So, week one of my comics workshop.
It was kinda stressful but slowly got better. Day one was by far the worst. The kids in my workshop are by and large good kids, and I know most of them. However, I do have some large personalities (and large voices). That first day was kind of a nightmare, honestly. One boy, who had some behavior issues last year--nothing bad--has been hit with fourth grade attitude. He was all around loud and rude, and made more than one comment about cartoons being stupid (or something to that effect--it's kind of hard to remember thanks to being upset). He and a few other kids were just plain obnoxious for the entire hour.
This behavior threw me completely off kilter because I was already kind of floundering. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, even though day one was supposed to be relatively easy, with a kind of meet and greet, this is what we'll be doing plan going on. I was generally just out of sorts and not doing very well at getting the group on task.
It upset me enough that I thought about that child and that class for the rest of the day. I mean, the very rest of the day. I didn't manage to get to sleep until sometime after 1am. Fortunately, I was able to rally the next day and nipped those problems in the bud (mostly--my kiddos love to talk). I had a better plan and, later, a seating chart to top it off. They didn't much care for that, but it keeps certain students separated so they can work more diligently.
So, week one wasn't entirely a success, but things have been steadily improving. I learned quite a few things about keeping my cool and not letting my joy be diminished. (This is a concept I read about in the last issue of New Teacher Advocate I received. Very interesting read.)
The kids each have a paper portfolio to keep their work in. I took some sheets of 18x24 drawing paper, folded them in half and stapled them, lacking any sort of poster board or even manila folders (which our Walmart no longer seems to carry, grrr). Most of the week was spent going over some basic comics history and talking about tools used for cartooning. On the project side of things, we made sketchbooks. Which was a long, long, process, but turned out alright in the end. Although, the last ones didn't get finished until today. Even for me, punching holes and keeping them lined up was a bit difficult, and it was more so for the kiddos. But everyone has their own 60 page sketchbook now, which they seem excited about.
On a side note, if you are talking to your students about flash animation and can't find any actual animations to show them, the Hoops and Yoyo greeting cards are fantastic. The school firewall doesn't block them, they are great examples of flash, and the kids think they're hilarious. (I think they're hilarious, too! ;D )
This week is a bit more fun I think, as we are getting more into the hands on stuff. Because there are P/T conferences tomorrow, school will be out early and we'll have inservice on Wednesday. So, only three days of workshop this week, but it works out okay.
Today we talked about main and secondary characters and what makes a good character. The kids have learned some of this for writing, so there were some good answers. We also talked about the fact that characters don't have to be people. I cited Courage the Cowardly Dog and Transformers for examples. I even touched on turning an inanimate object into a character. (One of the kids created Ms. Pole, the talking light pole, which was great.) They brainstormed about an original character, things like looks and personality, job, likes and dislikes, and generally whatever they could think of. This was followed by sketching their character out and figuring out the visual design. The final part of this will be to draw their character on a piece of drawing paper and generally make a complete final portrait, which most of them will have to do on Thursday.
After this, we're going to touch on drawing objects, particularly the ones a character might interact with, and environments/backgrounds. Later on in the workshop, we'll get more in depth.
Now for something completely unrelated, I have to teach a lesson this week on procedures in the painting center to ALL of my classes. There has been an increasing amount of misuse of materials and some heinous messes created lately (at clean up time no less), so it's time for a recap. I'm thinking it's not such a bad idea to remind the kids about procedures this time of the year, anyway. A refresher never hurt anybody, and it may keep my classroom from turning into the site of a nuclear meltdown (which would be the mess plus my lost temper).
It was kinda stressful but slowly got better. Day one was by far the worst. The kids in my workshop are by and large good kids, and I know most of them. However, I do have some large personalities (and large voices). That first day was kind of a nightmare, honestly. One boy, who had some behavior issues last year--nothing bad--has been hit with fourth grade attitude. He was all around loud and rude, and made more than one comment about cartoons being stupid (or something to that effect--it's kind of hard to remember thanks to being upset). He and a few other kids were just plain obnoxious for the entire hour.
This behavior threw me completely off kilter because I was already kind of floundering. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, even though day one was supposed to be relatively easy, with a kind of meet and greet, this is what we'll be doing plan going on. I was generally just out of sorts and not doing very well at getting the group on task.
It upset me enough that I thought about that child and that class for the rest of the day. I mean, the very rest of the day. I didn't manage to get to sleep until sometime after 1am. Fortunately, I was able to rally the next day and nipped those problems in the bud (mostly--my kiddos love to talk). I had a better plan and, later, a seating chart to top it off. They didn't much care for that, but it keeps certain students separated so they can work more diligently.
So, week one wasn't entirely a success, but things have been steadily improving. I learned quite a few things about keeping my cool and not letting my joy be diminished. (This is a concept I read about in the last issue of New Teacher Advocate I received. Very interesting read.)
The kids each have a paper portfolio to keep their work in. I took some sheets of 18x24 drawing paper, folded them in half and stapled them, lacking any sort of poster board or even manila folders (which our Walmart no longer seems to carry, grrr). Most of the week was spent going over some basic comics history and talking about tools used for cartooning. On the project side of things, we made sketchbooks. Which was a long, long, process, but turned out alright in the end. Although, the last ones didn't get finished until today. Even for me, punching holes and keeping them lined up was a bit difficult, and it was more so for the kiddos. But everyone has their own 60 page sketchbook now, which they seem excited about.
On a side note, if you are talking to your students about flash animation and can't find any actual animations to show them, the Hoops and Yoyo greeting cards are fantastic. The school firewall doesn't block them, they are great examples of flash, and the kids think they're hilarious. (I think they're hilarious, too! ;D )
This week is a bit more fun I think, as we are getting more into the hands on stuff. Because there are P/T conferences tomorrow, school will be out early and we'll have inservice on Wednesday. So, only three days of workshop this week, but it works out okay.
Today we talked about main and secondary characters and what makes a good character. The kids have learned some of this for writing, so there were some good answers. We also talked about the fact that characters don't have to be people. I cited Courage the Cowardly Dog and Transformers for examples. I even touched on turning an inanimate object into a character. (One of the kids created Ms. Pole, the talking light pole, which was great.) They brainstormed about an original character, things like looks and personality, job, likes and dislikes, and generally whatever they could think of. This was followed by sketching their character out and figuring out the visual design. The final part of this will be to draw their character on a piece of drawing paper and generally make a complete final portrait, which most of them will have to do on Thursday.
After this, we're going to touch on drawing objects, particularly the ones a character might interact with, and environments/backgrounds. Later on in the workshop, we'll get more in depth.
Now for something completely unrelated, I have to teach a lesson this week on procedures in the painting center to ALL of my classes. There has been an increasing amount of misuse of materials and some heinous messes created lately (at clean up time no less), so it's time for a recap. I'm thinking it's not such a bad idea to remind the kids about procedures this time of the year, anyway. A refresher never hurt anybody, and it may keep my classroom from turning into the site of a nuclear meltdown (which would be the mess plus my lost temper).
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