Art in Nature

Well I suppose the next step in this creative spirit blog is to talk about the types of art that I am interested in and do. There is so little time during the semester to even breathe the word art let alone take the time to spend time doing things that are good for our well-being both spiritually and emotionally. As you might be able to tell from my blog I am a lover of nature. There is nothing id rather be doing then be out exploring in the fresh air. I have brought this love into the art that I create and the art that I surround myself in. I collect rocks, I am an avid rock hunted. I considered becoming a geologist in university but decided that it would be possible to merge the two things I love---teaching and geology. I could spend hours on my knees at a creek bed scavenging through the art that the universe has created for us that has taken millions of years. I have baskets of rocks, rows along my window sill and my plants are overflowing with them. I create candle holders and sculptures out of rocks as well. In the wintertime, I make dozens of centerpieces with branches, berries, pinecones and leaves that I collect in the forest. They fill the house with Christmas spirit and the smells of Christmas. I think that it is important for us as teachers to expose our students to unconventional styles of art so that they can find ways to express themselves in ways other than painting and drawing. Elements of lines, texture and shading can be found in everything, and Mother Nature has placed lessons right before our eyes. Take your students for a walk and have them point out elements of art on a tree or in a shadow. Let them know that art is to be enjoyed and experienced.

Singing!

I dreaded the thought of singing today but it was actually a lot of fun! I have been anti singing for years. That may seem strange considering I am planning on teaching early primary, which involves huge amounts of singing. But there is a reason behind this, my mother has been a kindergarten/grade 1 teacher for as long as I can remember. Therefore I have been exposed to lethal doses of it forever. Imagine always knowing where your mother is in the supermarket because you can hear her humming or singing!!! Apparently this has been one of my pet peeve since I was a toddler, I am always told stories about how I would be in the backseat in my car seat yelling “DOESN’T THIS CAR HAVE A RADIO!!!” I have to be cautious writing this next part because there is a slight possibility I might actually show her this blog one day. Now that I am following in her footsteps, I am beginning to appreciate all of the songs I have learned throughout the years and the fact that perhaps she even contributed to my intellectual development. And hey, I can say that I know almost every possible song that I will ever need for my future classrooms.

Drama Lesson Sharing

I was not quite as enthusiastic about the drama lesson sharing. Perhaps, this was because I was beginning to feel the burn out of the end of semester or maybe it was due to my absolute dread of public speaking. I have no idea where my fear of public speaking came from, group work is fine, my friends would never use the word shy or quiet to describe me and I am quite comfortable in social situations but the second I step in front of a group of my peers in what I feel to be a formal situation I freeze. I have very little experience in drama and therefore I think I would like to incorporate it even more in my classroom. It is so important that students gain the comfort level for public speaking and being able to express themselves in a variety of situations. I also recognize the necessity of creating a safe environment to introduce students to drama. If their first experiences of drama are embarrassment or surprise they may develop a fear of drama and limit that possibility forever. Back to the lesson sharing, my group had great ideas to share and seemed to appreciate my contribution, and I did develop more confidence in teaching drama knowing there is a process to ensure that students reap the benefits that drama has to offer.

Art Lesson Sharing

The sharing of our art lesson plans in our groups was a fantastic idea. All the members of our group brought awesome ideas and we were able to share them and ask questions. We were all super enthusiastic and remained focused cause we were having fun. It was neat to see how we all had a different approach to teaching art and I look forward to implementing those ideas in my future classrooms. Way to go screaming eagles—bring it!

Dirt Cake! Mmmmm

During practicum I taught a unit in language arts on the novel How to Eat Fried Worms
For the end of the novel study, I planned a worm party in which we would play book bingo (the squares contained character names and students created clues to accompany them) and have a dirt cake. The dirt cake was so much fun to make. I bought a flowerpot, a garden spade and a plastic bouquet of flowers to make it look completely real. Unfortunately, on the afternoon of our worm party there was a power outage at the school and the students had to be dismissed to the care of their parents. It was an enormous process to contact each of the parents to come to pick up their kids so during the chaos we managed to fit in the dirt cake. I showed the students the cake introducing it as a plant I had received for my last day as a gift. The students were commenting on what a nice plant it was, until I proceeded to take a spoon and eat a bite of it. Ewwwwwwwww. They realized it was a cake and had a blast eating it with the gummy worms found throughout. I didn’t get to take a picture of it because…..well it was dark, but here is a picture I found on the internet.

All the teachers came in to check out the cake and loved the idea. One teacher suggested a litter box cake would be another great idea to capture the attention of the students, which I thought would be fun to do with grade 6’s or 7’s.

Choose only five!?

When I introduced the art lesson for painting during my practicum I talked to the students about the art show and informed them I would be choosing five students’ art. I knew this was going to be a hard task because of my belief that art is self-expressive and shouldn’t be judged in relation to each other.

However, I chose the art by spreading the paintings all over the classroom and using process of elimination I narrowed it down to about 20. I had to eliminate one due to the fact that the artist failed to include their name and I eliminated others for pushing the brush rather than pulling it like I had instructed. It took forever to narrow it down further to five.

One student that I chose has FAS and finds it hard to complete any work and stay focused. He did a wonderful job and followed all of the directions I provided. All of the students were coming over to look at his work saying “WOW! Check out Jimmy’s!! [fake name] I bet he’s going to win!! He had a smile ear to ear, as did I. I was so proud of how my students went around and complemented one another’s work. They were all completely engaged in the lesson and those who finished early were able to produce multiple pictures.

Telling the students that the artwork would be judged and the best selected was a great motivation for the students. They were not overly competitive and were extremely supportive of those who were selected. However, reflecting on how much time, effort and heart went into the actual selection process (myself being torn about how students would feel which was completely unfounded), I am thankful that judging students’ art against one another does not happen very often.

Lesson taught, lesson learned

Planning an art lesson is an exciting process in which we pull brilliant ideas from theory, the Internet, professors, classmates and within ourselves. However, until we are able to experience the lesson in an actual classroom we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into. During my practicum, I notified my cooperating teacher that I would like to do an art lesson. “How about painting?” he suggested with a sly grin. I accepted with discrete trepidation and thought about how I haven’t even touched paints since high school and wondered how you actually “teach” children how to paint. I though it was simple—you just paint. It was hard to wrap my brain around an actual process.
As soon as the kids entered the room and saw the paints lay out on paper plates with colours of red, orange, brown and yellow they were stoked. Apparently, teachers never let them paint; hmmmm….I wonder why? Planning and prep was a huge part of the process. Students were told beforehand that we would be painting and many brought smocks or old T-shirts. I spent the lunch hour collecting brushes, paper, and squeezing four different colours of paint onto 18 paper plates. Thankfully my C.T. also suggested having paper towel on hand. For the actual lesson I began by explaining and emphasizing that painting was different than drawing because you “pull” the brush instead of “pushing” it. I demonstrated for the class by painting the beginnings of a tree by holding the paper upside-down and starting with the truck and pulling down to create the branches. I then outlined the criteria of the artwork/lesson and wrote it on the board so students could be reminded. I put a star beside “be careful”. (I neglected the rule “paint only goes on the paper” and cannot emphasize that enough). I threatened that if they were caught being irresponsible with the paints they would be using crayons. I dismissed the students by rows to collect their supplies and they were off.

Most of the students followed the rules and directions (some thought maybe their own smocks should have some added fall colours). I circulated and asked questions and made comments.



I now realize why teachers are extremely hesitant to use painting for art. THE CLEAN UP! The brushes had to be washed, the classroom had to be paint free, the water dishes had to be washed and the paintings needed to be spread out to dry. Thankfully, in my classroom we had an incentive for helpers after school—Gummy worms! All the students helped with the clean up and a few stayed even longer with what was left. It took forever, but the kids were great. Lesson learned. My C.T. appreciated that I did his annual painting art lesson and I was truly grateful have learned about how to teach painting and the pros and cons that go along with it