Sketchbooks, Sketchbooks Everywhere

Whew!  Two weeks of school done with...waaaay more to go.  I wanted to blog before now, but it's been super busy these last few weeks.  I am so ready for Labor Day weekend!

I've got a full load of 1st and 2nd graders this year (Other Art Teacher traded me some of her 1st grade classes), nearly as many 3rd graders and one 4th grade class, as per usual. (I'm sure they'll love being the only 4th graders--more stuff for them in centers.)  They're all pretty good classes so far, and my most troublesome is--thankfully--not troublesome in terms of misbehavior so much as being loud, excited, and bright.  They tucker me out, but it'll be a fun class all the same.

Back to the Grind

Well, this is it.  Tomorrow is the first day of school, and I'm running towards it full tilt boogie.

The last week and a half has been a whirlwind  of classroom prep.  I found out at the end of last term that I was going to be moving classrooms again and that I would be moving into the music teacher's room, as it has a sink.  Okay.  Student Minions, move my stuff!

The only problem?  The music teacher was out for knee surgery and had no idea.  Fast forward to now.

Workshops Aplenty

Every year, the entire school participates in something called "Brain-based Workshops".  These workshops are meant to stimulate our kiddos' brains and give them more focused support in certain subject areas.  Workshops range everywhere from mathematics to drama, depending on each teacher's choice.  I wasn't able to participate in this last year as I left in the afternoons to teach at the kindergarten, but I'm pumped up for it this year!

March Madness

It's funny, the last week or so, I've been feeling a lot more "awake" (which is ironic, considering some of the hours I keep) than usual.  I think I know the cause:  I started a lesson last week with my 2nd graders that I've been looking forward to for some time.

A wonderful thing, that enthusiasm.  I need to get more pumped about the other lessons I've been teaching, too, and stop feeling like an automaton.

The lesson is on Pysanky AKA Ukrainian Easter eggs.

When I was a kid, I used to watch Reading Rainbow.  (Is that still around?  I hope so; it was fantastic.)  One of the stories on the show was "Rechenka's Eggs", a story about an old woman who rescues a goose; the goose lays beautifully painted eggs as repayment for those it broke.  A very lovely story.  Afterwards, the show featured a segment showing the audience how the eggs are made.  I was (and still am) fascinated by how intricate and beautiful the eggs are.

When I was ordering supplies at the beginning of the year, I found the book in a supply catalog and got it.  As the 2nd graders are going through a pattern unit, I felt this would be an exciting project with lots of depth--culture, design, fun--and it's 3-dimensional, which the kids haven't really gotten to do yet, unless one counts the snowflake mobiles we created recently.

I can't, of course, provide 40 some-odd 2nd graders with real eggs, for various reasons, so I've decided to get plastic Easter eggs instead.  The eggs will be hot glued together, so as to survive the project as a whole egg, and then they will be gessoed white (gesso is canvas primer for any non-artists reading this--it's usually white and is thicker than normal paint, so it should provide a good working surface).  In lieu of dye, the kids will use tempera, and I'll apply a coat of spray varnish to give the eggs a glossy, finished look, which is also the final step for real Pysanky.

I haven't written out the entirety of the project's lesson plan, just what I need for this week and last, but I'll be hashing it out as I glue egg halves together this weekend.

When I'm not occupied by lesson planning, I've been playing catch-up with Art Sonia.  I signed up for it near the beginning of the year, but just never found the time to get any pictures taken.  I have a LOT of artwork to photograph, but I'm about half-way done.  I've got two more 1st grade classes to do and eight kindergarten classes.  Sadly, 1st and kindergarten each had about 3 times the finished work than 2nd or 3rd grade, as their projects have tended to be shorter in duration.  But I'll get it done eventually.

In other news, I'm still waiting to hear back from a Praxis III examiner.  I signed up at the beginning of last month to take the exam during March.  I won't be terribly put out if it gets pushed into April, as I know how swamped they are, but that's not going to stop me from checking up on them periodically.  I'd really like to get it over with, and I really kind of wanted to show off the Pysanky lesson.  Ah well.  Six to one, half a dozen to the other, as my father would say.

Going in Circles

Well I encountered a few more interesting challenges last week, and for once they didn't come from kindergarten. 

My lovely 2nd graders have been in the process of creating snowflake mobiles since just before we left for Christmas break.  Last week I had intended to finish the project off by having them tie all their snowflakes to a straw with fishing line.  It was, shall we say, terribly optimistic of me to assume this could be done quickly and cleanly in the span of 40 minutes.  Not. So. Murphy and I?  We're bossom buddies.  In either case, I'm going to need another day to wrap things up.

In one of my 1st grade classes, I had a particularly frustrating (and kind of sad) situation crop up.  The kiddos are using basic shapes to make robots right now.  One of my students wasn't drawing anything, pulling the old "I can't" card.  So I do my usual spiel about trying anyway, but still I get vehement (read: sullen) protestations.  The kid was adamant that all she could make were letters, which is totally bogus.  I suppose there's something about this particular project that is causing major brain blockage, because usually she will jump right in and start drawing stuff.

I tried everything I could think of (with twenty other children vying for my attention, at any rate).  I drew an example shape (we focused on a circle).  I made a dot-to-dot.  I even stooped so low as to guiding her hand for her, hoping she would get a feel for it.  I could barely get her to hold the crayon--all she would do is make a "c" and claim that was all she could do--even on the dot to dot. With the guided drawing, she completely relaxed  her hand to drop the crayon when we hit the c point.  She just STOPPED at near completion, and that was it.  Some of her peers tried too, but they weren't any more successful.  Maybe I should have tried an "o".  Sadly, I didn't think of that until it was too late.  Also, I'm hesitant to label it beligerence or a desire to get out of drawing; she's always very enthusiastic. 

At the moment, I'm stymied.  This week I'll be ready to try again, but...it's frustrating!

I have been incredibly remiss in regularly updating my reflections these last couple of months!  Shame on me.

It always seems that when I feel like there's something to reflect on and blog about, I never have immediate access to my blog.  I suppose it shouldn't matter; for example, at the moment of writing this entry, I am using Notepad, to be copy-pasted at a later time.  Doesn't seem all that difficult, I know.  But somewhere in the grand scope of things, it just didn't occur to me to do it, or it became an excuse not to write.  In short, I've been lazy.

But my New Year's resolution is to STOP--being lazy, that is.

The week following the holidays was quite slow and easy; the kids (all but one class) had earned free days for the 9 week period, so every class got to have free time while I kicked back and putzed around at my desk.  Not exactly the most stellar method of getting back into the swing of things.  It is now our second week back, and I have managed to kick some of the laziness in the butt.  I have some great lessons with my kids--unfortunately, I still end up dragging because I'm just not getting enough sleep.  Going to bed in a timely manner is perhaps my most difficult challenge!  But I've got to do it.

This week, my kids are doing the following:

K - Non-objective dot pictures.  They have a lot of fun with it, and it kind of builds on the book we read before the holidays (the Dot).  Today I even had a couple kinders who used the term as an answer to a question (correctly, if you don't count actually saying the word right), and I was thrilled to death!  I have no idea what I'm going to do with my 2-day a week kindergartners, but I have until Friday to figure it out.

1 - These guys are making ROBOTS.  They love robots, so dropping names like R2D2 and Optimus Prime or Bumblebee gets them all sorts of excited.  What this lesson involves is looking at a print of a robot sculpture I have (it is made from things like retro TVs--very cool) and identifying basic shapes therein.  Then we talk about how robots can look any way they want, not just humanoid, or rather "people-shaped", and how shapes could be put together in fun ways to make a robot.  Yesterday was the guinea pig class, and they got it, but there was a distinct lack of imagination and a lot more "copy completely or partially the teacher's example and the picture on the board and the stuff in Transformers".  I was a little disappointed, but it went okay.  Today though?  They blew my mind.  I did a demo on the board (and erased afterwords) and we talked about thinking.  In otherwords, think about what your robot looks like.  Can it fly?  Does it have arms?  A head or face?  Wheels?  Absolutely NO copying something they've seen before.  They had some incredibly detailed and imaginative robots at the end of class, and I can't wait to take these pre-sketches and make some awesome robots next week.

2 - Now, the second graders are probably completly exhasperated with me as we still have to finish the snowflake mobiles we started before the break.  Right now they are more snowflake and less mobile.  But we'll be finishing them up this week, and I will hang them from the ceiling (where they will likely remain right up until Spring Break, lol).k

3 - Third grade is currently in the midst of my "baby", that is, the unit I created as an assignment during my student teaching.  They are into the third and final project of the unit, the Laurel Burch project.  This week, we looked at and discussed some of the artist's work and discussed how she used color, line and pattern to convey emotion to the viewer.  We talked about themes, in this case friendship, and did a brainstorming worksheet.  On this worksheet, we all brainstormed 8 friendship action words like play and hug.  Then the kids had to assign each word an emotion and each emotion a corresponding color, line, and pattern.  Not everyone finished, but that will be for next week.  The backside of the worksheet contains two areas for pre-sketches, which they will be required to complete before they can start the drawing on their 12x18 paper.

In other news, the Challengers are once again challenging me--go figure.

My classes with them have not been as incredibly frustrating as they were before (this may be due to a return to a more, shall we say, hard-nosed approach wherein I give out sad faces and sad notes at the drop of a hat), but nonetheless, they frustrate me.  I don't know what it is about my kids, this class in particular, that makes me lose it and be all raised voice grrr.  But I do.  Today I had to kick out a child in my class--twice, no less--and it was the same one who got removed to the office for dumping 2/3 of my table supplies on the floor and throwing markers.  I started the class by dropping him outside the office as we passed because he was doing his usual messing with the other kids acting up thing and told him to come to class when he felt ready.  He came back about halfway through and got to work.  Had one marker thrown, but otherwise okay. 

Then he started acting up more, so he along with some others ended up with a sad face.  then he got a sad note and began to throw a small fit that included the shoving of my marker bin across the table.  Where it not for the presence of other kids around the table, it probably would have ended up on the floor.  this was about five minutes to the end of class, but I sent him to the office anyway to sit outside. he dragged feet all the way to the end of the cafeteria (so of course now I'm having to shout across the caf at him) and basically doing everything he can to not actually leave.  An aid happened to be going that way, and she had to walk him out.

Okay, so now I've got to settle the rest of the class (who always take any opportunity to chatter that they can) and get them lined up and back to their home room.  Goes just fine.  After this, I sat and talked with my little trouble-maker.  It didn't do much good, as he really couldn't get past the stage of crying and protesting that he didn't "want a sad note!"  I explained why he was getting one, but I'm not sure he actually payed any attention.  He really just didn't want one, and I don't think this particular kiddo really got why what he did was against the rules.

He is honestly my most challenging student as far as behavior goes.  And I know that I'm not handling it correctly.  Problem is, it's proving to be incredibly difficult to change how I behave when confronted with his misbehaviors.  Part of the problem is that the whole class is kind of wild, so taking the time to deal with one student seems to give them cart blanche to go wild.  But really, I just need to stop and breathe.  I need to THINK before I react. Gah.  Back to the drawing board.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

Today felt like Monday, and I am totally exhausted. There is every possibility this post will make little to no sense in places.  Hopefully I am awake enough to avoid that.  : p

So yes, I am doing a lesson on Where the Wild Things Are. And such a funny coincidence that I started just when the movie came out (which I still totally want to go see). The lesson was recommended to me by my mentor teacher from Internship, and I'm doing it with the kindergartners right now.

It's quite a lot of fun. Except for that class that got banned from painting FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR because they were so completely out of control. I'm talking about a child covered from head to toe in paint, paint on the floor, paint on the wall, the tables (and not the top) and chairs. Paint. Everywhere. Egad.

But I digress.

So, lots of fun. Today I had a pretty hyper class, so I did something different. We were reading the story, they were fidgeting badly. When it got to the part were the "rumpus" occurs, I suddenly decided that we would rumpus too. After I showed them the pictures, I told them to line up behind me, and we marched down the stairs into the cafeteria and had our own wild rumpus around the room.

It was very fun and the kids loved it. It also had the pleasant side effect of settling them down, especially when I told them that if they made good choices and worked hard, we'd do it one more time before they went back to their homeroom. And the walk back to class was spectacular! These kids are pretty noisy in the hall, but today? Total angels. Awesome, and a great way to end the day (not counting bus duty of course). Now I'm wishing I'd thought of it earlier so that all my classes could enjoy it. There's next year, I suppose.

On another note, I totally feel like I'm getting back into the groove of lesson planning. When I sit down and really think about a good, involved project, I plan in units. After all, I have to have lessons building up to that great project I want to do! I can happily lay this revitalization at my fellow art teacher's feet, as she was the one who prompted me about my planning process, and because yesterday was an in-service day, I had plenty of time to get my brain jump started and plan.

I started with 3rd grade, as they needed a new lesson for next week. Somehow, my brain got caught on abstract art, and now I have a whole unit (comprised of 4-5 projects) all mapped out and am extremely pleased. All I have to do now is flesh out each individual lesson. I'll say more about the actual lessons after I've worked on them more.

I decided to precede the unit with my much smaller Laurel Burch unit to give the kids an introduction to some of the concepts the abstract unit will cover, like communication through line and color (hopefully I will not be lazy and upload the lesson plans this weekend). Since the LB unit will take about 5-6 weeks (I've got them for 40 minutes a week), I'll have plenty of time to work on the new unit. I'm excited and raring to go on it and the other grade levels!

Homework Lasts Forever

Wow. It’s the seventh week of school already, and while I have settled into something of a routine, I still feel like a rank amateur. I’m sure I will for some time to come. As the days fly by, I have, however, come to realize that yes, I do love this job. (Despite the difficulties with certain classes, there are many more enjoyable moments.) We’ll see if this attitude holds for the rest of the school year.

These last few weeks, I haven’t been reflecting through writing as much as I should have been, but I have been thinking things over a lot. I’ve gotten at least a few areas of improvement pinned down (and fodder for the Professional Development Plan we’ll be required to hand in soon), especially in the area of lesson planning and classroom management.

Back when I was in college (as though that was so much longer than half a year ago) I was accustomed to a heavy workload. I took 17-18 hours a semester, spending my days and evenings working on papers and in the studio and studying for tests. I also was working to keep my academic scholarship, so good grades were doubly important. Now that I’m no longer in school, things are a little different.

It seems that there is a place in your brain that says around this time of year, “Shouldn’t I be turning in something? Do I have a test coming up?” For a while, your mind is stuck in the habit of being a student, hard to break after so many years. But there is a larger part that says, “Woo-hoo! No more school for the REST OF MY LIFE!” It is exultant. And there is something about that which makes you want to become utterly lazy. I don’t even have to create those monster lesson plans that we all have to use for our education courses, much less write up a detailed and thoughtful reflection – all of which were graded.

That’s not to say that I’m not putting any effort into my duties as a teacher—I am. But I could be working more efficiently, putting more thought into the week’s lessons. I utilize a great deal of lesson plans from other teachers. A few are my own, and I don’t expect that to change over night. As I learned during my student teaching, creating a meaningful and successful lesson plan or unit takes a lot of time and effort. I don’t have time to create one for every class all at once. It has to be gradual.

But when I am creating a lesson, or pulling ideas and giving them flesh, I still need to sit down and really plan out how it’s going to work. What are we going to talk about? What skill will we learn? In what order should things be presented?

It’s like I am flying by the seat of my pants.

It’s really hit home this week. My third graders started still lifes this week. I’ve never actually done still lifes with elementary kids before—or anyone for that matter. But I thought, “Hey, how hard can it be? I did them all the time when I was a student!” The problem is that I underestimated a third grader’s capacity for sheer bullheadedness. They ask you why and what the point is. They complain about their inability to draw whatever objects you have laid out. I didn’t take into consideration that they need to really build up to something like this. Drawing real objects can be tough for an adult artist, much less a child who may be still gaining control of their fine motor skills.

Thankfully, I can learn from my “guinea pig” classes. For the next class, instead of jumping right into the actual still life, we did exercises to help ease them into it. I also changed the objects being used. Because it’s fall, and I was at Wal-Mart anyhow, I picked up two of those cute mini pumpkins you see, a regular orange one and a white and orange striped one for variety. Their shapes are fairly easy to see and draw: an oval and a circle, ignoring the stems. Hopefully, this will bring the project down to a level that is easier to succeed at for my students, all without sacrificing the skills and ideas I am trying to teach them.

But again, this just hammers in that I really need to focus on planning better. I need to go step by step and consider, “Will this work?” I even need to plan out what I’m going to say—to a point. In other words, I need to pretend like I’m still in college, and these lesson plans are for a grade.

In a way, they are--intangibly. I’m being graded every time one of my students succeeds or fails, and I’m being graded on whether or not I did everything I could to help them succeed. If I haven’t, I’m already failing.