Art Experiences.
Beattie Elementary Lesson Plan One: Creative Covers
About the lesson:
We will be teaching the students how to brainstorm and organize their ideas so that they can complete the front covers of their sketchbook. The importance of this is allowing for creative exploration and teaching the students how to come up with their own ideas and practice ideation. By practicing how to brainstorm, the students will have more ideas to choose from and continue to brainstorm throughout the semester. |
Project/Unit description/Expedition: The importance of a sketchbook is to allow creative exploration and teaching the students how to come up with their own ideas and practice ideation. By practicing how to brainstorm, the students will have more ideas to choose from and continue to brainstorm throughout the semester. In today’s experience, students learned how to brainstorm and organize their ideas so that they can complete the front covers of their sketchbook.
Essential Understanding:
Artists use critical thinking and organizational techniques to create a framework from which to begin creating artwork.
Problem pose is used to decide which of these initial ideas can be carried out with the available tools.
Artists are free to expand on this resolution and formulate new ideas that enhance their artwork.
Inquiry/Learning target: After brainstorming potential topics, students will be able to create ideas in their notebook with confidence, shown by the creation of drawings.
Key Concepts:
Artists use sketchbooks to record, expand, and build off of ideas.
Collaborative learning used to identify subject matter in art.
Respect for peers and studio materials continued to be practiced.
Skills: brainstorming, collaboration, expression, ideation, practice of Art Studio Agreements
In today’s class, the purpose of the lesson was to introduce us as artists, and the importance of sketchbooks. They are great tools for students to practice ideation. As they brainstorm, they will have more ideas to choose from and continue to revisit ideas throughout the rest of the semester. In the photos above, there are student examples of drawings. Students reflected on what they were passionate about and freely expressed why and what they chose to draw.
Some drawings were intentional, and the student had a plan right at the beginning while others made a line, then built off that. When us, teachers, asked what they were drawing, it was interesting to hear stories, flourishing ideas, and personalities come to life. Sketchbooks are used in many ways and that is what the students discovered. There is no right or wrong way while expressing ideas in sketchbooks. Students connected our personal artwork to our passions and what we enjoy so that they could connect their own interests to art.
A main theme that we saw throughout the class was the expression of personal values, interests, and important figures in their lives. The student connected the learning target to their creation of sketchbook drawings. For example, a student started to draw a landscape full of flowers, then began to add other elements. Throughout the class, we saw that she kept brainstorming and stretching her ideas into more. By the end of the class, she was eager to showcase what she drew and why. Above, her drawing includes a storm with butterflies and flowers.
Essential Understanding:
Artists use critical thinking and organizational techniques to create a framework from which to begin creating artwork.
Problem pose is used to decide which of these initial ideas can be carried out with the available tools.
Artists are free to expand on this resolution and formulate new ideas that enhance their artwork.
Inquiry/Learning target: After brainstorming potential topics, students will be able to create ideas in their notebook with confidence, shown by the creation of drawings.
Key Concepts:
Artists use sketchbooks to record, expand, and build off of ideas.
Collaborative learning used to identify subject matter in art.
Respect for peers and studio materials continued to be practiced.
Skills: brainstorming, collaboration, expression, ideation, practice of Art Studio Agreements
In today’s class, the purpose of the lesson was to introduce us as artists, and the importance of sketchbooks. They are great tools for students to practice ideation. As they brainstorm, they will have more ideas to choose from and continue to revisit ideas throughout the rest of the semester. In the photos above, there are student examples of drawings. Students reflected on what they were passionate about and freely expressed why and what they chose to draw.
Some drawings were intentional, and the student had a plan right at the beginning while others made a line, then built off that. When us, teachers, asked what they were drawing, it was interesting to hear stories, flourishing ideas, and personalities come to life. Sketchbooks are used in many ways and that is what the students discovered. There is no right or wrong way while expressing ideas in sketchbooks. Students connected our personal artwork to our passions and what we enjoy so that they could connect their own interests to art.
A main theme that we saw throughout the class was the expression of personal values, interests, and important figures in their lives. The student connected the learning target to their creation of sketchbook drawings. For example, a student started to draw a landscape full of flowers, then began to add other elements. Throughout the class, we saw that she kept brainstorming and stretching her ideas into more. By the end of the class, she was eager to showcase what she drew and why. Above, her drawing includes a storm with butterflies and flowers.
Documentation
Complete documentation for this lesson can be found here. |
Lesson Plan
The Lesson Plan for this lesson can be found here. |
Reflection.
What worked well for this art experience? Why? In regards to pre-assessment the lesson was a success. Erin, Kaley, and I had never taught students of this age group before, and our lesson plan anticipated the level of their development well. We designed the activity to introduce the students to fundamental concepts with materials and mediums that they already had experience with. The time that would have been invested into introducing a new medium, gave us the opportunity to feel out the age group. We learned what methods of instruction, transferred the information most effectively to the students, as well as the kinds of subject matter they were interested in and capable of pursuing. Overall the students were excited to meet us, and this helped to keep them engage and receptive to our input/instruction.
What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why? Personally this experience provided me with huge insight into teaching students with varying artistic backgrounds and abilities., as well as instructing students of such a young age. As I as teaching the students I experienced myself learning as a student of teaching, and had weak areas in my approach to learn. This was exhibited in my use of language, I caught myself consistently using words and terminology that was too advanced for the class. We also had to adjust to the attention spans of the students, and adjust the pace of the instruction to keep their focus. Also, establishing classroom etiquette was a difficult task. We confirmed with Kimberely after class, that this would be something that we would continually reiterate in the first months to establish positive studio behavior for the students understand moving forward.
What would you do differently? Why? We made adjustments between class periods. The area we immediately addressed as a problem, was the clarity and timing of our direction. We had to tone down the terminology we were accustomed to using, and use our words/give direction more efficiently. We quickly realized as well, that the optimal way to regain order, and refocus the students was to disguise instruction through games. Simon Says became a staple, and we decided after class, that we would need to research more age appropriate games that could also serve to relay our instructions.
What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why? Personally this experience provided me with huge insight into teaching students with varying artistic backgrounds and abilities., as well as instructing students of such a young age. As I as teaching the students I experienced myself learning as a student of teaching, and had weak areas in my approach to learn. This was exhibited in my use of language, I caught myself consistently using words and terminology that was too advanced for the class. We also had to adjust to the attention spans of the students, and adjust the pace of the instruction to keep their focus. Also, establishing classroom etiquette was a difficult task. We confirmed with Kimberely after class, that this would be something that we would continually reiterate in the first months to establish positive studio behavior for the students understand moving forward.
What would you do differently? Why? We made adjustments between class periods. The area we immediately addressed as a problem, was the clarity and timing of our direction. We had to tone down the terminology we were accustomed to using, and use our words/give direction more efficiently. We quickly realized as well, that the optimal way to regain order, and refocus the students was to disguise instruction through games. Simon Says became a staple, and we decided after class, that we would need to research more age appropriate games that could also serve to relay our instructions.
Slideshow.
This slideshow presentation highlights some of the student artwork from the lesson. A complete analysis of the images shown and how they correlate to the students' learning can be found through accessing the documentation link above.