Instruction and Management Plan
SEQUENCE AND ORGANIZATION
The two main elements that were consistent in every lesson and tied the unit together were exploration/play and storytelling. The first lesson, Earth Art, was centered around the concept of play to get the students immediately interacting with art in a hands-on, direct way. Earth Art also allowed us to introduce the concept of art not always having to exist in a gallery setting. This concept allowed us to discuss public art, which we related to the city of Fort Collins and art our students may have seen before.
Students were each given a sketchbook to use during projects, as well as during sketchbook time, which occurred during the first ten minutes of every class. Sketchbooks provided students with a way to explore ideas and a gave students a foundation for each day's lesson. Sketchbooks consistently provided a place for students to tell stories through their art, specifically free draw times which allowed them to draw events, people, and things that were important in their lives.
Following Earth Art, we moved into a 5-day lesson called Crazy Creatures. We began this lesson with a day focused on centers, which allowed students to play while discovering media manipulation, parts to whole, and collage. In the next class, students took the brainstorming activities from these centers and glued them into their sketchbooks. Before students began to create their 2D creatures, we introduced new materials for them to work with, such as Sharpie on tin foil, cut paper texture, and leaf rubbings. Students got ideas from these new techniques, but also referenced their previous brainstorming and completed sketches to get ideas for their 2D creature. Another demo was given in the next class regarding 3D materials. This demo included how to stuff pantyhose with filling and use hot glue safely. Many of the 3D materials were new to students in terms of their art use, which allowed students to play with and explore these materials in a new context. Students used the demonstrated techniques and others to construct a 3D representation of their creature. Students gave functions to their creatures through the manipulation of materials and subsequently told stories about where their creatures live, what they eat, and what they like to do.
After constructing their 3D creature, students decided on what the creature needed to survive in terms of food, water, shelter, and camouflage. These needs gave students a plan for how to build the habitat and what to include in it. Additional demos were given this day on covering the surface of the shoebox habitat with paper, stringing beads on yarn, and gluing in cut paper grass. Once habitats were completed, the class went on a "safari through Creaturetopia," a short, guided critique, which had students viewing and discussing the creatures and habitats. We encouraged discussion primarily around functionality of the habitat (i.e. "Will this creature survive here?") and use of materials (e.g. "How did the artist make this?" "Why did the artist choose that color/texture/material?").
Guess My Emotion was a 1-day lesson to refresh the class after the lengthy Crazy Creatures lesson. Unlike Crazy Creatures, it focused on a more abstracted product from cut paper, which got students thinking in a new mode. Kelly based this lesson off of color theory, interior design, and types of line. Many students struggled with either the concept of color and line evoking emotion, or the concept of cutting a shape from a piece of paper folded in half. They related primarily to the faces with emotions and the feelings associated with them, which helped to tie in the storytelling aspect of this lesson.
Lastly, because the students had been working on individual projects since Earth Art, we wanted to incorporate another collaborative project. The batik allowed students to work on an individual piece that became part of a whole and also to work on fully collaborative art. After they had finished their individual batik, students could move freely through centers focused on color mixing, drawing, and painting. The first center was free painting on individual 18" x 24" sheets of paper, where students were given red, yellow, and blue to mix new colors. Students could also visit the drawing center, where they could draw with crayons on the collaborative drawing--a large sheet of paper taped to the table. Students visually told their personal stories on this large drawing, in addition to working together to tell a collective story. The last center was painting on the batik border cloth, which was a fully collaborative piece. Batik requires steps in a sequence, which helped us sum up the unit as a whole being one large learning, creating, and growing process.
METHODS FOR INTEGRATION:
Literacy
TALKING ABOUT ART
Throughout the unit we were constantly engaged in talking about art. We discussed art processes, why artists make art, where art is seen, how art is made, and what the ideas communicated in art are.
DISCOVERY BOARD
The Discovery Board provided a time to reflect on art learning both in written form and verbally. Each student who was featured on the Discovery Board also had the chance to talk in front of the class about their artistic discovery.
VOCABULARY
Vocabulary terms that were introduced and explored include: collage, assemblage, batik, collaboration, resist, texture, gallery, brainstorming, sketchbook, pattern,
WRITING
Students engaged in writing activities during every unit of the lesson except the Earth Art exploration. In the Crazy Creatures unit, students named and recorded the name of their final creature and its habitat. Guess My Emotion had students assess a facial expression in one word and write it down. During the batik lesson, students worked on a collaborative drawing where many of them wrote their names and other words.
Numeracy
ORDER/SEQUENCE
Students engaged in art processes that required steps to occur in sequence. For instance, batik requires that the glue be dry before applying paint, and that water washes away the glue to create the pattern.
SHAPES
Guess My Emotion got students thinking about shapes and how to create them. Additionally in this lesson, students described types of line such as straight, jagged, curved, and wavy.
COMBINATIONS AND RATIOS
The batik lesson focused heavily on color mixing, which had students using two colors in combination to make another color. Students learned about ratios based on the color achieved. For instance, green made with more blue and less yellow will be darker; orange made with more yellow will be lighter.
Technology
NEW MATERIALS
Students were introduced to a variety of new media for art making. They learned about the uses for hot glue and how to use it safely. They learned about fabric painting and glue resists in the batik lesson.
SMARTBOARD
Each of the lessons incorporated the smartboard as a teaching tool and way to motivate students about their learning. The smartboard allowed us to display PowerPoint presentations that included artists' work, videos, interactive games, and brainstorming activities.
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION
Students were regularly filmed discussing their art and art processes. These videos were uploaded on the blog and used to demonstrate student learning.
Science
LIVING THINGS
During the Crazy Creatures unit, students were required to think about the needs of living things, such as food, water, shelter, and camouflage. Students designed their art (habitats) around these needs.
PATTERNS IN NATURE
During the Earth Art lesson, students interacted with natural materials to see how they work to stack, layer, build, and make patterns. Based on their prior knowledge of nature and their experiences with the materials, students predicted what would happen to these Earth Art forms when weather patterns occurred.
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATIGIES:
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Students explored collaborative learning when they engaged in art making in groups, stations, and centers. Earth Art was a center-based lesson where students worked in groups of up to four to create their nature works. Students participated in centers again during the Crazy Creatures intro, where they moved around with their table mates exploring different activities. Throughout the creative process in all lessons, students were required to share materials, which taught them how to work collaboratively in a safe and respectful manner.
DISCOVERY BOARD
The Discovery Board provided a unique opportunity for students to teach each other. Individual students' discoveries were highlighted on the board, which was then used to teach the rest of the class. Students became motivated to arrive at discoveries so they could get on the board and therefore become the 'teacher.' Sometimes students' discoveries were concepts that we intended students to discover, and other times their discoveries surprised us.
TEACHER DEMOS
Formal instruction in lecture demonstration style was given for the Crazy Creatures, Guess My Emotion, and Batik Cloth lessons. Teachers used the demo format to show students the materials that were available to them and a few ideas for how these materials could be used. Sometimes these demos were absolutely crucial for the project of the day, such as the demo on protocol for using hot glue. Other times, demos functioned as a form of ideation, such as demonstrating how rubbings are created when textured material is placed under paper and crayons are rubbed over.
INQUIRY
Because our unit focused so heavily on play, students actively took part in inquiry and self-directed exploration. Students inquired in the Earth Art lesson when they experimented with stacking rocks and sticks and subsequently how these materials balance (or don't). After learning about color mixing, students were given red, yellow, and blue to combine and create new colors with. It was here that students also inquired about painting with their hands and scratching into paint with their fingernails. Though inquiry got messy, it ultimately allowed students to intuitively follow their own interests in-depth.
VERBAL REFLECTION
Due to the ability level of K-1 students, reflection largely took place verbally. Students participated in in-process critiques, final critiques, and videotaped reflections to summarize their learning. These verbal reflections allowed students to fluidly come to conclusions themselves, without the delay that their developing writing skills pose. Discovery Board was another form of verbal reflection where teachers and students discussed art making and learning.
The two main elements that were consistent in every lesson and tied the unit together were exploration/play and storytelling. The first lesson, Earth Art, was centered around the concept of play to get the students immediately interacting with art in a hands-on, direct way. Earth Art also allowed us to introduce the concept of art not always having to exist in a gallery setting. This concept allowed us to discuss public art, which we related to the city of Fort Collins and art our students may have seen before.
Students were each given a sketchbook to use during projects, as well as during sketchbook time, which occurred during the first ten minutes of every class. Sketchbooks provided students with a way to explore ideas and a gave students a foundation for each day's lesson. Sketchbooks consistently provided a place for students to tell stories through their art, specifically free draw times which allowed them to draw events, people, and things that were important in their lives.
Following Earth Art, we moved into a 5-day lesson called Crazy Creatures. We began this lesson with a day focused on centers, which allowed students to play while discovering media manipulation, parts to whole, and collage. In the next class, students took the brainstorming activities from these centers and glued them into their sketchbooks. Before students began to create their 2D creatures, we introduced new materials for them to work with, such as Sharpie on tin foil, cut paper texture, and leaf rubbings. Students got ideas from these new techniques, but also referenced their previous brainstorming and completed sketches to get ideas for their 2D creature. Another demo was given in the next class regarding 3D materials. This demo included how to stuff pantyhose with filling and use hot glue safely. Many of the 3D materials were new to students in terms of their art use, which allowed students to play with and explore these materials in a new context. Students used the demonstrated techniques and others to construct a 3D representation of their creature. Students gave functions to their creatures through the manipulation of materials and subsequently told stories about where their creatures live, what they eat, and what they like to do.
After constructing their 3D creature, students decided on what the creature needed to survive in terms of food, water, shelter, and camouflage. These needs gave students a plan for how to build the habitat and what to include in it. Additional demos were given this day on covering the surface of the shoebox habitat with paper, stringing beads on yarn, and gluing in cut paper grass. Once habitats were completed, the class went on a "safari through Creaturetopia," a short, guided critique, which had students viewing and discussing the creatures and habitats. We encouraged discussion primarily around functionality of the habitat (i.e. "Will this creature survive here?") and use of materials (e.g. "How did the artist make this?" "Why did the artist choose that color/texture/material?").
Guess My Emotion was a 1-day lesson to refresh the class after the lengthy Crazy Creatures lesson. Unlike Crazy Creatures, it focused on a more abstracted product from cut paper, which got students thinking in a new mode. Kelly based this lesson off of color theory, interior design, and types of line. Many students struggled with either the concept of color and line evoking emotion, or the concept of cutting a shape from a piece of paper folded in half. They related primarily to the faces with emotions and the feelings associated with them, which helped to tie in the storytelling aspect of this lesson.
Lastly, because the students had been working on individual projects since Earth Art, we wanted to incorporate another collaborative project. The batik allowed students to work on an individual piece that became part of a whole and also to work on fully collaborative art. After they had finished their individual batik, students could move freely through centers focused on color mixing, drawing, and painting. The first center was free painting on individual 18" x 24" sheets of paper, where students were given red, yellow, and blue to mix new colors. Students could also visit the drawing center, where they could draw with crayons on the collaborative drawing--a large sheet of paper taped to the table. Students visually told their personal stories on this large drawing, in addition to working together to tell a collective story. The last center was painting on the batik border cloth, which was a fully collaborative piece. Batik requires steps in a sequence, which helped us sum up the unit as a whole being one large learning, creating, and growing process.
METHODS FOR INTEGRATION:
Literacy
TALKING ABOUT ART
Throughout the unit we were constantly engaged in talking about art. We discussed art processes, why artists make art, where art is seen, how art is made, and what the ideas communicated in art are.
DISCOVERY BOARD
The Discovery Board provided a time to reflect on art learning both in written form and verbally. Each student who was featured on the Discovery Board also had the chance to talk in front of the class about their artistic discovery.
VOCABULARY
Vocabulary terms that were introduced and explored include: collage, assemblage, batik, collaboration, resist, texture, gallery, brainstorming, sketchbook, pattern,
WRITING
Students engaged in writing activities during every unit of the lesson except the Earth Art exploration. In the Crazy Creatures unit, students named and recorded the name of their final creature and its habitat. Guess My Emotion had students assess a facial expression in one word and write it down. During the batik lesson, students worked on a collaborative drawing where many of them wrote their names and other words.
Numeracy
ORDER/SEQUENCE
Students engaged in art processes that required steps to occur in sequence. For instance, batik requires that the glue be dry before applying paint, and that water washes away the glue to create the pattern.
SHAPES
Guess My Emotion got students thinking about shapes and how to create them. Additionally in this lesson, students described types of line such as straight, jagged, curved, and wavy.
COMBINATIONS AND RATIOS
The batik lesson focused heavily on color mixing, which had students using two colors in combination to make another color. Students learned about ratios based on the color achieved. For instance, green made with more blue and less yellow will be darker; orange made with more yellow will be lighter.
Technology
NEW MATERIALS
Students were introduced to a variety of new media for art making. They learned about the uses for hot glue and how to use it safely. They learned about fabric painting and glue resists in the batik lesson.
SMARTBOARD
Each of the lessons incorporated the smartboard as a teaching tool and way to motivate students about their learning. The smartboard allowed us to display PowerPoint presentations that included artists' work, videos, interactive games, and brainstorming activities.
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION
Students were regularly filmed discussing their art and art processes. These videos were uploaded on the blog and used to demonstrate student learning.
Science
LIVING THINGS
During the Crazy Creatures unit, students were required to think about the needs of living things, such as food, water, shelter, and camouflage. Students designed their art (habitats) around these needs.
PATTERNS IN NATURE
During the Earth Art lesson, students interacted with natural materials to see how they work to stack, layer, build, and make patterns. Based on their prior knowledge of nature and their experiences with the materials, students predicted what would happen to these Earth Art forms when weather patterns occurred.
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATIGIES:
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Students explored collaborative learning when they engaged in art making in groups, stations, and centers. Earth Art was a center-based lesson where students worked in groups of up to four to create their nature works. Students participated in centers again during the Crazy Creatures intro, where they moved around with their table mates exploring different activities. Throughout the creative process in all lessons, students were required to share materials, which taught them how to work collaboratively in a safe and respectful manner.
DISCOVERY BOARD
The Discovery Board provided a unique opportunity for students to teach each other. Individual students' discoveries were highlighted on the board, which was then used to teach the rest of the class. Students became motivated to arrive at discoveries so they could get on the board and therefore become the 'teacher.' Sometimes students' discoveries were concepts that we intended students to discover, and other times their discoveries surprised us.
TEACHER DEMOS
Formal instruction in lecture demonstration style was given for the Crazy Creatures, Guess My Emotion, and Batik Cloth lessons. Teachers used the demo format to show students the materials that were available to them and a few ideas for how these materials could be used. Sometimes these demos were absolutely crucial for the project of the day, such as the demo on protocol for using hot glue. Other times, demos functioned as a form of ideation, such as demonstrating how rubbings are created when textured material is placed under paper and crayons are rubbed over.
INQUIRY
Because our unit focused so heavily on play, students actively took part in inquiry and self-directed exploration. Students inquired in the Earth Art lesson when they experimented with stacking rocks and sticks and subsequently how these materials balance (or don't). After learning about color mixing, students were given red, yellow, and blue to combine and create new colors with. It was here that students also inquired about painting with their hands and scratching into paint with their fingernails. Though inquiry got messy, it ultimately allowed students to intuitively follow their own interests in-depth.
VERBAL REFLECTION
Due to the ability level of K-1 students, reflection largely took place verbally. Students participated in in-process critiques, final critiques, and videotaped reflections to summarize their learning. These verbal reflections allowed students to fluidly come to conclusions themselves, without the delay that their developing writing skills pose. Discovery Board was another form of verbal reflection where teachers and students discussed art making and learning.
Lesson Plans
1. EARTH ART
2. CRAZY CREATURES
3. GUESS MY EMOTION
4. BATIK CLOTH