My time at Sandel Elementary was everything I wanted it to
be and more. I learned so much during the short 7 weeks I was there that I will
take with me when I do get a job of my own. When I began my student teaching, I
was unsure about what grade level I wanted to teach at, but by week 5 of my
time at the elementary school I was sure that I wanted to be an elementary
school art teacher. The students kept me constantly engaged by asking
questions, telling me stories, trying to keep them on task, and demonstrating
to them how to do something. Because we only saw each class once a week, it was
possible to only have two to three grades by the time the nine-week period
ended. This made grading somewhat easier, but also more difficult when trying
to keep on top of everything. My teacher let me ease into the teaching process,
rather than giving me everything at once. I got a chance to get to know the
students before I would begin teaching them, which I found incredibly helpful.
The amount of classes we had each day varied; Mondays and
Fridays we only had 5 classes, Tuesdays and Wednesdays we had 4 classes, and on
Thursdays we had all 6 grade levels. There were 5 kindergarten teachers, 5
first grade and second grade teachers, 4 third and fourth grade teachers, and
only 3 fifth grade teachers. The teachers and students alike were very helpful
about giving information regarding what they were studying in the classroom,
which helped when planning lessons. Because we only saw the classes once a
week, I did not get to see many final products of my assignments and had to go
back at a later date to obtain examples.
Kindergarten:
Because it was the beginning of the year and they were still learning classroom routines, we were still working on the fundamentals like learning shapes, tearing paper, writing their names, and learning the difference between horizontal and vertical paper orientation. We had these students first thing in the morning and only for approximately 30 minutes and once we sat them, got materials passed out, and demonstrated the lesson to them. This made coming up with lessons particularly difficult – anything involving paint or clay was not an option this early in the year. Had it been further in the year, more advanced mediums would have been possible.
When I taught this grade level, I always reviewed horizontal
and vertical paper orientation with the students and instructed them to write
their name to the best of their ability at the bottom of their paper. I would then introduce basic shapes by
breaking down recognizable objects – animals, robots, people, and
self-portraits. I would begin by starting with the top of the object (typically
the head using a circle) and make my way down using other objects like ovals,
triangles, squares, rectangles, hearts, and diamonds. After we finished drawing
the basic outline of the object, the students used the crayons at their table
to add other details – food, clothes, hair, eyes, the objects surroundings, or
they would draw the object over again.
Once they felt satisfied with their drawing, they could flip
the paper over and draw whatever they felt like drawing. This portion was
always the most informative about the students. It gave me some insight about
their development level, their family life, some of their favorite things, or
they would make up stories about their drawings that were often entertaining.
First Grade:
I got to teach these students two lessons. The first lesson
included printing black circles by overlapping or by stamping their paper with
a plastic cup. This would create both small and large shapes that helped them
for the next portion of the project. I demonstrated the process first by placing
my cup upside down in the paint and then stamping my paper. When I was
demonstrating I showed them how to make their circles thin or thick, and that I
didn’t want them to take their cup and just smear it around the paper with
paint on it because it wouldn’t give them a whole lot of space to paint in.
After the demonstration, I then released them to their seat. I had small
Styrofoam plates with black tempera paint to share between every two people and
a plastic cup for each student waiting for them at their seat. By the time they
were satisfied with how their paper looked they placed it in the designated
area and had a seat while they waited to wash their hands. (The school for some
reason didn’t give soap to the art room, but my cooperating teacher provided
small cans of inexpensive shaving cream. It was fun for the students to wash
their hands with it, plus it was fun for me to see how excited they got over
it, particularly when they pretended they were going to shave their face like
they’ve seen their dad do).
The next time they came to class they were given small containers which contained red, yellow, blue, black, and white paint. I demonstrated to them that they would paint inside of the shapes they created by using the primary colors, and secondary colors. I showed them how to create secondary colors, how to properly rinse their brush, and not to mix the paints. I loved hearing their excited “WOW!” while I was mixing the paints. I made it a point to show them what would happen to their paints if they went straight from one color into the other without rinsing their brushes. They had two weeks to fill in their circles and shapes, some finished and some didn’t.
The second lesson I taught them was about wax resist
paintings. First, we reviewed the primary and secondary colors and I explained
the difference between warm and cool colors. We then watched an animated video
of the book “Giraffe’s Can’t Dance” and I then called them over to the table to
show them the process of what we would be doing. They were instructed to choose
an animal, and draw it to the best of their ability very large on the paper
they were given with a black or brown crayon. Once they did that, they were
given watercolor paints and painted their animals using warm and cool colors –
if their animal was a warm color, they were to use a cool color in the
background and vice versa. I’m not
really sure that they understood this concept very well, but the wax resist
paintings turned out alright for the most part.
This was my example
Second Grade:
I didn’t get to teach any of my own lessons to the second
grade students. When I first got there, they were working on a lesson similar
to the first graders, just without the cups or paint. They were tracing shapes
and overlapping them on the paper. After they filled their paper with the shape
given to them, they would then choose oil pastels and crayons to color in each
shape that was created and they were to have a different color in each shape.
They didn’t get to finish this project in one sitting, so they began on another
project that was required to be done by the district by a specific date.
Every year, Richland 1 incorporates the book “Carnival of
the Animals” in all disciplines they can – music, art, and in the regular
classroom. In the art room, we approached this by introducing the students to
Mexican Amate bark paintings. These traditionally have bright colors, stark
black outlines. Students were given vine charcoal to draw one of the animals
from the story on parchment paper. After they drew their animals, they included
the habitat – farm, forest, desert, jungle, etc., and a frame around
everything. They were then given black paint to outline the animal, the habitat,
and the frame, blue paint to do the sky or water, and then various other color
paints to finish the image. I
unfortunately left before these were finished, so I never got to see the rest
of the process. My cooperating teacher told me that once they were done
painting everything they would crumple up their paper, flatten it back out, and
then iron wax paper over top of it. The wax paper would stick to the parchment
paper and then there would be some parts that were shiny and others that were
dull.
Third Grade:
For the third grade classes, I worked on one project for the
entire time I was at Sandel Elementary. In South Carolina, third grade students
are required to learn about South Carolina history, regions, and other various
features. I chose to concentrate on this and the students created landscapes
using the different South Carolina regions: Piedmont, Sandhills, Blue Ridge,
Inner and Outer Coastal Plains, and the Coastal Zone.
We spent an entire class brainstorming and listing the different features of each region – the physical landforms, the plants, and the animals. They began by choosing a region and drawing it on a piece of manila paper with pencil and then they went back with crayons and added details. I instructed students to draw their land forms large, in order to get more details in. They were told to keep these images as references for the large painting they would eventually be doing. After each student finished their drawing on the manila paper, I gave them each a sheet of 24”x36” white paper and they were told to transfer their image onto the large paper only using pencil. Once the students redrew their landscape on the large paper, they were given watercolor paints and brushes to begin adding color to the landscape. I made sure to tell the students that they needed to add a few drops of water to their paints, and to make sure their paints and brushes stayed moist. By the time I left Sandel, the students still hadn’t finished their watercolor landscapes, so they were left up to my cooperating teacher to finish. She showed them how to add salt to the watercolor to dry up some of the pigments, how to use spray bottles to make the paint spread out more, and other techniques to enhance their landscapes.
Fourth:
My fourth grade lesson with the students covered
tessellations. The lesson before this covered Western Mimbre bowls, so they had
already discussed geometric shapes, which was helpful. We discussed artists
like MC Escher and pointed out how he repeated animals and geometric shapes. We
created the shapes that they would trace and repeat on the paper that was given
to them. I showed each class how to create their shape one way, but they didn’t
seem to understand it very well – I’m assuming there were too many steps and it
was way to sequential for them? My cooperating teacher showed me how to create
a shape in a simpler method, and when we redid them they turned out much
better. Some of our vocabulary include slide, flip, and rotate. After the shape
was created, they traced it all over the paper and outlined each line with a
black sharpie marker. After the entire tessellation was created, they began adding
two colors (preferably complimentary in each alternating shape) and trying to
figure out what kind of object they created from their shape – for example, I
saw a fish in my shape once I had traced the entire thing. After they were done
with the watercolor, my cooperating teacher and I wanted to combine everybody’s
together to make one large tessellation but unfortunately I did not get to see
these finished either.
Fifth:
For the fifth grade students, I wanted to do something more
advanced and engaging than any of the other grades because I felt that they
could handle more. I decided to go over Keith Haring Pop Art figures where we covered
terms like movement and action, warm colors, cool colors, and contrast just to
name a few. It was great to see how engaged and excited the students were when
I introduced this lesson: we were writing on the smart board, they were asking
questions, they were pointing out the different colors that were used, and once
it came time for them to create their own figures they were up and posing for
their classmates and talking to each other about what they were going to have
their figures do. I demonstrated how to create their own Keith Haring figure:
draw a simple stick figure doing some kind of movement, outline around the
figure, erase the inside stick figure, and finally add movement lines to
emphasize what the figure is doing.
They began by sketching their figures in a makeshift sketchbook, having them all do different poses and activities – some even included animals in their sketchbook. For each class, we had two large sheets of white craft paper and split the class into two. Again, I only got to see them drawing their figures on the large white craft paper, and nothing else. My original plan was to have each class come up with a large mural, and then there would be a “competition” between the classes to see what class would have their design chosen. The winning class would then have their mural painted on the fifth grade hallway (granted the principal gave her permission, which we were still waiting to receive by the time I left), but other elements from the other classes would be incorporated as well. In order to include all the fifth grade students in this mural however, we decided that each student would create another Keith Haring figure out of clay, and then it would be the border of the mural. Even if they did not get the permission to create the mural, each student would still create their clay figure in order to have a final product from this lesson.
During my time at Sandel Elementary, I loved how the
children responded anytime you introduced them to a new topic. If the students
had never worked with a material before, they were genuinely intrigued when you
demonstrated it to them – clay, wax resist, mixing colors with paint, wire,
everything. This held true for every single grade level. The “wow” factor was always there, for both
me and the students. I loved their innocence and the way they view the world –
it’s much more positive than high school students who weren’t impressed by much
or seemed to hate everything about life. I particularly loved the younger
grades (Kindergarten through 2nd) because the things that they said on a daily
basis made me laugh and kept me on my feet much more than the older grades. I
would have liked to stay longer, but that wasn’t an option. I was sad to leave,
but I was excited at the same time to get the experience from high school
students.
*All faces have been blurred to protect the identity of the students.
