The New Plan

I have decided that full TAB is not my style. Although I have loved the deeper conversations the kids are having about their artistic decisions, the messy classroom and disrespectful behavior I was constantly battling has to go. So I have begun a project based class again, but with the intent to keep each project very open to allow for choice within the confines of the project. For example, second grade is making landscapes using warm and/or cool colors. I showed them an example using collage, drawing, and painting and they are required to show foreground, middle ground, and background.

For the third through fifth grade students, I have the luxury of being able to ask them to bring their Chromebooks and can use Google Classroom to push out content. Fifth grade's focus is contrast, emphasis, and value right now, so I created two different project options and pushed out a Google Slides presentation with step by step photos and a video for how to make each of the projects. Students are independently using the materials to teach themselves how to create one of the projects with me there to clear up any confusion or help when needed.  All four of my fifth grades have used this and although the first class had some technical difficulties, I can confidently say it worked better for all four than full DBAE or full TAB. I remembered to ask two of the classes to show me fist to five (fist being "I hated it" and five being "loved it, let's do it every time!") how they felt about being self guided and saw mostly fives, with a few fours thrown it. I am currently working on materials for three different fourth grade projects using value and mixing tints, tones, and shades as the main concepts.

Here are the projects and resources for the fifth grade projects. We looked at Op Art, and I gave this full class presentation about the movement. At the end of the presentation, I talk about the new structure of the class and how they will access the presentations and videos through their Google Classroom link. If the teacher uploads the resources as "materials" they will be listed under "classwork" and you can create a unit title and even decide what order they are listed in under the title. This worked very well. I gave the two projects a title too and made sure the students knew which project matched each title. Here are the projects fifth grade had to choose from:

LINE DESIGN:
I got this lesson from Art with Mr. E, and he created a great step by step, which is where I got the photos from for the presentation.

Here is the presentation for this project, and here is the video I created for this project. 

CONES & SPHERES: 

I don't know where I originally got this lesson, as it's one I have done off and on for over ten years. It's a classic, but the kids love it. 

Here is the presentation for this project, and here is the video I created for this project. 

Five Months of TAB

  Here we are, with five months of TAB under my belt. There are things that are going very well, some things that need to be tweaked, and some things that are a bit disastrous. As expected with a completely new teaching philosophy. Where to start; the good, the bad, or the ugly?

How about the good. My students are DEEP. Some of the things they write for their artist statements blow me away.  Take these examples:

Here is a splatter painting by a fourth grader.

I think that all people on earth of all different shapes, sizes and colors should come together in peace. Like how the dots of all different shapes, sizes and colors come together as one art peace.

Or this self portrait, also by a fourth grader.

This picture Is my wow work,self portrait,and foreground middle ground and Background I made this drawing because I love Christmas and winter.

Or this collaborative project by two fourth graders (my fourth graders are pretty awesome this year).

My friend Maeve and I wanted to do something for Halloween, but it ended up being almost thanksgiving! We added lots more ideas as we worked such as, the background foreground and middle ground, and the hills and halo for the Angel, the moon, graveyard, pitchfork, and the wolf. It's also about two people who have different life styles but still are friends.

How about one from a fifth grader.

My wow work is definitely considered a wow work because I didn't copy anything;sure I looked at a picture but that was to get an idea. I didn't use the picture to draw it. My work has texture in the main,and was left uncolored because I didn't want to ruin my lion.

Now, I'll admit these are some of the best artist statements. We are working in deepening these statements in the coming months. 

We are tweaking clean up. There are way too many students who seem to think it's okay to ignore me when I tell them it is clean up time. The younger the students, the worse this problem is. I am hoping to come up with a solid plan of action for this soon. Actually, this might belong in the things that are not going well part of this reflection. . . 

I think the biggest challenge for some of my students is coming up with their own ideas. A few weeks ago we discussed starting a creative "bank account" of ideas and students in second through fifth grades opened their own creative bank account and put in as many inspirational things as they could in their class time. 

Clay Shelves and Stools

They're here! I am so glad that I purchased these racks for clay! They are very versatile and are working really well for all things sculpture. I hot glued magnets to the right side, every other shelf and made laminated arrows with magnets on the back (the rack isn't magnetic-who knew?!). I use a Vis-a-Vis marker to write the class code that is on the shelf to keep track of where projects are. 

The stools are working well so far too. A few kids are choosing to stand while working and the room feels significantly larger without the bulky chairs. I am concerned with how long they will last, but at $42 for a set of five I'm happy with them for now. I have already had to bend two legs back into place due to students leaning on one or two legs. 

A Victory

I posted about my first snag a few weeks ago, but this week I had my first big victory. At my primary school I want to have five permanent stations; drawing, painting, collage, fibers, and art preparation. I don't have enough shelving to create these stations, though so I went into planning mode. I am very fortunate that our district employs an extremely talented carpenter, who builds things for us at just the cost of supplies. I also have a healthy Artsonia  program and have been saving for over a year for something big. I sent the plans for the shelves I designed to the carpenter and he said with principal approval he can build them for about $300. I have plenty of money in my Artsonia account, so my principal approved it within minutes of my emailed request. I'm super excited about this! In addition to the custom shelves, I also managed to order two commercial racks and sheet pans for drying clay and replaced all my old, breaking chairs with stools so the kids have more flexibility with sitting or standing while working. Below are photos of the racks I'm talking about and the stools. I am a little concerned about the stools' durability but at $42 for five I can afford to replace a few here and there when they break and I have 30 right now but my biggest classes are 25 kids.

Monet's Garden

I simply love this project. These examples are first grade. We watched a video of Linnea in Monet's Garden on YouTube and then looked at photographs of Monet's house and paintings. Next, they followed the steps found on Mrs. Picasso's Art Room. They are all so unique and beautiful!

My First Snag

Here I am, all set and determined to transition to TAB next year and I found out one of my schools is changing again. While this is totally fine with me, and was expected with our elementary boundaries changing, the school I am moving to the art room is shared with music, orchestra, and Chinese. I am still planning on implementing TAB, but now I need to figure out how to make my stations easy to set up and store each art day. Stay tuned, I am determined!

Fun Idea

At the beginning of the school year I saw a post on Facebook about a boy whose mom wrote affirmations on each of his pencils. I thought it was a brilliant idea to help promote positive self esteem, so I wrote on all of my pencils in the art room. I wasn't sure if the kids would even notice, but they had joyful looks on their faces and they read their own pencil and then asked the kids near them what their pencils said. It was very fun to watch. 

I use black Sharpie on the yellow pencils, and silver Sharpie on the black pencils.

I learned the hard way that  they must be sealed or the Sharpie will rub off after one class. It is hard to come up with dozens of unique affirmations, so I found this site with a list of positive things to say to students.

Apron Art Room Hack

Here is another great idea to share. I actually saw this at a Home Depot Kids' Workshop. One of the other parents did it for their child and I thought it was brilliant. I have been using the idea in my classroom for years now. 

All of my aprons are adult size, so for the smaller kids I put on waist tie through the neck before tying it. This pulls the top of the apron higher on the child to protect more of their shirt and I don't have to buy two sizes of aprons. 

TAB Preparation

Today I continued my pursuit of being fully prepared to transition to TAB next year. I created a lesson plan template, revised from the one that I have been using for the past few years. It is very concise and to the point, which is what I like. I believe lesson plans should be one page. They should contain the information needed to completely think through the lesson before teaching it but not so long that it is cumbersome to write and hard to review in a few moments before class. It constantly amazes me how long the licensing department and universities think lesson plans should be!

Several years ago I came across an idea for "Monster Mediums" by Mini Matisse. It's one of those great ideas that has been in the back of my mind since I read it but I haven't taken the time to pursue it. Today I created a list of mediums that match the centers I plan to have in my classrooms next year so that I can create Monster Mediums for each station in addition to standard anchor charts. I'm not sure how well I will follow through, but I hope that I can get it rolling. I'm keeping in mind that I don't need to create them all in advance, I can make them as I need them and it's a little less overwhelming. If you are interested in Monster Mediums, you can Google it and find many blog posts by Mrs. Hahn at Mini Matisse.

Watercolor Monster Medium by Mrs. Hahn at Mini Matisse.