First Grade Self-Portraits

Remember that time I went to Shanghai for a "business trip?" It was such a refreshing weekend! I came back with lots of ideas for projects (like that awesome batik process) and connections to many other art teachers at international schools.

Another project I incorporated right away was a first grade self-portrait seen at Shanghai American School. We learned the word portrait, then began drawing our face step-by-step together. Oval face, eyes in the middle, L nose, flattened M and U for the mouth, strong necks (no lollipops!), and broad shoulders. Don't forget the eyebrows and ears!

When finished with their pencil drawings, they traced their lines in black marker. Next, we read The Colors of Us and tested Crayola Multicultural Crayons to find matching skin tones. Looking at four self-portraits by Albrecht Durer in The Art Book for Children, we noticed backgrounds as a way to tell more about ourselves. The students added drawings of their toys (real or the ones they want) in the background. Some also added bits of a room and family members. Lastly, they worked on nice coloring for their clothing and background.

Some of the pictures below were taken before students finished coloring their self-portraits. I am so pleased with the results!

(masterpieces) Ugly Doll

Do you remember these guys from my first year teaching? This masterpiece comes from the same lesson.

(teacher's note) First grade learned about Uglydolls, a brand of toys created by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim. Before they got married, David drew a silly creature on the bottom of a letter to Sun-Min. Sun-Min sewed a stuffed animal of the guy, named Wage, and sent it back to David. Ten years later, they have created many different “ugly” but lovable stuffed animals. Tom named his ugly doll “Crazy Horse Ugly Doll.” He wrote that he loves his ugly doll because “I mad(e) this Ugly Doll.” After the projects were finished, first grade read You are Special by Max Lucado. Punchinello, the main character, learns that he is special because Eli, the woodcarver, made him, and Eli doesn’t make mistakes. Like Tom’s ugly doll and Punchinello, the first graders acknowledged themselves and others as individuals created with intrinsic value (one of the Emotional ESLRs).

(masterpieces) Eric Carle Collage

(teacher's note) 1st grade learned about texture: soft, fuzzy, bumpy, slippery, rough, and more. Artists can draw and paint texture! Eric Carle creates his own texture paper to use for his storybook collage illustrations. 1st graders used a monoprinting process to create texture papers, scratching and brushing textures into their paint and then printing it onto papers. The beautiful papers were then used to create a collage! Jason made a great little house. Check out the texture on the roof and the doorknob.

(masterpieces) The Outer Space Construction Place 2010

(teacher's note) This masterpiece was a group effort by Mr. Hedrick’s 1st grade class! Over two weeks, they learned the steps to making a great piece of art: sketch, create, adjust, display. After generating ideas together and sketching, they settled on an outer space theme for their mural. The students had so many ideas about real and imaginary things in outer space. Can you find all the planets? Some other items include the asteroid belt, meteors, space ships, aliens, dwarf planets, and stars! At the beginning of the second week, they decided what they needed to adjust, or change, to make their mural even better. Lastly, it’s time to display their work. See if you can find the mural, The Outer Space Construction Place 2010, on display as you walk around campus. It is quite large—90cm by 245cm. Great job students!

Inspired!

Inspired has taken on a new meaning in my family. Copied, a fake version, knock-off, etc. On my last post, I showed some "inspired" work by my kinders. It is certainly a crisis with my students---many youngsters have lost their creativity, their imagination!

When they are given the option of "free-draw" (usually at the end of a class or end of a lesson, should the students finish early), some of my students cannot figure out what to draw. I remember being impressed the first time I saw a student take one of my art books and sketch a famous piece of art into their sketchbook. Now I've realized these poor youngsters just can't come up with an original idea!

As an art teacher, though, my lessons are far from original. I'm often "inspired" by the lessons of other art teachers. Recently, I've discovered the pletora of art teacher blogs---wow! What's more fun is catching up with Miss Emily and hearing about her lessons. During Christmas break, she shared with me some successful lessons.

Her first grade lesson on Ugly Dolls was a hit, in both countries!

Have you heard of Ugly Dolls?

I hadn't. What started as a little sketch on love letters turned into a successful toy line!

I started the lesson by reading a classic, Where the Wild Things Are. We talked about monsters and how we visual identify them. This led to talks about beauty and ugliness. Would they want a toy that was ugly? Introduce Ugly Dolls! My kids loved that the letters started because the lady went back to Korea for a period of time. We looked at various Ugly Dolls and talked about what made them ugly (one eye, long arms, etc.). Overall, we found most of them to be kind of cute! There's definitely a charm to these creatures...

The kids then proceeded to draw their own Ugly Doll using crayons on bright colored paper--orange, turquoise, lime green, and purple. Miss Emily used construction paper crayons, so her crayon markings are more vibrant.

(Construction paper crayons are on the list for next year!)

Next, the student cut out their creation. Turning it over, they tore up small pieces of paper towel, crumpled it, and glued it to the back of their guy. When the back was covered, we glued it to another sheet of paper and they cut around the edge. (I found it's best to insist that the students stop the paper towel one centimeter from the edge. This makes the gluing process much easier and neater.)

As my first graders finished their dolls, I gave them a small sheet of paper with stem sentences (the first part of a sentence). They named their Ugly Doll and explain why they loved it.

We finished class (the second day) by reading You Are Special by Max Lucado. Like many of his books, it is an allegory. Punchinello, a wooden Wemmick, eventually discovers that the man on the hill loves him because he made him, and that's why Punchinello is special. The man made him just the way he is! Punchinello does not need to worry about what the other Wemmicks think of him...when they think he's awkward and clumsy. It doesn't matter.

While there wasn't a "right" answer for the stem sentences, one student's response fit perfectly with the book! He wrote "I love my Ugly Doll because I made I love you and cute you are so good." All the students loved their Ugly Dolls because the dolls were their creation!

I was quite cruel to Tuesday's class and insisted they leave their Ugly Doll in my classroom. (Honestly, they never take artwork home on the day they make it!) I took pictures of the dolls with the stem sentences. On Thursday, I couldn't say no to the kids, so I just took a group picture before they took them home!


I'd love to tell stories about each doll. They are all so unique!

In the group photo, the middle boy in the front row actually had enough time on the first day to draw two Ugly Dolls. When it came time to glue the first doll to a new sheet of paper, he decided to use his second doll as the back! He has a double-sided doll! So creative!

Other dolls remind me of their creator! This one, in particular, just makes me think of the little boy that made it. He's the artist of The Pilgrim Snowmen from December!

(Click on the pictures to see them larger.)

Why does Miss M need a fireplace?

Ok, I'll give away the correct answer in the beginning. It's for the lower elementary (PreK-2nd) Christmas program. The setting is a living room...kids in pajamas, listening to a bedtime story. Clearly, a fireplace would help set the stage.

The fireplace was constructed last week (through our facilities department), but with the upper elementary (3rd-5th) Christmas program last Friday, I had NO TIME to paint the wooden structure.

Suddenly, it was this week, and we needed the fireplace ready for 10:30 am, Wednesday.

I managed to get a beige basecoat completed on Monday. That left the stones for Tuesday.

Tuesday is also my heavy load for teaching. I threw the dress code out the window and wore painting clothes all day long. Between classes, and even during classes, I painted! The typical routine: explain to the students why I have the fireplace and why I need to work on it, start them on their project, and then get back to painting! Some second graders finished their project early and wanted to help. The inside black and top brown are complements of that class!

My last class of the day was 1st grade. I wasn't finished with the stone, but I knew I could not paint during that class. Those kids demand my whole attention!

Retelling the story later, I described the fireplace as the elephant in the room. That's completely the wrong phrase. Sure, it's the big thing in the middle of the room, but EVERYONE is talking about it!

I got first grade seated and quiet as quickly as possible. It was time to start the spiel. Raise your hand if you can tell me what that it? Since most of my kids are non-native English speakers, they don't know the English word "fireplace." Instead, I get the word fire, accompanied by hand motions and sound effects! Yes, in English, we call that a fireplace.

and WHY does Miss M need a fireplace?

The most popular answer was "to be warm." It may be cold in our school, but this fake wooden fireplace is not a solution to that problem!

Answer number two, from Justin, the creator of the pilgrim snowmen below, "so Santa can come and bring you presents!"

As every first grader knows, I live in my classroom. And how is Santa going to find me all the way around the world in China? Clearly, I need a fireplace. It made perfect sense to him! (Never mind the fundamental structural differences between this faux fireplace and the real-deal, namely a chimney!)

















Sitting on the ground, doing some finishing touch-ups!

Snow Family

To say my mom likes Snowmen would be an understatement.

Christmas decoration in my house consist of LOTS of snowmen. The best part about the snowmen collection, was, even though the tree and nativity get put away in January, the Snowmen sometimes make it all the way into February! Recently, Momma Mel has been getting restless and started packing them up sometime in January, but there's still hope...


I decided to do some snowmen projects with my students. I didn't quite get all our fall-themed projects finished in time for appropriate display around school. At least if these projects were Winter, and not specific to Christmas, they could be displayed in January and February!

I found this book in the library called Snow Family. Not a classic, but it's cute and rhyming! Who doesn't love a rhyming book? So fun to read aloud!

The concept is that this little boy's parents take care of him, tie his scarf, kiss his cheek, and put him to bed at night. Yet all the Snow Kids have no parents to take care of them! They run around the fields, laughing and playing, but lose a mitten here, a boot there...

After running around the woods with the Snow Kids, the boy decides he needs to make them a Snow Mom and Dad to take care of the Snow Kids!


We read the book one week and then started the drawings. A small part of our last project was with oil pastel, so this drawing continued their exploration of the medium. The last project was on white paper, emphasizing the oil/water resist possibilities with oil pastel and watercolor. This time, we focused on their opacity---being able to color white, yellow, pink on DARK BLUE PAPER! Working with oil pastels is like doing a magic trick with crayons to these kids!

I told the first graders they were to draw their whole family as snowpeople. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, pets. Anyone in their family!

How would we be able to tell who was the Mom and who was the Dad? What they're wearing, what size they are, and some of the kids took it upon themselves to label their snowpeople...

This week was their second and final day of the project. Just a quick exploration of symbolism and oil pastels. Here are some of the results!


















I like to call this one The Pilgrim Snowmen. Especially before he colored the hats in with light blue, these snowmen looked like they were ready for a Thanksgiving feast! It's hard to tell, but the guy on the right has a gold buckle on his hat! This boy's family is actually 5 people. Notice the two smaller snowmen in the background. Dad's the one wearing a Santa hat, and does the guy in the middle have a sheriff's badge?

















These snowmen are "country folk." A little cowboy hat and vest? Mom's wearing a sweet straw hat with a flower attached. The cloud of action on the right represents the three siblings. "We're fighting" she told me. Notice how she labeled the boys with their names and a blue heart, and the girls with pink names and hearts!


















To continue the trend of fighting, this girl told me her mommy and daddy were on one team, she was on the other, and they were throwing snowballs at each other! To be fair, there was a snowball fight in the book. Look at her mom's eyelashes! I told her I can tell how beautiful her mom is because of her pretty eyes!



















Here's your last snow family picture. This is actually a stop-action movie, all on one page. Early animation! The first thing he animated was the sun. It's actually just one sun, he told me, not three. The arrows show how it moves across the sky. The green under the white along the bottom of the page is the grass, as the sun melts the snow. Then he added an arrow from his snowman into the house. He told me he was only dressed up as a snowman, then he took off his costume and walked up the stairs. The last bit of animation---the fireplace with the smoke going up and out the chimney!

Painting!

This morning, my principal asked about my work load.

Is is too much? You're teaching PreK-5th grade.

I found the question quite timely. Just last night, I told my mom that I'll never be able to teach in the States.

What are you trying to tell me? she asked.

I reassured her that these almost two months had not turned me into a life-er, as they're called. For now, I'm here, and since I'm here, my energy is focused on here. Decisions about my life after June 2010 will come later.

But this is what I was saying...

I am SO SPOILED (or spoilt, as the Brits would spell it).

Let me reiterate, if you don't remember, my "full load" involves teaching 13 classes a week. Those 13 classes, each has a class size of 7-15 students! On top of all of this, Mrs. Greene and I work with the art teaching assistant, a local Chinese woman who has been at the school for 4 years. She is in the classroom for most of my classes, providing another set of adult hands, along with helping purchase and prep materials.

Yesterday, I painted with 9 first grade students during the last period of the day. We had about 15 minutes between classes. It was just enough time for me and Mrs. Yang to set up 9 painting stations, fully equiped with water, paper towels, two paintbrushes, a 15x20 sheet of paper, and a palette with red, yellow, blue, and white paint.

Side note: My students were so excited to paint this week that one student brought paintbrushes from home! Waiting to come into the room in the hallway outside the classroom, another student commented "but she only has 7 paintbrushes!" I assured him that I had paintbrushes too, and every student would get a paintbrush, even if she didn't have enough for everyone in class...

At the end of class, I took the students to the bathroom next to my classroom to wash hands. (My classroom sink isn't classroom friendly.) When I came back to the classroom, clean-up was well underway.

Paintings were on the drying rack.
Tables were wiped down.
Water buckets were rinsed out and drying.
Palettes and brushes were collected, and she was cleaning them all in the classroom sink.

At the end of the day, I painted with an entire class of 1st graders, all class period, and did not wash out a SINGLE paintbrush.

Painting is typically a labourous undertaking for an art teacher.

It's quite easy at my school. Mrs. Yang and I, we have it covered.

I am so thankful, and my students will truly reap the rewards. They LOVE painting!


Today, I painted with 7 PreK students. It was the second week in a row of painting for them. You should see the learning! Given limited paint options (teacher-planned, of course), they make such discoveries...

Last week, each student had one cup of paint---the color of the table where they sit. Then, they worked with a friend from another table with a different primary color. I moved their seats around so we had one red-yellow pairing, one yellow-blue pairing, and one blue-red pairing. (One student was absent, so we had six students exactly.) Each group had one long sheet of paper. They took turns making dots on the paper in a line. As their classroom teacher told me, they were working on basic sequencing. Every other made a nice alternating pattern along the paper.

Next, I gave each pair a palette. Each person was supposed to put some of their color on the palette, then MIX IT TOGETHER!

Nevermind the fact that their classroom teacher had already taught them about green, orange, and purple. They even predicted what color would happen when each combination was mixed, still, actually mixing the colors on their palette...

IT WAS MAGIC.

You should have been there. There's no way to put into words the excitement of a four year old when they first mix together blue and yellow and see that it really does make green!

They were blown away. For the remainder of the class, each student painted their own 15x20 sheet of paper using their color and the color of their friend. We had trains, flowers, faces, birds, and a student who just covered the entire surface, systematically, from corner to corner, with yellow-orange paint. The great thing is, the large sized paintbrushes combined with their developing fine motor skills meant that most of the objects just looked like blobs of paint! But they were trains and flowers, faces and birds.

This week, I wanted to build on those experiences. I knew their teacher recently introduced them to the color white. This would allow for new mixing opportunities...

When the students came into class, their places were all ready except for paintbrushes. This was my attempt to stop them from painting until I gave my intro.

It didn't work. Two students just put their hands directly into the palette of white paint.

After brief encounters with paper towels, we were ready to get started.

What color is your paint today. White! And what color is your paper? White! Oh no. How is that going to work? White paint on white paper? What should we do? We need another color! Good idea! Everyone can pick ONE color to add to their palette.

Last week, we mixed colors with our friends. What will happen if we mix our color and white?

No one knew, so we needed to try it!

Another amazing moment, as students around the room found light blue, light yellow, and pink. Gasps, literally gasps, and huge smiles.

So adding white makes a color lighter...

And pink, as I explained, is a special name we use to talk about light red.

My intention was to have them paint with those two colors---white and the color they chose. One student requested another color. I decided two primaries and white would be fine. There's no chance of all-brown paintings with just two primaries.

I let each student pick a second primary color. The color mixing that ensued was so fun! Look for some PreK paintings to be posted in the future...

I was thinking tonight, at this point in time, seven years ago, I wanted to be a preschool teacher. I was just starting high school and wasn't serious about art. I didn't sign up for Art 1, only the ceramics elective.

I still love teaching PreK. I am so glad their class got added to my workload. But I love the other grades too. Surprisingly, I even loved my high schoolers at Fleetwood and my middleschool and highschoolers at Stoke Damerel. I hope to have more interaction with secondary students at our school as time goes on and the program develops.

I love kids of all ages, and I love teaching. But teaching art is definitely a blast! I wouldn't want to trade it for any other subject...just look at the faces of my first graders as they line up outside of the art room, eager to come in and start painting!

I see the other first grade class tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait to see their excitement!

An Infestation of Ladybugs!

Today I made my first mistake as a teacher.

Okay, it probably wasn't my first mistake, but it is noteworthy.

I was teaching the other batch of first graders, so I was doing the same lesson on favorite colors (see first day post). Here was the mistake: The students had already selected the crayon that was their favorite color, but I didn't pay attention to the colors they had selected. Instead, I randomly chose red as my example. I explained that ladybugs are red, but to draw a ladybug, you would also need to use the black crayon. Then I drew a simple picture of a ladybug on the whiteboard.

Last week, I deliberately chose a color that NO STUDENTS had picked. This week, I didn't notice that two of the nine children had picked red.

Guess how many ladybug pictures I ended up with?

Not two. Twice that many. FOUR.

Yes, even though only two children choose red as their favorite color, two others managed to work a ladybug into their picture. Beach scenes with ladybugs, flowers with ladybugs. It almost didn't matter what you drew, you could add a ladybug to your picture and make it better!

It is quite flattering to have so many students follow your example, but five ladybugs doesn't contribute to the goal of developing independent thinkers. Maybe we can work on that next week...