Documenting student work

I think that it is important to document student work, especially when it comes to creative endeavours such as art. The smiles on the students' faces in this photo and the pride evident in their eyes is reason enough to keep a digital camera in your classroom. After photographing groups of students, I printed these photos on the school's colour printer, laminated them, and displayed them on the chalkboard. The students loved it and a number of them requested copies that they could keep.

Class pumpkin carving

I bought 10 pumpkins and carving kits from Save-on and had students bring in the rest. This ensured that all the students were able to take part in the pumpkin carving activity. It was very messy but the students absolutely loved it. It is nice doing this type of activity with grade seven students - they relished the autonomy and responsibility in carving their own pumpkin and I was pleasantly surprised that many cleaned up their area without any prompting on my part! I would be hesitant to do this with younger students as I think it would be much more time consuming (the set-up, carving, and clean-up only took 75 minutes for our class) and there would be a greater demand for adult supervision and help. Still, with enough parent support and planning, I think it would be a fun activity to do with a primary class.

Halloween buddies

This is a picture of the art activity I did for buddy time the week of Halloween. It was a quick lesson (30 minutes) but both the grade sevens and grade twos really enjoyed working together. While observing, it was difficult to determine who was benefitting the most - the older or the younger buddies. As well, I was happy to see that a number of grade seven students took home a piece of art work that they made during the class.

Community Links

This is a picture of a floor hockey game I organized during the final week of my practicum. I had the Midget AAA hockey team I coach come in and play a game of floor hockey at lunch hour versus my grade seven class. Prior, our team captain and assistant gave quick speeches introducing the team and talking about the positive life choices and sacrifices that were involved in playing at a high level of sport. I think that everyone involved enjoyed the game. It benefited everyone's self-esteem. From an organizational standpoint, it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Getting the permission from all the necessary people (principals, parents) went smoothly and a couple of quick phone calls had photographers from the Free Press and Citizen there. I think this was the thing that students most enjoyed - seeing their photo in the newspaper. It was great to see students beaming with pride and proved to be a success at building links within the community.

Pumpkin carving of skull

This is the pumpkin that I carved to get the students excited to take part in the school pumpkin carving contest. By carving it well in advance, I was able to better prepare for the lesson as I had an idea how long it would take the students to carve their pumpkins and what materials would be necessary. I would also like to add that this was extremely fun. It was the first pumpkin I carved. Putting a flashing light inside and turning off the lights made it look pretty cool, but this is the best picture I was able to take...

Scribes 'Twas chaos the night before..'

This is the end product from a Scribes of Mesopotamia lesson. The students enjoyed writing their names in cuneifrom but I must admit that I learned far more... I had originally intended to make potatoe stamps, not name tags. Fortunately, I tried to cut my name into a potatoe and bought ten pounds of potatoes and carving tools. Unfortunately, I tried this at 4 pm the day before the lesson which was being observed by my supervisor. With the help of my CT and three other classroom teachers, I was able to change my lesson after it became apparent that the students would not be able to carve their names into the potatoes. Only one of the teachers was able to do so and the principal refused to let our class to use knives. I learned the importance of trying out an activity well in advance, and that if you are stuck it is best to ask other teachers as someone (or several) is bound to have some expertise in that area and be willing to help because all teachers are awesome and kind enough to help some bumbling TC!

Innovations and Assessment in art

This is a picture of a class mural made during my practicum. I found this to benefit the students in many ways: it made the learning environment brighter and gave them ownership of the room (at the beginning of my practicum the bulletin boards were blank and there was very little student work displayed), it helped increase student motivation to complete work to the best of their ability, and student confidence grew because they experienced success. The latter was a result of my decision on how to assess the art work. After consulting teachers and our text, I decided to give students full marks as long as they completed the art assignment and met the mutually constructed pre-estabished criteria (min. 2 colours, materials, and innovation stated or illustrated with how it related to modern-day life). I felt that this was the best method of ensuring that students were more likely to develop a life-long appreciation and disposition towards creating art. I realize that there is a need to balance grades and student creativity. My feelings are that grades stifle creativity and limit development in that students will tend to produce art work for the teacher and not themselves. I found this experience with assessment in art to influence some of the decisions I made during my practicum in other subject areas. For example, I tried to focus on the process and not the product by incorporating effort into my assessment. I included this as self-assessment and had students give themselves a mark out of three as to how hard they had tried (1 - little effort, 2 - tride hard but good have done better, 3 - best effort) when handing in assignments.

Drama in practicum

I was able to use drama in my practicum. The photo is a lesson I did during my practicum using the Black Eyed Peas song, "Where is the Love". If you look closely you might be able to see some 'bling bling' I was able to get my hands on... I also did a drama lesson on the re-enactment of Hammurabi law. I found the use of drama to be extremely effective. It captured students' attention and helped them better comprehend concepts. I also found that student self-esteem increased - sometimes I thought I could actually see a student become more confident while they were role playing an aspect of Mesopotamian life - and that students did extremely well on the unit test section where they explained how Hammurabi law was simlar/different to Candian law. Perhaps drama could be used as an effective review? I found that students made more meaningful connections to concepts that were included in dramatization.

Off-task again...

Man alive! Is this picture ever realistic. I guess I was a little off-task in last week's art class when we were asked to draw a picture of where we would be if we were somewhere north of ordinary. Oh well, a person can be a place too can't they?

Caligraphy

Well, here is my first effort at caligraphy. I really enjoyed it. I found the process very peaceful. In fact, I am going to try and use caligraphy for an art lesson during practicum. Now that I said it publicly, I will have to do it unless I manage to erase this before Willow sees it.

Underappreciated artists

I think that teachers are underappreciated artists. Their job is to shape and mold the lives of children. I got a small three-month taste of this last year. It was exciting and a wonderful learning experience. All the teachers made time to support one another and I can honestly say that everyone felt appreciated. Even the new guy who was the designated gohper, recycler, and coffee filleruper. Besides the positive support, there were two CHP Friday events, a golf outing, and a few dinners together which I thought helped a lot of the teachers in dealing with the day to day stress. A smile and a little extra support can truly lift someone's spirits and make them feel appreciated. Thanks to Carly, Sheri, and Sarah Ca for lifting my spirits with a drawing last week!