#linestudy

Wow, one successful cycle of my A/B art teaching schedule complete. I learned SO much and my students did, too, and it’s only September! I can’t wait to see what the next few months will bring.

Here are my major takeaways from my first two weeks:

• Wash hands frequently! It never occurred to me before that specialists come in contact with just about EVERY student in their schools. I walked away Day 1 with an unfortunate little Kindergarten bug that I hope will just inoculate me for the rest of the year!

• Do not underestimate my ability to truly inspire and impact students, even if they seem like they’re not listening. I have been graced with waves, hugs, high fives, CUSTOM ART (🙌🏼), smiles, and a mild but meaningful school-wide fame since the first day and it totally humbles me in the most amazing way.

• Embrace the possibility of having to improvise. I had a most unexpected thing happen last Friday. The last day of my first complete teaching cycle. My 2nd grade class entered, took their places and I began to go through the sequence of my lesson. When I reached the point where I found I needed to print additional worksheets, I went to my desk and attempted to turn on my computer. After a widespread power outage in our town, I knew I would need to turn it back on so I made conversation with my class as I did so. I asked if anyone else’s power had gone out and, of course, more than half the class’s hands shot up. As I’m waiting for my computer to boot back up, nothing is happening. I try again after a few seconds, continuing to fill time with idle chat (I will be doing an entire blog post later on the value of performance ability in teachers...it’s funny how being in this position is tapping into my years on the stage). Finally, after repeated attempts, I look at my class and say, “Well, that’s not working so guess what? Half of you are going to do what I had planned for you and the other half of you are going to try some 4th/5th grade work! And guess what? I haven’t prepped it so you guys are going to watch me prep!” They were thrilled! Out of this process, I established an impromptu student job of being the Process Photographer. The kids got to see part of the prep/finishing process that will take up much of my time and that I will teach my upper grades this year. When it comes to art, finishing is one of my greatest joys. Figuring out how to mount and display is seriously the best part of art! As soon as I was done prepping materials, I called out my Fast Passer (another job that came out of this experience) and soon, everyone was seated again. I divided the class in half so that one group was looking up at our big screen at examples of their worksheet (we’re learning about lines...I’ll get to the actual meat of the project shortly) and the other half was looking at the dry erase board I had been using to teach my upper grades. After some quick explanation, I had everyone working again and I was completely floored. These 2nd graders were doing a more advanced version of the unit than I had anticipated for the primary grades. Why?! How?! Which leads me to my next takeaway.

• Sometimes simplification truly means teaching the same thing to every grade. I should know this from raising two children of my own, one of which is particularly artistic. While I designed this lesson to teach the basics of line work and give my younger students practice opportunities, I should not forget the organic and understated lessons they might learn from doing a more advanced form of the lesson. It was truly amazing for me to watch these little people doing this work.

Although my approach to next projects will be different (3 separate projects, divided into K/1, 2/3, and 4/5), I think this initial go for everyone’s creative juices flowing and allowed me to get to know the students and their varying interests/abilities in the arts. 

Project Details: Primary grades worked on line study with a practice sheet I created. We learned a fun song about lines and I did some demos for them to help them remember all the different styles. Elementary grades did a more advanced line study and created radially symmetric patterns by folding a square sheet of paper into quadrants. They then designed one quadrant and followed a tracing sequence to create the pattern. There was a high margin for error so it was a great exercise in following directions, too! The Display: