Then they had the freedom to go and print with various sponges, cardboard and bottle caps.
Kindergarteners were exposed to both architecture and printmaking this week. We creates Architecture "Blue -prints" on blue paper with stamps and white paint. We discussed architecture and that it is a form of art. I told them they would get to design their own buildings. We talked about the parts of buildings and the shapes that make them up.
Then they had the freedom to go and print with various sponges, cardboard and bottle caps.
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This past fall I finished up my classes as an Art Education Student. My capstone experience was my senior show. I showcased mixed media paintings with acrylics and oils in an impressionistic style. Enjoy! I taught the 6th grade a lesson on mixing colors to create tints and shades. They had to create 3 tints and 3 shades to build and ice cream cone and name it. This is a great exercise in color mixing! We also talked about being ready for summer and their excitement- then they got to choose the name for their ice cream treats! Fun! We also hit complimentary colors by having the background paper be a compliment. I walked around with the paper and they had to tell me the compliment of their ice cream. So Summer has come and gone in a blink and I did not sit for a minute to blog. Now that school has begun again, I hope to continue my blog and continue to record my craft projects, art lessons, and toddler fun with you. My summer was spent working every day at the YMCA Summer Camp. I led close to 80 kids every day, and overall it was a good time, but anyone who is in charge of 80 kids on a daily basis gets a little tired- hence no blogging for me this summer! The fam did have some relaxation time; we spent a week in Cancun, Mexico with my family! It truly was an amazing vacation! Great weather, great food, great ocean, great pool, and most importantly- great company!
The banner and sign above were made just with my Cricut and paint, as well as a little paw print stamp. I also made a bunch of "puppy treats" for lunch, but only took photos of a few. We had puppy chow, pup-corn, scooby snacks, doggy droppings (M&M's), puppy slop (buffalo chicken dip) momma pup slush (rhubarb slush), paw-tato chips, pupcakes, cake and burgers as a main dish. The cake I made was from a box, but a wonderful box :) I have used the Duff: Charm City Cakes brand cakes the past two years for Rory's birthday and have been very happy with them. They make moist, delicious, and beautiful cakes! Rory was too shy to blow out his candles this year, but he chowed down on the cake and ice cream, and had a wonderful time at his party! Here's my cute 3 year old in his birthday shirt! Hopefully the gap between my blogs isn't quite so long this time!
-J " Do visual art students benefit from incorporating social media in education?" This video, created to a speech by Sir Ken Robinson, titled Changing Paradigms discusses the reform in public education. It explains that the education system is based on a design from a different age- so it must change. In the midst of all of the exciting new technology, we are still teaching students things that do not apply to their lives and futures. Rather than teaching with a production line mentality, we need to specialize our teaching strategies for what works for students of this day and age. Social media allows students to collaborate and work together with students in their own school and around the world via the world wide web. This introduces the topic of reform in education- change. Social media is a change in education that can be debated. As a future art teacher, I wonder, "Do visual art students benefit from using social media in education?" (My question can apply to all students, but I will answer this question with specific answers relating to the visual arts.) Due to the changes in our society and the on-going growth of technology, I think it is a disservice to students not to incorporate social media into their education. Social media is being used in a wide variety of ways that will affect students futures, it increases collaboration and communication, and encourages 21st century thinking skills. Although social media can become distracting, and has started the trend of cyber-bullying- with increased supervision and an educator's influence, students will learn to use social media safely and efficiently. The Power of Social MediaTeens use social media, whether we like it or not. We can either embrace it and use it to our advantage, or allow them to use it without or influence and monitoring. We cannot ignore the amount of time we as a culture spend on the internet. Teenagers spend almost 2 hours daily on social media. Teenagers do tend to overshare. They express themselves in every way possible through social media- so why can't we get them to speak up and express themselves in class? Using the outlet of social media in education could be one of the greatest ways of actually getting students to express themselves. While oversharing can sometimes be inappropriate or annoying to us on social media- if we, as teachers, can harness that desire to share, we may create a better environment for communication in our classrooms. The stats in the screenshots above are prime example of why it is a disservice to students not to teach them social media. With both colleges and employers using social media to enter students and find employees, high school students must understand the effects of their social media identity. It is educator's job to prepare students for their futures- and this is part of their future. This video displays the vast growth of social media in our world today and puts into perspective how often social media is used and how many people are using it. We cannot ignore the fact that Facebook would be the world's 4th largest country- the company is only ten years old! The speed at which social media has grown is shocking, and it is not something to ignore. Pros and Cons of Social Media in EducationIf this video is correct, and social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate- it must be incorporated in education programs. If this is the way we are going to communicate as a society, we must teach students how and why we are doing it. With the growth and power of social media in mind, we must begin to consider the pros and cons of social media in education, and how it can be used to its' full potential. Pros and Cons of Social MediaThe debate, "Does Social Networking Hurt Teens", discusses the pros and cons of social media. The cons included students being unable to write without using abbreviations and misspellings and students growing less familiar with everyday skills that will be used in jobs. The argument also states that social media takes time and attention away from schoolwork. The pros of this argument expressed that social media is part of our culture and we need to embrace it. Teachers need to use social media to their advantage. They can have their students create blogs, research, and share interests- all while developing their identity- on social media! Other cons found in the Teens and Social Networks video were the idea of cyberbullying and students becoming depressed from social media. I believe that if we monitor social media and teach awareness about it, these issues will decrease. Other pros on the subject come from Edutopia articles on social media in education. "Using Social Media to Teach Visual Literacy in the 21st Century Classroom", stresses the importance of visual literacy. Visual Literacy is how we process and make meaning of information given in an image, how we communicate ideas through the principles of design, and how we create messages that capture how we think visually in order to solve problems. Because social media is all about being visual, implementing this into the classroom will allow students to build skills in visual literacy. Some specific ways to do this is through Instagram, Emoji, ideograms and Memes. Another article, "SocialEdCon: What the Heck Do We Do with Social Media", asks us to see social media through the bigger lens: we can use it to communicate globally. Social media can help students see the impact their discussion has on other people that they do not even know. When taught and modeled correctly, social media can build school pride, promote events, share highlights in a classroom, create school trivia contests, and post assignments to students online. Applications to Visual ArtThe article, Learning and Teaching Art Through Social Media, gives great specific ideas of applying social media learning to art. The article describes a study of students taking art classes via social media and the feedback from the students was very positive. The students made online portfolios for their art, participated in online discussions and engaged with other students in a new way. This type of class allowed students to make a "shift in learning." They were more dynamic, socially influenced and reciprocal. Other positive elements of this study was that there was no fixed time to when students had to complete their work and participate in the class. Students can be just as involved as the teacher and they got to do the talking within the online forums. Arts Education Social Media Resources gives the idea of using Twitter for art educators to communicate with other art educators. Teachers can use social media to reach other art teachers- tweet live using hashtags to communicate with art teachers around the world. Receiving information this way is necessary because many art teachers do not have coworkers in the same field as them at their school. A lot of times there is one art teacher and collaboration and discussion is just not possible all the time. Twitter makes it possible. This benefits students because they could participate in Tweeting and teachers could give students hashtags to look up and gain information from. While using technology is something that can be implemented in many ways (virtual museums, Youtube videos, iPad apps, drawing software, Photoshop, etc) social media is in a category of its own and should be addressed in many different ways. I could see myself using social media in art education as a way to engage my students through online discussion within our class and with people around the world (blogs, wikis, webinars), creating online student portfolios (Dropbox), marketing for our classroom art works and art shows, Twitter discussions, and building their 21st century learning skills. I could also use a blog or wiki page to post assignments for students and any worksheets or homework for absent students. "social Media Is Not A Fad"The increase in use of social media and the broad spectrum for it's use leaves us with no choice but to embrace it. With both colleges and employers using social media to research potential employees/students, it is an educator's duty to prepare students for their futures. Social media is an extremely relevant part of that preparation. It can develop 21st century thinking skills and can prepare students for their future careers. In art, social media can be used to create portfolios, Dropboxes, participate in online discussions, and view assignments at any time. These online communication skills will be applicable to students' careers and higher education. Even with cyber bullying, over sharing, and distractions that are common to social media- education and supervision of social media can lessen the problems caused by such things. I do believe that social media is the future of education. We live in a different world today than what was ten years ago, and our education system must reflect those changes. The production line education system must end now. As educators, we must develop and create a learning environment where students can prosper and prepare for the futures. Social media is the future. Ignoring social media when it comes to education will only hold students back. Students do benefit from social media incorporation into their education. Educating students on social media is necessary, and it is time to reshape our education system to meet this need. Resources1800EnterprisesLLC. "Social Media 2014." YouTube. YouTube, 31 Jan. 2014. Web. 7 May 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pahLo5TTy4>.
Castro, Juan. “Learning and Teaching Art Through Social Media.” National Art Education Association. 2012. Web. 7 May 2014. Conrath, K. Zeccola, J. “Does social networking hurt student grades?” American Teacher; Oct/Nov 2009; 94, 2; SIRS.pg. 3. Accessed from http://www.misshicks.com/Pro%20Con.pdf . My Secure Cyber Space. "Think Time: Teens and Social Networks." YouTube. YouTube, 12 June 2012. Web. 7 May 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWHsiMYSxw>. RSA. "RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 7 May 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U>. Sims, James. "Arts Education Social Media Resources." James Sims. N.p., 14 Jan. 2013. Web. 7 May 2014. <http://simsscoop.com/blog/culture/arts-education-social-media-resources/>. "SocialEdCon: What the Heck Do We Do with Social Media". Edutopia. 24 June 2012. Web. May 7, 2014. "Using Social Media to Teach Visual LIteracy in the 21st Century". Edutopia. 3 March, 2014. Web. May 7, 2014. Today at the After School Program I work at it was B-E-A-Utiful outside so we spent the entire afternoon playing in the yard. I had some kids who wanted to do art, so we brought the paint outside and created some abstract paintings! This image is what inspired me to do this project, it is done with acrylics, and we just used temperas, and a lot more paint!! I cut some large paper from the big rolls we have and had students get into pairs and put rocks on their papers. I brought around paint and squirted it all over- this was fun for me to just have freedom with this. I did not let the kids pick their colors, or where the paint was, they just had to work with what they got! At first this was annoying to them, but they began to embrace it after awhile. Some would ask for more paint and I would ask, "What color?", their replies started out as specific colors, but then turned into "Whatever color!!!". A lot of the paintings start as "something", but as they asked for more paint, many of them filled the page and just had big blobs-which was fine-its abstract art! I had some boys saying they were painting "poop" because their colors started turning brown, but white lightened things up and got the "poop" out of their painting:) They were very proud of their paintings and interesting poses by the end! Chalk art was also the highlight of the day because we got a brand new box of chalk! I had kids using their feet to smear the chalk, as well as their butts of their pants, hands and I did see one boy "paint" chalk on his face....Ugh. Here is my famous "foot" chalk artist who was doing quite the dance in her chalk blog. The colors really are so pretty, but it made me sad that they used about half of our brand new 100 piece set of chalk. This weather has been amazing, and it is so fun to bring art outside! I am so ready for summer!!!
-J The Green Man Masks are finished! The kids did a great job with details in the clay and did well painting! I was not there to help them with tips on painting, but I thought they did a great job! Check out my Fulda Art Pinterest Board for the resources that I used for this project. This is a great resource that I found for teaching this project. The link to where I found this is also on my Pinterest board. Below is the document that I used as visual resources for students. The Green Man is a pretty easy guy to find! I really like this one with all of the bugs, leaves, branches and the bird on top! So cute!
Enjoy! -J I have been so excited about this clay project. I had never seen it done so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. These masks are called "Green Men Masks". There are quite a few resources on what the Green Man is and what he can look like. A Green Man has a face built of various parts of naturepart there are leaves and branches included in the face; sometimes they can be found imbedded into a tree. We started the masks by creating a pinchpot, then folding out the sides so that there is a flat piece all around the pot to place leaves and branches. I then showed kids how to get the pinch pot to transform into a face by creating facial features like eye sockets, cheek bones, nose, eyes and mouth. Then students get to be creative and add on whatever parts of nature they wish to add to their Green Man! I also taught them to score and slip, and gave them some cutouts of leaves to use! I cannot wait to see these painted! I will update you on the painted version in my next post! Happy Easter! -J Today I am going to talk about a fabulous teaching resource- Mark Kistler. Teaching young students to draw is a necessary objective for an art teacher, and using Mark Kistler's Imagination Station and drawing books are references that I highly recommend using to do so! Take a look at Mark Kistler's Site- Draw3D Here there are many videos and drawing tutorials that give step by step instructions that can result in fabulous drawing by even the youngest students! The videos are short, about 8 minutes or less, and usually take about 15 minutes to finish because you might have to stop them so students can catch up. The first couple times doing these tutorials might take a little longer, but once students are used to them, they can whiz through them! Kistler teaches more than the basics of drawing. He introduces overlapping, value/shading, perspective, horizon lines, contour lines, shadows and more in his tutorials-but still keeps it simple enough for elementary age students to keep up, and end up with successful drawings! Above are his 12 Renaissance Words he uses when teaching drawing, and with practice, students can understand these concepts and incorporate them into original drawings as well. There are some free videos on the Draw 3-D site that anyone can have access to, but there is a fee for attaining membership to view all of the videos on the site- and there are quite a few! I highly recommend getting the $100 membership-it is so worth it, and can teach kids so much about drawing in a fun way! The videos are entertaining and even entertain college students :) I had to get the book that is pictured above for a class, and make sketches out of it. This would be another great classroom resource to have. There are step by step, drawn out examples of things to make- they are all silly characters that students love! The book also goes over the 12 Renaissance Words. The rest of these images are some of the sketches that I have done from the book or the videos. They are great because you can use any medium with them as well- pencil, charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, marker, etc. I also added things to the original sketches to incorporate my own creative ideas, and that is something I would encourage students to do as well! Color, patterns, accents, hair, background, extra images are all things that can be added to these sketches to make them finished! Mark Kistler is a great resource for not only art teachers, but also classroom teachers who might need a filler, extra work, or transition pieces for students in their classroom. Get that right brain working before you start the next subject, and you may have some better math and reading scores, as well as great artists!
Happy Drawing! -J Pinch Pot Creatures or Monsters are a great project to do with clay. It teaches students the basics of creating clay forms, and allows them to be creative with the creature part of it! You start with a pinch pot. This is something I would say have the class do all together. This site has a nice pinch pot visual shown below. Here is a step by step process of the monster. This site also has good examples of finished pinch pots that are fired in the kiln, ours were air dry clay that students painted with acrylic paint. After creating that initial pinch pot with students, I always tell them to make a peace sign, and then put that together with their thumb as their "pinchers" like crabs! Stress that the sides need to be 1/4 inch thick, even thickness, and keep pulling clay from the bottom cuz it is STILL TOO THICK! Next we discuss what some different types of creatures would be. I made a little word web on the board as they gave me ideas: mammals, fish, bugs, reptiles, amphibians, people, birds, monsters, unicorns. This helps so they do not all do the exact same thing and gets them thinking about what they can do. I show them examples of the different positions of the monsters of the directions the mouth can face and how their are endless possibilities. Then we have to talk about scoring and slipping. I talk about that the slip is like the glue for clay and that if you do not use it things will fall off! Afterwards I let them go on their own. They will make things too big, too thick, and too thin. It is the teachers' job to help them express their creativity, and help problem solve how they can do what they want to do, without their project falling apart! So that is always an interesting process. Once the clay is dry they get to paint! What fun! |