2009 Arts Academy

Hey I made it in……that was my accomplishment!

In I-tunes search and download music for:
Zemir Atik Israeli
La Cueca- Chile
You may buy drums from Marko Johnson 801-487-7110
marko@rounddoor.com

I hope your students have as much fun as you did today!

   When I began the Brain Dance with my students we were all awkward. It was much harder for some students. My students range in age from 6 1/2 to 8 years old, and age was not necessarily a factor in the ablilty. A few seemed to feel that it was an opportunity for them to take the stage. Now after a few times the acting out is less and the students are more focsused after and more ready to return to work.

   I love George Nelson’s book, ‘Breaking the Learning Barrier…” and really believe that as he states we “must hit them in their heads and in their hearts”.

   I have been struggling with the blog and think  I now have two profiles, but it will get better.

One rainy day in September, I was feeling sorry for the students because I knew they were going to have to stay in for recess all day. They already had to stay in for morning recess, and were going to have to watch another movie for lunch recess. It was my turn to watch all 4 classes during the next “indoor recess,” when I remember the brain dance! I got all 100 students up and dancing, which was quite refreshing for all of us.  

I have really enjoyed integrating the arts into my curriculum this year. We were learning Venn Diagrams in math and reading. So as a “get to know you” activity, I had my 2nd grade students write sentences inside the Venn Diagram, comparing themselves to their partner, and then had them draw portraits of one another. I taught them the proper proportions of a face, eyes nose, mouth, ears, neck, and shoulders). They are now starting to draw more realistic pictures.

I also used the techniques I learned from the still life lesson to make 3-D pumpkins with my class.  After drawing the pumpkins, we integrated math to measure and draw lines across the whole page like checkers. We then colored every other square like an AB pattern. The background was colored with 2 cool colors, the pumpkins with 2 warm colors, and the table with 2 neutral colors. I was very pleased with the way they turned out. I am amazed at the potential students have if we raise our expectations and give them enough time to do a quality job. I now am going to have them write poems to go along with their pumpkins.

After returning from our wonderful two day get-away, my eyes were opened to the way I see my kids in my classroom. Being an artist and having always implemented the arts (mostly visual) in my kindergarten class–I took a step back and really observed and looked at my little garden with new eyes. I read a new book this summer called, The Looking Book by P. K. Hallinan and Patrice Barton. I then bought each of my kids a pair of those funny glasses from oriental trading so they could have their own set of lookers and I was going to have my kids use them to see ordinary things in a different way. I love to teach my kids to look at things in a different way and was going to have them put them on and go outside to see things in a different way–while I did this later– I first, got another idea, after listening to George talk about his Nexis Teaching “do the unexpected” and after we did that poem from watching a clip from Dead Poets Society. I then did something different that I had not planned. After talking about one of our author studies, Kevin Henkes, I put a picture he had painted up on the board (from the book, Owen) and had them put their lookers on and had each of them tell me something new they saw in the picture they had not seen before. All 27 kids each picked out something new, that I didn’t even notice. It was a great eye-opener. I will do it again and next time I want to make it into a poem that they help me compose. I also told my kids about the lego display from the artist we saw at the Kimball Art Museum and told them I was going to put the book from that artist in the building center, just to give them ideas. One day I had one of my little girls bring me up a sunflower sculpture that she made, after seeing the sunflower in the book–I was impressed. My brain was also opened up to the different learners that George talked about and so I paid extra close attention to those wigglers who just couldn’t sit still and I let it go because I know they are still listening and just need to know they are alive! What a great way to start the year with my eyes and brain opened to new possibilities for my little garden of learners.

I decided to try the still life drawing and the brain dance. The brain dance went really well. We took one day durning P.E. to teach them all the moves. They absolutely loved it! It was good to have the rules set before. Especially the no laughing rule. I think without that rule they wouldn’t have taken it as seriously. Don’t get me wrong, it was a serious thing but fun at the same time. I was actually surprised at how willing my boys were. I thought they would have held back a little more. It turned out great and we are really enjoying using it when we need a little more “brain energy”!

I also did the still life drawing. That was much scarier for me than the brain dance. I grew up dancing, but never had much confidence in my own drawing ability. Let alone feeling comfortable teaching it. I learned so much from Scott. Without that lesson I never would have thought it possible for me to do anything like this. We just took it one day at a time. First the vase, then the bottle, then the lamp, and then the tea kettle. I had them sketch each individual thing in their own sketchbooks while I did it up front. I had to keep looking back at my own attempt in order to teach it to them. I was so impressed at how well they did. It really helped talking to them about different lines and angles before we started. After we sketched them we moved on to drawing them together and then doing the shading. They look amazing! I can’t believe I was able to give them the instruction they needed to produce such wonderful things. It’s all thanks to being able to come to Arts Academy. I never would have tried anything like this before and I can’ wait to show them off to the parents this week at our Parent Teacher Conferences!!

In Sixth-Grade, as part of our World Studies, we study Ancient Greece.  We are reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series as a shared reading activity to integrate social studies and language arts.  In the books, the ”campers” create a bead to represent each summer they are at Camp Half Blood.  Our students made beads to represent each of their school years, K-6, out of clay.  First, they designed each of their beads on paper.  Then they learned how to use the clay to form the shape of beads they wanted.  They learned how to barely mositen the clay, as needed, by dipping their fingers into a cup of water.   A wooden skewer was used to etch the design into the beads.  The beads were then placed on the skewer to dry, and to provide a hole in which to later make a necklace.   The beads were then painted–usng a wash technique–to make the etched design stand out.  The students loved the activity!  They were creative and had a great time integrating  language arts with art and social studies. 

 Using her design as a guide, this student completes her etching in her clay bead.

 The completed version of Percy Jackson beads–ready to dry and paint.

The painting of the beads!

I really like the brain dance. I would love to make more time for my class to do this, I really do think it works. I love reading George’s book. I love the color cards. I am really paying close attention to the personalities in my classroom and trying to help them that makes sense to them. I took a workshop this summer about Love and Logic in the classroom. They talked a lot about giving students choice. I can see how important this is now understanding more about the colors. Looking forward to the next two days.

O.K, so I’m orange and I’m barely getting my assignment “1 turned in.  I have enjoyed implementing the arts in my curriculum this year.  One of my most recent adventures was to teach the students how to wash colors using the medium of water colors.  I wanted the students to accomplish 3 objectives.  First, while looking at Eric Carle’s art, the students will gain an understanding of how he uses different painted patterns on separate pieces of paper to create collages of images.  Second, The students would be able to create washed colors (without turning them black or brown) that would create the illusions of the earth, sky, and sun.  Lastly, the students would be able to cut  images out of their washed papers to create a diagram illustrating the position of the earth, moon, and sun in relation to each other  and demonstrate each moon phase affiliated with each placement.   I always spend  a lot of time teaching the students how to work with brushes and different types of paint.  It always amazes  me that students want to dig at the water colors to create a thick color.  I have to remind them that water colors should look watery. (I know new concept)  One thing I noticed was that many of the students’ papers didn’t look as good as they could.  So I decided anything worth doing is worth doing again.  The students started over and had some interesting results.  I will do this activity again.

This is my second year teaching art and music to 1st and 2nd graders. I appreciate all the workshops and instruction to help better teach and involve my students, so I used Scott’s still life instruction with my five first grade classes. I spent one class period teaching how to draw, shade and add shadow to a mug, asking them questions about what they saw and what kinds of lines could represent that. Another class period was spent drawing a vase, again with shading and a shadow. The third day was a still life combining a lamp, vase and the mug in front of the lamp, requiring them to add some perspective. This was drawn with pencil and all the objects were outlined with black ink. They used 8 1/2″ by 11″ white art paper. The final follow-up was to replicate the still life onto the larger 12″ by 18″ white art paper. I instructed step-by-step what the students were to draw (an oval like a flying saucer about the size of your hand from side to side, etc.), and they were totally engaged each minute, with absolute involvement. I was truly stunned. Because this year I don’t have my own room, a couple of the teachers were doing their prep time in their classrooms during my teaching, so I asked one to write her reactions to this activity. Jodi Trimble wrote: “During an art class Mrs. Davis had my students participate in an art activity where they got to draw a still life. The still life was of a lamp, cup, and a vase. Each object was shadowed to show the perspective of light. The students were very actively engaged throughout the entire activity. I have never seen many of them sit so still so far this year. I was absolutely amazed by how their attention was captured continuously throughout the time to their drawings. While Mrs. Davis is in my room I am on my prep time. However, on this day I stayed and watched my students because I could not believe how well they were drawing their objects. Many of their drawings looked like an older student had drawn them rather than a first grader. I liked them so much that I asked Mrs. Davis if I could keep them and hang them in my room to put on display. I wanted their parents to be able to see what a great job they had done later in the week at Parent-Teacher conferences. My students were drawing still lives every free chance they got here at school and at home. They were so proud of their drawings, and impressed with themselves on how well they could draw. When I met with their parents later in the week they were stunned with how well the students did. They made sure that they would get to bring them home. It was very neat to see the parent’s faces when their son or daughter showed them their work. This art activity was such an inspiration to my students, their parents and myself. Sincerely, Miss Trimble.” I was amazed with their desire to do their best and appreciate the A.R.T.S. Academy training for how it benefits and blesses us with reaching and teaching our children. THANK YOU!!! I’m excited for more!