps the most famous painting in the world, people don't always agree on how they think she's feeling.  I had everyone smile wide, and we compared that to Mona Lisa's tiny smile.  Then I showed the students the paper they'd be working on - regular printer paper with a small copy of the Mona Lisa in the center - and asked them the question the lesson was built around.  Where would you take the Mona Lisa to make her smile?

I loved the answers I got as I walked around and watched the students draw and color.

 The Ocean 

  

An Apartment

  

The City

  

  

The Zoo

  

A Mountain

  

The Park (or as one kid said, "Grass") 

  

  

The Supermarket

  

 "The Rainbow"

 

 "To give her a puppy." 

 

I didn't get an explanation for this one, but I was completely delighted to see it, and want to hang it on a wall.

 

Something I hadn't anticipated before I started walking around - combining Kinders and Mona Lisa?  Instant pop art!  I love how this project turned out, and I really admire this class for taking the time to fill their page with color, and being happy to do so. 

*I finally got around to getting my Brooklyn Public Library card, as I use books with the younger grades often.  They're great teaching tools, inspiration, and time-fillers if the kids finish early!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Here are two quick end of the year projects for Pre-K and Kindergarten students.

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Here are two final art projects with the kids. I really wanted to do something that involved both the individual and the entire class for the younger ones. So the pre-Ks did these flowers. First we each drew our own stems, grass, and... flower middles. Whatever they're called. Then the kids dipped their thumbs in paint, stamped a thumbprint petal, and passed their picture to their neighbor. It was a bit of a nightmare to get the passing and the stamping coordinating. I ended up doing "Simon Says" to get them to stamp and pass at the same time, and felt oddly like a coxswain on a rowing crew. But at the end, each kid had a cute picture that everyone helped make.

For the Kindergarteners, I decided to do something that wouldn't require much planning or preparation. First we read a story about a rainbow, and I told them we'd be making our own rainbow, but it would require teamwork. Each kid picked a piece of paper out of a jar; each piece of paper had a color written on it. The kids were given magazines with instructions to only cut out images in their color. Two of each color x three classes, and I had six of each of our color wheel colors. Then on Thursday, I put them up in the cafeteria.