The Power of Art

I am so sorry I have kept you, my limited public :), waiting! I have been so busy with our new school year and I've been having a blast! I love my babies! Have I told you that yet? :) Ok, so let me tell you about something great I do with my kids that they love and I love. Some teachers in the younger grades have "Fun Fridays," where they spend the last 30-45 minutes of the day doing something fun to break up the monotony and hard work of the week. Well, I do it too, but our "fun" is art! We are not lucky enough to have an art teacher or an arts program at our school. We do have Music, thankfully, but no art. So, I do the art teaching. Art is so important to a child's education because it teaches that creativity does not always come in the same package. It allows students to develop of love for art and learn about the many different ways to express themselves.

Ok, so there is my short version speech about why I think art is so important in school. Here's what I do. When Fun Friday rolls around, I have picked out an artist for us to study. I introduce the students to the artist, tell them who it is, where he/she is from, about when he/she lived, and talk about the artist's style. I will then show them samples of work created by the artist. Usually I limit the art samples to the style I want to focus on that day. For out very first artist study, we looked at Piet Mondrian. We talked about his style, the word "abstract," and how he used thick and thin lines to create boxes of different sizes, and only a few colors. I showed them several samples of his paintings, the ones that included only primary colors as well as some others which used a sampling of other colors as well. After the study, we created our own art in Mondrian's style. I gave each child a ruler and markers. ( I was not ready to dive into paint yet :) ) I let the students draw lines on their paper, as many or as few as they wanted, both vertically and horizontally to make boxes like Mondrian did.  Then they traced the lines with black markers, making some of them thick if they wanted to. Then I told them they could only pick out 3 colors or less, and then choose which boxes to color. The kids had a blast! They loved every minute of it. I will say again what I said last school year when I started doing artist studies on Fridays; It doesn't matter who is your class, one who is super well behaved or one is off the wall, regular ed or special ed, when we do art, everyone is there. All the students are into it, all the students are performing, all students are learning, all students are having fun, and you have the most well behaved class in the world. That, friends, is the power of art. It makes every kid proud and engaged.

Ok, next week comes around and another Fun Friday comes. Who did we study? Henri Matisse! But wait? didn't he do some not so child friendly art? Some, yes, but he also did some spectacularly child friendly art, particularly in his later years. I taught my darlings about Matisse, told them about his life, showed them some of his early works and talked about that style, the focused my attention on the meat of my lesson, his cutouts. We looked at a bunch of his cutout artworks, which were as diverse in pattern and style as my kids are. The kids really liked looking at them and talking about what they thought his pictures looked like. Then it was time for them to get to work. I had all this scrap construction paper that I was "saving" but never used. (C'mon, you know what I'm talking about, you've got a box too!) Well, I don't anymore. I placed a bucket of scrap construction paper at each group and let them go to town. The kids love that I tell them art has no rules when it comes to creativity, they can make whatever their hearts' desire! You would not believe the different pieces of art that came out of this activity. I am going to get the picture of the finished products and post them. They are so diverse, not a one is alike. I was so proud of my babies!

Aren't they having a ball!! They loved it!

This last Friday we studied Andy Warhol. The kids loved seeing Marilyn Monroe in different colors. (even if they have no clue who she is) We talked about pop art, what it was, and saw several examples of it. Then I gave students a blank piece of paper and had them divide it into 6 sections. In each section, they drew the same basic image, then colored each one with different, bright colors, just like Andy. Of course, they loved this activity too. I just love art! And so do they! This is the power of art my friends, and I encourage you to find its power as well! It is not nearly as hard as you might think to start teaching art in your class. Don't let it scare you. In the words of Ms. Frizzle, "get messy and have fun!"

Teaching my kids about "Fairness"

OK, I know it's been a minute... or two, since my last post. I have been working hard on getting the school year together. And just when I did, and was ready to post, my internet failed me for several days. But I'm back and hopefully to stay!

    So, we are in the fourth week of school now... yeah, that's right. Gotta double check myself! ;) I went from a class full of sardines, at 26 darlings, to 24, to 23, as I just had my first withdrawal today already! Just from these first few weeks, I can tell you what, even 24 is a challenge. It is so hard to keep that many 6 year olds all on task at the same time. No wait, it's dang near impossible! But I'm working it and we are going to make it. Definitely supports small groups instruction, I tell ya what. I have been trying to teach centers since the first week of school so they get it down pat, then when I do get my small groups going better I will not have any problems. I introduce a little more each time we do it, a new center, a new activity, a new procedure for small group time. They are actually doing pretty good with it. I am impressed. They seem to do better than any group I've had in the past, or maybe I'm just getting better. Let's go with that. :)

    I did the "fairness" activity with my kids, which I learned about on Pinterest the other day. It was too funny and they really did understand. Ok, so the activity was about fairness, and how being fair doesn't mean that I'm giving everyone the same thing. I told all the kids to make-believe they had some "boo-boo" they needed a band-aid for. First of all, just my saying "boo-boo" the way I did had them rolling. So anyway, I would call them up one at a time, and enthusiastically gave fake sympathy, and with much flourish, place the band-aid on their upper left arm, regardless of where their "boo-boo" was. At first I got some laughs, and some funny looks. It took a few kids for them to realize I was putting the band-aid in the same place every time, and a couple of kids tried to stop me or say something, but I just kept on with my exaggerated flourish and "healing" of their "boo-boos." At the end I proudly announced that I took care of everyone's boo-boos and did a great job. Of course, through grins and giggles my kids were like "no!" and "nu uh!" To which I replied by asking why I didn't do a good job. They pointed out my "mistake," of putting everyone's band-aids on the same place instead of on the correct boo-boo area. By this point half the band-aids were off and stuck somewhere else on their person, but that was ok. This reply from them was exactly what I wanted of course, and used it to explain that not everyone needs the same things all the time, and that I would treat them fairly, not the same, to make sure that every child always gets what they need to be a winner. ( I say winner because of the sports them. I'm always telling them how they are winners.)

   We also did our first art activity last Friday for our "Fun Friday." I love the arts and there is just not enough of it in school anymore. So what I do is spend a few minutes teaching the kids about an artist, teach them about his/her style, and show them some of the artist's works. Then, we create art in the same style as the artist. This past Friday we studied Piet Mondrian, an artist from the Netherlands who painted many abstract paintings. The ones he became famous for were largely made up of straight black lines, sometimes of various thickness, that criss cross over each other. Then, some of the squares and rectangles that are made are colored in with colors. Mondrian used mostly primary colors, though sometimes used other colors instead. All in all though, only a few colors were used in repetition. So, I gave my kids a piece of cardstock, a ruler, a black marker, and a choice of only 3 or less colored markers. Then they drew as many or as few black lines as they wished, and colored in some of the shapes created with their chosen colors. They really enjoyed this and colored boxes until it was time to go home. I wish I had taken some pictures, but quite honestly I just forgot.

So, there is more we have said and done, but I'll leave that for another day. I still need my 2 more stools, though (grin) and I still plan to do my ADHD posts, but for tonight I'm going to put it away. My son wants to watch Pinocchio, and how can I say no to that. Half the kids in my class probably have never heard of him, bless them. So I bid you all adieu! See you soon!