First Grade Veterans

Just did the Advent lesson with my Firsts. Went well. They still can choose collage, painting or drawing. They're pretty much rockin' it. Here're some pictures of first grade work:

5th Grade (Entry for Dec 3)

Did a paper weaving Kente cloth lesson with my "veteran" fifth grade Choice class. They did pretty well. There were two students sitting next to each other who will not do so again. My dragon boys are all back on track and coloring and inking.

We did some "housekeeping:" 1) dispelling myths/rumors about "extra credit" for working on more than one project? I have no idea where this one came from. But I told them I keep track of what they're doing, and it's more important to stick to something and see it through rather than jump around and never finish anything. 2) Set goals for 2nd trimester. Our goal is to have 3 finished pieces for the trimester. That's one every four weeks. Not too bad, I don't think. I'm going to give them some extra incentive- we have a display case that needs filling...

I also discovered that these kids are way into weaving. Many of them chose it, and I shared a little Kente sample I made on a loom at school. I found some blueprints online for a PVC loom that I will try to make for kids to weave on... Over Christmas break, I plan to come in and "renovate" the room. Something has to be done in regards to storage of work- i.e. portfolios, and I need to chuck a bunch of stuff in order to give the kids some new choices like fibers and clay.

6th Grade Week 2

I had my first group of Choice 6ths this morning. The difference in the enthusiasm and concentration in many of these kids is amazing. I had several kids who, for pretty much the whole first trimester were more interested in talking and would actually rather sit and do nothing than try to do the assignment that we were working on. It's a different story now. Almost all the kids (there were maybe 2 today that weren't engaged to the same level as the others) were working and excited about their work. Love it.

I also found out that this is the grade where parents start freaking out over grades. The classroom teacher of this class mentioned to me that several parents had questioned her as to why their kid got a "2" in Art on the report card. First of all, "2" means that their child "Partially meets standards." How vague is that? When I began grading in this "1-4" way, I decided that a kids would have to solidly meet the standard for them to get a "3". If there was any question, it had to be a 2. It was hard sometimes to stick to that, because I like a lot of the kids. But a big thing for grades was effort. If I feel that the student was not putting in effort, that is a big deal. But I have a feeling that concern is drastically changing, at least at this level, with allowing the kids Choice.

2nd Grade Week 3

This week in 2nd, and actually most of my Choice classes, I'm continuing the "holiday" thing for looking at other cultures, etc. This week's mini lesson is Advent calendars. We looked at examples and I talked with them about the Rathaus in Germany where they paint and decorate the windows on the front of the building as an advent calendar.

I had prepped some papers with 24 doors cut in them and the kids glued a backing on, the numbered the doors and drew their pictures inside the doors. I had about 8 students choose this activity and others chose drawing or collage. There was also some exploration with colored tape. I think I'm going to have to hide the colored masking tape next week... Maybe... I don't know. I don't really have a use for it, but I'm kind of afraid that the kids will just use it all up, then I will discover something I need it for...

Here are some photos from mini lesson Kente cloth last week.

First Grade

Did a modified Kente lesson with my Choice firsts. They did pretty well with it. With the amount of difficulty the "over under" gave many seconds, I thought I would modify for firsts so we focused more on the colors and patterns and did a collage in the long skinny Kente shape. I've got to get the pics off my camera! I had a whole table of artists making extra long Kente and working together to make their patterns. Awesome.

It's been two weeks, though- maybe three?- since I've seen these kids, and it showed at clean up. maybe 5 kids fooling around and sharing and not cleaning made clean up take too long so we didn't have time to share. Which this group really likes to do- so we'll talk about that at our meeting next week. Better write myself a note....

Dec 3- Sixth Grade

(I guess I'm going to have to change the format of my posts now that I'm phasing in more classes... we'll see if this one works.)

Started Choice with one of my Waterboro 6th grades this morning. Seriously funny- they were listening sooo well when they figured out that they were going to get to choose. Went pretty well. I have a pair of boys that are already into a huge drawing of a car- similar to my 5th grade dragon group. This car group wants to paint their drawing once they're finished, though...

Next time I see them, I hope to so a quick survey see what kind of centers they'd like the best. This group also needs to make sketchbooks and I need to get them charts to keep track of their choices. So far, so good, though.

2nd grade week one/two

I started another class on choice last week. This class has got to be one of my favorite classes- it's a second grade class and at the beginning of the year, I was a little scared they would be a little crazy- but their teacher is amazing, and the kids are awesome. They are very creative and supportive and just wow.

Anyway-

They've had drawing and painting open for two weeks now. The first week, I explained what they would be working on, and they basically got to it. I had given them sketchbooks a week or two ago, and they were ready. When I had them for week two, yesterday, I did a mini lesson on Kwanzaa and Kente cloth. Their teacher had told me that she looks at holidays around the world during the month of December, and I pulled some ideas, ran them by her and we actually coordinated really well. For our mini lesson, we looked at pictures of Kente cloth, talked about Kwanzaa and the colors. I have a little sample of Kente cloth that I made in one of my weaving classes in undergrad that I shared with them. We made paper warps- I had one student who started weaving on his own during week one, so he was my helper with the demo and helping other kids who had a hard time with the "over, under" thing during studio time.

We will also be looking at advent calendars for the UK, poinsettas for Mexico and gingerbread people/chains for Germany