A note from an ESL student...

Dear Miss M....

Thank you for teaching
me, you are bestest
artist, (I think ^U^)
Next year, I want
to be more good
student of you.
When I think you,
I think about M&M.
See Ya later!
P.S. tell your E-mail
buddy!


I'm not sure exactly what this letter means. Who is my e-mail buddy and what I'm supposed to tell him or her? Perhaps typing this up fulfills the student's request...

One year down!

There are so many things I did not blog about this year. If I get a chance this summer, I might write up some projects, though posting is becoming increasingly difficult from this part of the globe. (Thanks to my dad for finding a way for me to access blogspot!)

If I don't write up some projects, you'll have to hope I repeat it next year and take the time to blog about it on the second go-around.

During the last week of school, my efforts were focused on grading, returning artwork, and goodbyes. Some art classes were cancelled due to special activities. For the other classes, 3rd-5th grade, I had students fill out an exit-survey/year-in-review worksheet.

          The best part of art class is...
          My favorite project this year was...
          The most important thing in art is...
          When I think about next year, I hope we...
          In art class next year, I want to get better at...

I had a professor in college offer some wise words during an informal talk about his teaching experiences. I don't remember the exact quote, but he mentioned that you can't get your identity from your students, your self-worth from their opinion of you. I try to keep everything in perspective as the adult in the relationship, but I still desire to be a burst of light, source of love in their lives.


Reading these worksheets was encouraging, if not tear-worthy. Here are some exerts:


The best part of art class is...

when we are working on a projects (3rd grade)
drawing and making (3rd grade)
teacher is very kind (3rd grade)
painting (3rd grade)
Miss M (3rd grade)
i-pod and self portrait and all of the because I learned from Miss M. (3rd grade)
the teacher is king (3rd grade, ESL student---did she mean kind? she also filled out the talent show audition form saying she would be sining as her talent...)
talking (4th grade)
being with you! (4th grade)
it's fun (4th grade)
free drawing (5th grade)
we get to make lots of sculptures and projects (5th grade)
FUN!! (spending time with friends) (5th grade)
talking and concentrating on the picture (5th grade)
that I can finish quicker (5th grade)
that we don't have to fill out worksheets, we can make something (5th grade)


My favorite project this year was...

All of them (3rd grade)
weavings (3rd grade)
drawing cakes (3rd grade)
painting (3rd grade)
making sculpture (3rd grade)
paper mache bowl (4th grade)
all (4th grade)
painting the peaceful land (4th grade)
making lamps (4th grade)
umm...maybe the wire sculptures (5th grade)
the series thingny (5th grade)
our powerpoint posters (5th grade)
gridding (5th grade)
makign the wire person or the last project in the series with colored pencils (5th grade)


The most important thing I learned in art is...

to have self-control and work quietly (3rd grade)
how to blend color (3rd grade)
don't rush (3rd grade)
draw neatly (3rd grade)
to do your best job and be dilegent (3rd grade)
be neat and be awesom artist (3rd grade)
follow the teacher's directions (3rd grade)
paying attention to the projects (4th grade)
painting (4th grade)
about lights and decorating with lights (4th grade)
how to be an artist and painter (4th grade)
try (4th grade)
to draw some pictures creatively (4th grade)
ghost lines (4th grade)
designing (4th grade)
that we should love art (4th grade)
we can tell our thoughts by pictures (4th grade)
negative and positive space (5th grade)
that there are many things that you can do with art and they're all fun (to me sorta) (5th grade)
drawing or like the art history or maybe something like that or... (5th grade)
that there are even more types of art than I had thought (5th grade)
draw best as I can, express myself in the drawings (5th grade)
I don't know (5th grade)
how to design with computer (5th grade)
I learned how to draw contour lines (5th grade)
how to make a series (5th grade)


I could continue with the last two sentence stems, but most of those are "do more projects, get better at art, get better at drawing, paint, make sculptures, etc." Instead, I'll leave you with some portraits of yours truly. My students often decide to draw me, so here's a collection from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders.

These kids are awesome! If you know my wardrobe, you'll notice some distinctive pieces, such as my peacock blue mary jane style crocs...

Lamps!

One of my passions in teaching is integration. In 7th grade, my reading teacher told the class "you can read about anything, so I can teach you anything." Well he did, and since then, I've never forgotten the words mausoleum and gubernatorial.

My little sister is in his class this year. (We're ten years apart.) He's still up to his old reading tricks, and gave the same "I can teach anything" speech. My mom told me on Skype one day that it's the same for me. It's true! We can make art about ANYTHING! So how do I pick subject matter? I try to make it relevant to their lives, and often tie it to their classroom curriculum.

This takes a lot of planning. Unfortunately, it also takes effort on the part of the classroom teachers. If they don't talk to me about their units, I can't make connections. This year, I've sent a few e-mail pleas to the teachers---please tell me! I know it takes a few minutes of their time, but the reinforcement the students get in my class is DEFINITELY worth the effort!

One of those e-mails resulted in this project!

Fourth grade has a unit on electricity. Their teacher asked me "would you want to work with me to make lamps?"

YES!

I cannot claim to have taken any classes with Lyn Godley, but I did teach her son during my first student teaching placement. She came in and gave a presentation to the class about her lighting designs and the work of various KU students. The juniors then started a hanging light project, using IKEA pre-fab cords and making their own lampshades.

After a little brainstorming about the possibilities at our school with our students, Mrs. Early and I decided on a design. The fourth graders would discuss design and lighting in my class. Mr. Early (her husband and our facilities manager) would have his staff create wooden bases. The kids would wire the lamps in Mrs. Early's class. In my class, we'd make the paper shades and glue them to the wooden structure.

To introduce the art component, we discussed the difference between decoration and function. I pulled together a slide show of various lighting projects (compliments of Miss Emily and Miss Amanda: those are some beautiful lights you've made!). I even showed the movarian bell lights made by Miss Emily's elementary students during student teaching! When I got to Godley's crinkle lamp, I jumped over to a video on youtube about the lighting design by Godley and KU students for the outside of the Goggleworks. We ended the discussion by looking at various paper lanterns, including some rectangular lamps from
                                                                                              IKEA that looked quite similar to our basic design.

In the remaining classtime and the following week, the students created three possible designs for the lampshade. Our little mock-ups were quite simple---a half sheet of A4 copy paper (hotdog style) folded into four sections.

After all the designs were finished, we taped the open side together. Each student put their designs above three columns on another sheet of copy paper. The two rows were + compliments and - suggestions or concerns. I asked the students to think of at least one + and one - for each design.

Before the students read their sheets, I reminded them that these were not intended to hurt feelings. They should read all the ideas, think about them, but remember, they are just someone's opinion. They make the decision about which design should be implemented. (I didn't say implemented, but sometimes I miss using big words!)

If I'd been more careful in my planning, I would have designed the lamp size to correspond with the paper. Instead, I arbitrarily picked a size for the base. It was loosely based on the scrap of A4 paper I was sketching on and took into consideration the distance between the lightbulb and the paper. Unfortunately, when all was said and done, the long side of the paper was 1 or 2 cms too short to wrap around all four sides! Though it was frustrating, we made do by making three sides connected and a fourth separate panel.



Craftsmanship was very important in this project. I didn't have lots of extra paper for the shade. I told them the time to experiment was over. They made three designs already. Pick the best and make it carefully and neatly!

No starting again!

I also emphasized that this was THEIR light, for THEIR room. If they did a horrible job, it wasn't just their grade that would be affected. They wouldn't have an awesome project in their room, something in which they could take pride!

After the first day of coloring, we did a few tests. The shades looked best when the pencil side was facing out. Also, soft colored pencil was washed out by the compact fluorescent bulb.

As students finished, I worked one-on-one with them to glue the paper shades to the wooden dowels. The finished lamps looked fabulous!

While they wanted to take them home right away, there were a few things to happen first. One of Mr. Early's staff is an electrician by trade. He checked over their wiring before the projects made it to the artroom. He did a second check after the shades were finished. Also, Mrs. Early and I wanted the lamps to be in her classroom for Parent/Teacher conferences.

After a few days, the students finally got to take the lamps home. You should have seen the smiles as the students carried their projects to the bus that afternoon!

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.)

Drawings by PreK and Kindergarten

Back in August and September, my third graders drew portraits of their classmates. These were quick drawings, done using a template for facial placement, and modifying the template for the individual features. They drew in pencil first, and then colored it in with crayons. Over a few class periods, each student made about 5 drawings, and we stapled them together into a book. Two slices, above the eyes and below the nose, allowed three parts of the page to turn independently. We made some interesting combinations by only turning some of the parts...

So why am I mentioning this now? Well, the standard crayons created a problem when it came to skin color. The kids dug through all the old crayons to find three peach crayons. Other students used orange, yellow, brown . . . I decided I needed to get the Crayola Multicultural Crayons for next year.

I was able to order the crayons at the end of December. They arrived in early February. It was only a matter of time before I decided to use them. I broke them out one morning for the PreK class. We talked about the word family and what people we might draw in a picture of our family. One little girl really wanted to draw Kim Marie, the teacher's baby girl, but refused to draw her baby brother.

The part I was most curious about was skin choice. Each table had the standard eight colors intermixed with the 8 multicultural colors (six shades of brown, plus a white and black).

Some kids completely disregarded the skin colors and made their family purple, green, blue, etc.

Other kids carefully picked a shade of brown, usually on the lighter end.

Tony was funny. He drew his family members naked first, coloring them in completely with a skin color. When that was finished, he drew clothes on top of them with the standard eight colors.

Another girl cracked me up! Jessica's dad is Caucasian and her mom is Chinese. She and her sister both have black hair, but a lighter skin color than their mother(without the yellow undertones). She used black for hair and peach for skin when drawing herself, her mom, and her sister. When it came to her dad, she drew him using all yellow. Yellow skin, yellow hair. (He does have dirty blonde hair.)

Here are some of the drawings from PreK. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of Jessica's drawing.

The top right picture is Tony's, with clothing added afterwards. Underneath that picture, everyone in Isabel's family has VERY long legs! If you notice the names on those pictures, you might be confused. Rony? Rsabel? The class was learning about the letter R and practicing what their name would sound like if it started with the letter R.


















This week, I did the same activity with my kindergarteners. The families are great, but it was the drawings after the families that ended up being the most interesting!




I think Jerry's drawing of his family became the inspiration for the later drawings by the boys at his table.

I asked him about koa. What does this say? Korea. That was a duh moment for me. Of course. About 2/3 of our students are Korean.

The mention of Korea seemed to inspire Ted, another Korean boy.






World geography might not be the best subject for our kinders. Not surprisingly, Korea is huge! Even our middle schoolers have been known to let out a gasp when they see the actual size of Korea on a map.

I'm not sure about all the countries, but the first three on Ted's map were Korea, China (the C as the top) and India (the i at the top). Japan was added, along with more Korean islands and USA.






The Indian boy sitting between the two Korean boys decided to draw a globe as well. You can see that India grew in size a little in Swayam's map. It's also daytime in this world.

Jerry also joined the globe action for his free draw. Now each table had two sets of the standard eight colors and two packs of the multicultural colors. While the other boys were coloring their oceans (and using the only two blue crayons at the table), Jerry said "I need blue! Is there blue? Oh I have yellow!" and proceeded to color his ocean yellow.



As one of the other teacher's mentioned, we do live on the Yellow Sea (but it's not yellow).

Let's look at the countries on this world. Of course, there's large Korea and many Korean islands. We also have a J for Japan. As he was drawing, he said "oh, Merica!" and labeled an island with an M. Later, he added a U on another island for United States. At the top, there's this u/C thing. Maybe that's China. I forgot to ask about that.

What happened to India? Just check out the moon on the left, and you'll find two circles labelled I. I think the rocket may be in flight to India.





At another table, a European boy, William, drew an airplane for the hundredth time in art class. Whether drawing, painting, or making collages, he makes an airplane once or twice a month. He's quite good at drawing them. You can see all the people inside the plane as it lands. Our kids, being expats in China, are frequent travelers.

Other students began drawing ships, particularly pirate ships. Perhaps this is because the local expat group put on the pantomime Robinson Crusoe just a few weekends ago. Joseph asked me how to spell Robinson Crusoe. I honestly didn't know. I have to look it up every time!

(Side note: Having recently devoted a lot of time to learning pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, I have a terrible time sounding out long words when I'm trying to remember how to spell them! I was actually trying to spell Crusoe a few weeks ago and couldn't for the life of me figure out the last two letters! The long O sound in Chinese is spelled "ou" always, no exceptions. And the oe combination doesn't exist in pinyin, which might be one reason why I didn't think of it. Just now, I had to google it again and get the correct spelling from "did you mean robinson crusoe?")


Here are some more pirates!


















I love that the two boats on the right are waving the Korean flag! It shows up a lot in my students' artwork. Remember Christmas Tree Korea--made by Jerry's older brother, Fred.

(Did anyone notice Fred's name in Jerry's picture? I let Jerry sound out his brother's name. f is clearly spelled fa. Then an r, which looks more like a v, and a d. Missing the e and the awkward r makes his brother's name look more like Favd, not Fred!)

Back to the pirate ships, I can't figure out what happened with the two on the left. I don't think they were made by the same student. Why would one student redraw the same picture? They don't have names on them, but here's my guess. I think one girl was "inspired" by the pirate ship of the boy on her right, which is how they both ended up with nearly identical pictures.

Inspiration, a topic for a later post!