Last Class!

On Saturday, students continued to work in the woodshop on their wearable art pieces. We devoted the entire class to work time so that students could finish their wearable art and any other project that were not yet completed. During this work time, Adam and I consulted each student about their plans for display and installation of the show. We discussed which pieces they would like to show in the exhibition and how they would like their pieces to be displayed. We even plan to have some of the student come in and help with the installation. Overall, this was a great class day. Students really seemed to enjoy this project as a way of expressing the role of "self" in their identities. This semester, we had a great time working together in an environment that encouraged discussion, personal voice, and creativity to explore who we are. We enjoyed working with the high schoolers, and we look forward to installing our show in a couple weeks!

Grace continues adds some finishing touches to her vest

[Final Documentation]

This week the BiFocal Detective Agency had much to accomplish in very little time. With almost-there projects building up throughout the semester, every project had to be addressed in this one lesson. I hate to say it, but the students could sense the stress on both Natalia and me this week. As a teacher, how do you help your students to accomplish a great amount of work without stressing them out and taking all the fun out of it? I do think many of the detectives enjoyed crossing items off their lists and seeing some of their projects come together after weeks of work, but there are a lot of loose ends that still need to be tied up at back at the Agency. 

Space Communities

We can’t believe the last Saturday has flown by so quickly. This week we planned to wrap up our space unit with communities. Throughout our unit we focused on different aspects of a space such as the inhabitants, planets (homes) , transportation, and so much more. However, this week we wanted to tie our projects together by creating a collaborative space community diorama for the students. This lesson went very well and the students enjoyed roaming around the class room in a carefree atmosphere. Students were able to visit four different stations that would make up the diorama. There were three areas where students could paint the sky, and one station where students were able to create the ground or Terran that would house their community. Students liked working in all of the stations however; I do not think they understand what they were really making, but it will be apparent at the exhibition once it is constructed. Throughout the past 8 weeks our students have made so many projects however, not being able to take these projects home is a little upsetting for some students. As I was working with one student she asked if she could take her project home so she could show her family. I of course said that we plan to show their hard work in the final exhibition, but she didn’t understand and began to pout. This of course made me upset, but we are all looking forward to putting our final exhibition together because students will not only be able to take their work home, but they will see how beautiful their work will look hanging in the Zollar gallery! Altogether this has been an amazing learning experience and we are excited to see our students faces light up when they see their work in the exhibition.

Reflecting on How Relationships Grow

For our final class we took the time to reflect with the kids how our unit on relationships grew. We did so by having a discussion with the kids on how we moved from lesson to lesson and what we learned. It was great to hear the kids responding to questions with ease for the most part. It seemed as though the kids really understood the concepts that we had been trying to get across to them. To continue our reflection, the kids rotated through three tables where they did collaborative drawings. Each table/ collaborative drawing was designated to a specific type of relationship we had covered – Relationships with Others, Relationships with Ourselves, and Relationships with the Environment. It was great to see the kids interacting with one another and clearly demonstrating what they had learned through drawing.

I couldn't help but to think back to the first day of Saturday School when the students were more timid and unsure about one another. You would of never thought that they were that way from the way they were interacting and sharing their drawings today. I also thought about how student-teacher and teacher-teacher relationships have grown. We as teachers have grown to know the personalities of the students and the students themselves very well. We learned how to dodge meltdowns and how to prepare the lessons and class for the students needs to be reached. For the teacher-teacher relationships, I personally think that we became a strong and effective unit that helped each other become more successful as teachers. We were able to communicate effectively to one another and work through problems as well as share successes.

A trip to the Palmer was made for the second half of class. We split into three groups and went on a scavenger hunt to find art pieces that dealt with our lessons. The kids had fun meandering through the museum and searching for the art. I found it surprising how most of the kids were telling me about the art pieces for some of them already knew the background stories. They were eager to tell me what they knew and point things out in many of the paintings. Seeing the art put things into perspective for the kids. They found it amazing how the Calder mobile was moving and the themes of relationships can pop out in art.

Do The Robot!

This past Saturday, the preschoolers worked on outer space robots. First, we built robots out of spray painted cans and cardboard boxes and random objects (door stoppers, outlet covers, etc.) Students seemed to be engaged in the project, but the choice of glue we gave them at their table was a roadblock, not a stepping stone. Students had the option of using tacky glue at their tables, and then if objects were too heavy, we offered three hot glue stations around the room. Because the three of us teachers were gluing a lot, it left little time for documentation and assistance to the kids. The robots turned out great though and everything is sticking tightly!

The preschoolers utilized the centers to experiment with robotic forms and narratives. The next project the kids took part in was a collaborative collage piece. After students found a partner, they worked together to collage robots out of pre-cut paper and paint markers on black posterboard. (Below is an example of the collage.)

Overall, the day's activities went well. We realized that we need to combine more of the centers' "play" with the activity "play." Students should always have the opportunity to build narratives in their work and we should give them the outlet to do so.

For our last Saturday school lesson, we are focusing on "community" in outer space. The centers will also be used for students to play with their artworks that they have made in the past seven weeks.

Personal Wearable

This Saturday, we introduced our last project: the personal wearable. In this project, students were to use all of the knowledge they accumulated in their performances, appropriation pieces, and personal utensils, to create their final personal wearable. Throughout the semester we focussed on different aspects of our identities, asking ourselves the questions: who are we as humans, as a community, and as an individual.

For this final project, students were to create a piece of artwork that served as an extension of themselves. How could students address the notion of identity via a continuation of the body? We introduced this project with a prompt: What is one thing that your friends do not know about you? After students answered this question, the class headed down to the wood shop to create a piece of wearable art that somehow addressed this question. Students were given the majority of the class for work time. Students will also have next week to work. Here are some images of our wood shop extravaganza...

Gracie sews a "life" vest.

Julia and Riley work collaboratively to build a wearable instrument

Claire creates a head piece

Conversations.

This week we talked about Dave DeVries and his book/website The Monster Engine. Our students created monstrous paintings based on the DeVries' idea. The students all worked really well and for once all of the students that were in class got a chance to complete the project given. While the students worked Steph and I walked around and talked with each of the students about their work. I had a spectacular conversation with one student who told me so much detail about his monster. It's broken up into 2 different videos because I after talking with him the first time I felt I needed to go back and get the rest of the story.

 

How to do effective demonstrations?

How to do effective demonstrations? Did you do enough? Did you do too much? Did you invite your students to involve in the demonstration? What do you wish you said or did more/less? Could you share some of your experiences with us please?

Shadow Puppets Part 2

This past Saturday, we began to work on the characters for our shadow puppets. We are using two different process in making our puppets. The first being a basic black silouhette. This process is great for doing scenery because it is able to be block out. There are a few students using this type of puppet making to create dark or evil characters. The second method we are using is with acetate. The students are able to add much more detail as well as color to their characters. Using acetate enables the students to recreate their original characters from their books exactly how it is seen on the pages. This method is cool because you are able to make moving joints by inserting a brand on the part you would like to move. Next week we pan to finish the scenery and props and possibly do a dry run. We did not encounter to many problems with the students grasping this activity. The main problems came with keeping a few students on task with what the rest of the class was doing.

[Who Did it]

       This week our detectives continued their work as profilers, and deepened their understandings of their [monsters]. Documentation of their investigation this week was in the form of miniature books. Class started with a [board meeting] in which each detective shared their individual cases and evidence collected this far, as well as how they believe it all comes together. The skills of their fellow detectives proved to be a big help when considering the possibilities of their collected [evidence]. After their board meeting the detectives were ready to start their miniature books, and began answering the questions on their handouts [-->>] with enthusiasm to explain who [The Monster that_______] really is. The miniature books acted as more of a work space for the detectives rather than 'final products' while still allowing the detectives to feel very accomplished at the end of the class. These miniature books also served as a brainstorming activity for their large scale [profiles] they will be creating for their large book collaborative project next week.

Utensil Day

WARNING: (If you are reading this now, please bare with me, my computer will not allow me to upload photos so I will do this before class on campus tomorrow morning. My apologies)

This Saturday, we worked for the first hour to finish our Appropriation Art Projects. Although not everybody fully completed their projects, we had a critique after the first hour. Each student had a chance to explain their pieces, its relationship to their community, and where they plan to display their work. Overall, I felt the critique was successful because everybody was willing to share and communicate in discussion.

For the second half of class, we introduced an introductory exercise called "The Utensil Project." Each student was to choose their favorite foods. After they decided their favorite foods, they were to create their own "personal utensils" to eat these foods. We explained that the utensil was to be an extension of themselves. How could they best eat this food? How could we see their personalities through this utensil? We took the students down to the wood shop and allotted 15 minutes for students to complete their utensils. This required that students to create their pieces as fast as possible. In the end, we resulted in some very interesting utensils: a crepe squeezer, rice slide, pizza holder, latkah shovel, and bagel necklace. Students seemed to really respond to this exercise, and I think this was because it gave them a chance to use humor and invention, and it allowed students to see quick easy results without too much time invested.

Next week, we plan to introduce our last project: the wearable. Each student is to create an extension of themselves via a wearable object. Throughout the semester we've been dealing with the big idea of "identity." Who are we as humans, a community, and an individual? So far, we have tackled the human and community. Next week will be our last stop: the individual. This week's utensil exersize served as an introductory exercise to this idea of the individual, and how we can create an object that describes us as a person.

Claytastic

Clay can be a wonderful,and forgiving medium for discovery. Last week Abby and I saw the initial structural challenges that students faced with clay building techniques and wanted to help them problem solve and accomplish their goals more this week. We tried to bring them all together again by providing a more collaborative demo. This was to get some students caught up with the help of those who were mastering clay. We saw growth and improvement along with complete disinterest. Ginger went from making a tiny solid form to a hallow fox with a realistic face. While Emerson danced and drew in the corner out of complete boredom. He made a cougar without a head. Also, there wasn't time for alterations or texture. Abby and I were too busy running around trying to help students patch holes and attach heads. I think this was a case where a base assessment would have helped us establish more appropriate goals. However, I feel like the high bar and hands on attention helped students learn a lot. Overall the theme of transformation didn't lie in the conceptual aspects but in the manipulation of the material. This is evident to us and some of the students, but not to others. Abby and I want to use the next to weeks to pull together all of the aspects of transformation and alteration and get everyone on the same page. What could be a lesson that makes multiple connections with self-transformation, animal transformation, and humans transforming the environment? What is the best way to start concluding Saturday School?

Patterning with Nature

This week's class transitioned to our last section in Relationships. For this week and next week, I am focusing on our relationships with the natural environment. In order to transition from the previous week's lesson (The Five Senses) to our first lesson dealing with the environment, I decided to work with clay, so that we could address things like sense of touch while introducing students to the environment.

I began the lesson with a discussion on patterns. After talking with the students in previous classes, I found out that many of the students have already talked about patterns in school. I used this to create a discussion with the students during our first talk of the lesson. During the discussion, the students were able to articulate what they thought a pattern was, as well as point out patterns in the classroom and also patterns in nature they were able to see from the windows. I tried to make the "lecture" part of this lesson a little more fun by turning things into games for the students. When I asked them what patterns they could see from the windows, they quickly got up and ran over to look out of them and shouted out what patterns they saw. Afterwards, to get them back to the carpet and back to paying attention to what I was saying, I made another game, where I would show the students close up images of patterns found in nature and the students were encouraged to yell out what they thought the close up image was. I was surprised that although this lecture/discussion was the longest one we have had yet (about 20 minutes) the students were attentive the entire time (for the most part.) I ended the discussion by explaining to students what we were doing for our art project of the day.

Our Patterning with Nature project consisted of students carving and imprinting patterns into 5" x 5" clay earthenware tiles. To do this, we split the class up into three groups, and each instructor took a group for a short walk outside to collect items from the environment to use to create their patterns in the clay tiles. Students collected things like leaves, pine cones, pebbles, berries, twigs, and other like items. After returning from our walk we had another discussion, this time on clay. It was interesting to hear how students thought clay was created and how people made pottery thousands of years ago before modern technology. Most of the students were right on with their answers. I wanted to tie in elements from art history, so one of the main things we talked about and looked at in this discussion was Jomon Pottery. The students seemed very interested in the images that I presented them with and had much to talk about with them, whether it was about how people made them, how they survived thousands of years to reside in museums today, and the patterns that they saw within the vessels.

Before the students began working on creating their patterns on the tiles, I did a quick demo of how they could go about using some of the items they collected. During this demo I covered a few vocabulary words that were written on the board. I went over what a pattern was again and also included words like texture and layering. After the demo, students went to their seats and began on their tiles. I thought it was fun that after teaching the students what the vocabulary words meant, I heard them using them when explaining their work to me. As students were beginning to finish up work on their tiles, I did another demo of how to apply white slip to their tile and sponge off the outer layer, resulting in a strong contrast between the red clay and what would be the white lines of their carvings.
As usual, some students finished up early, and we had a clay station set up as another option from their usual go to, which is sketchbooks. I was surprised how many students chose to continue working and experimenting with clay over returning to work in their sketchbooks. I even heard a few of them ask their parents if they could take pottery classes because they loved working with clay so much. A few of the students made things they really enjoyed, so I told them if they put their initials on their pieces, we would fire them, too so they could take them home. Another fun thing about the popularity of the station was that I was able to have another informal lesson at the station where I taught the students how to make pinch pots. Rouwa, Nicole and Casey all made pinch pots, and although they found it to be difficult at first, they were able to persevere and make tiny little pinch pots that they loved.

Everything in class seemed to go fairly smoothly and the students seemed to have a lot of fun with the project. Even Evan, our troublemaker, got into the project and kept himself occupied instead of wandering off and causing disruptions. One of the things I am struggling with though, is special treatment of students. As I was reviewing the video of my discussions, I noticed that I was giving Christina some kind of special attention. During the discussions, I noticed that although Christina has no problem talking about her work to her instructors, when she is placed in a discussion group she becomes really shy and kind of fall to the back of the group. I tried to provide her some scaffolding so she could answer some of the questions I addressed the class with, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing. The students already notice the special attention that Christina gets regarding her sketchbook, even often time asking myself, Allison, or Betsy why Christina gets to do certain things when they cannot. I don't know if giving Christina this attention during discussion is helping that situation at all.

Galactic Homes

This saturday was a great experience! We were scrambling at the last minuet to make sure our projects ran smoothly, but that extra effort really made a difference in how the children worked with their materials. The kids loved every minuet of it. This week the students worked collaboratively to create their own galactic city! Students grouped up in pairs and drew on canvas their own alien city. We were surprised to see that most of them stayed on ask and really thought about what an city in outer space would look like, the dialogue between the students was great. They also loved being able to work on a large canvas. Even though they were still drawing, working on a canvas made them feel great about their work because it was on a larger scale. The printmaking project also went amazing, a little messy, but great experience for not only the kids but for us as well. The kids were shocked to see how they drawings could be transferred onto colorful paper, not to mention, they loved rolling the ink onto their foam drawings. We all thought the project went well, however if we discussed that if we ever did this project again we would split up the printing station so the students had more room. Even though we only had one printing station it still went very smooth and some students even made two! Over these past couple weeks we are finally starting to let loose in the classroom and hang out with the students. On factor to this is the centers. The centers we have created have allowed us to take control of our classroom in a very fun way. When students finish projects early we are not worried about what they are doing. Instead, we know that they have fun interesting places to play while learning at the same time : ) All in all this week went well and we are all ready to make this Saturday even better.