Elementary Classroom Field Reflection
1. What form of arts integration or interdisciplinary learning units have you observed? In what ways were the visual forms investigated, learned, discussed, or produced in the classroom?
I am in a Kindergarten classroom this semester so for everything that they write they draw a picture to go along with their written piece. Every Monday they have "Monday News" that they talk about what they did over the weekend. In this picture Ah'leana attempted to write "I went to the homecoming parade." It would be hard to tell what she wrote here if there wasn't a picture and just her words. The students can draw and color a picture at this point better than they can write and sound out words and sentences. Art is very helpful in this way and very integrated into the Kindergarten curriculum when it comes to literacy and conveying the thoughts that they have. My teacher discusses and encourages them to use different mediums like markers and crayons and to color in between the lines and use colors that are realistic to the things that they draw. She always shows them an example and encourages them to do creative works and put clothes on their people and five fingers and arms. She obviously knows at what art skill level they should be at and encourages them to reflect their age level.
2. Was there a Big Idea or theme used? If so describe. Were students working with narrative, observation, imagination, and / or visual thinking?
The big idea is always their personal experiences and lives. Most of them write/draw things about their families, friends, or pets that they have. At the beginning of each day they can come into the classroom and get out a book with all blank paper in it and draw or write whatever their hearts desire. One child draws his pet lizard a lot and one her mom, dad, and siblings. Relationships is a big idea and dreams, as well. They work with narratives when assigned work and when they are not assigned work from the teacher they work with their imagination and create creative images or whatever they want to draw or think of. They also use visual thinking when they do "Monday News" along with narrative because they are writing a narrative with a picture but have to visually think of a picture to go along with their writing and what they want to say about what they did over the weekend.
3. What suggestions would you have for integration and interdisciplinary learning for this unit or lesson you observed? Try to think how you could make the learning more meaningful, connected, and deeper. Be specific.
The suggestions that I would make is when they do free drawing at the beginning of the day to at least try to put some words to their drawings to integrate writing into their work. I would make sure that the students are at the art skill level they should be at but I wouldn't necessarily encourage them to color in the lines or in a certain way. I want them to have a creative experience and draw what they wish to draw or the way they see the world. There is a little boy, who is just a brilliant artist. I wish my host teacher would be more aware of that and really encourage his artistic ability. I try and cheer him on, but it's hard when he is at a table of 5 other students and by singling him out that implies the others aren't as good, which isn't true it's just I want to cultivate a love for art in this little boy so that he will stick with it and really try and advance his abilities. I would also have the students use other mediums and experiment with oil pastels and water colors more since they have the time to free draw to do so.
The big idea is always their personal experiences and lives. Most of them write/draw things about their families, friends, or pets that they have. At the beginning of each day they can come into the classroom and get out a book with all blank paper in it and draw or write whatever their hearts desire. One child draws his pet lizard a lot and one her mom, dad, and siblings. Relationships is a big idea and dreams, as well. They work with narratives when assigned work and when they are not assigned work from the teacher they work with their imagination and create creative images or whatever they want to draw or think of. They also use visual thinking when they do "Monday News" along with narrative because they are writing a narrative with a picture but have to visually think of a picture to go along with their writing and what they want to say about what they did over the weekend.
3. What suggestions would you have for integration and interdisciplinary learning for this unit or lesson you observed? Try to think how you could make the learning more meaningful, connected, and deeper. Be specific.
The suggestions that I would make is when they do free drawing at the beginning of the day to at least try to put some words to their drawings to integrate writing into their work. I would make sure that the students are at the art skill level they should be at but I wouldn't necessarily encourage them to color in the lines or in a certain way. I want them to have a creative experience and draw what they wish to draw or the way they see the world. There is a little boy, who is just a brilliant artist. I wish my host teacher would be more aware of that and really encourage his artistic ability. I try and cheer him on, but it's hard when he is at a table of 5 other students and by singling him out that implies the others aren't as good, which isn't true it's just I want to cultivate a love for art in this little boy so that he will stick with it and really try and advance his abilities. I would also have the students use other mediums and experiment with oil pastels and water colors more since they have the time to free draw to do so.
Art Classroom Field Reflection
1. The content of the lesson, written and spoken objectives, and resources used
The content of the lesson was based upon the assignment to create something that we see in the fall. The teacher started the class by asking the question, "What do we see in the Fall?" The kids answered the question by stating that they see pumpkins and leaves on the ground in the Fall. The art teacher then went on to say that we do see those things that they mentioned, but we also see sunflowers in the Fall.
The objective of the lesson was to create something that we see in the season of Fall and in this lesson a sunflower. Another objective of the lesson was to show the students that you can watercolor paint over crayon and still see the crayon because the paint doesn't mix with the wax of the crayon.
The students created a sunflower using brown, yellow, and green crayons, watercolor palettes and paintbrushes with clear cups for water. Each table had two water color palettes, two cups of water and each of the six students at the table received their own paintbrush to use. They used the crayons from their own table boxes to draw the sunflower with and a pencil from their table box to write their names on the back of their papers.
2. The teacher, her / his teaching strategies and format / process of the lesson as presented
The lesson started out with her instructing the students to draw a sunflower with crayons on there big piece of white construction paper. She asked, "What's the first shape you make?" and she answered a circle. So, first, she told them to get out a pencil from their table box to write their name with on the back of the paper. She then asked them to get out their brown, yellow, and green crayons from their box or share with a friend if they are missing one of the colors and then instructed them to draw a big "floating" circle a little more towards the top part of the construction paper with a brown crayon and to not color the circle in. Then she said inside their floating circle to draw with the brown crayon draw the seeds, which are little circles within the brown circle and to not color them in. Then she said that they now needed to attach the brown floating circle or the middle of the sunflower to the ground, so she told them to draw a stem or two lines from the bottom of their circle to the bottom of their construction paper page to connect their sunflower to the "ground" or bottom of the paper and to not color the stem in. After they drew the stem she said everyone glance at each others paper and tell the person next to you great job and give them a round of applause that didn't last but a few seconds. After the students did that she asked them to draw the small petals with their yellow crayon around the brown outlined circle and to not color the petals in. Then after they were done with that step she passed out the paintbrushes, watercolor palettes and cups of water to the tables each student receiving one paintbrush and each table getting two water color palettes and two cups for the six students at the table to share. Then she showed them an example of a sunflower that she drew and told them to color in the parts of the sunflower using the watercolors. She showed them how if they paint over the crayon you can still see the crayon because the wax of the crayon doesn't mix with the water of the paint, and explained that it's ok to paint over the crayon because some students were hesitant to do so. She then instructed them to paint in the parts of the sunflower in water color and to not paint over the sides of the parts of the sunflower. After they had finished painting the sunflower she told them to label the parts of the sunflower, which are the seeds, stem, and petals. Then after they were all finished she told them to take their artwork to her and she put it on the cart and assigned table helpers to take the watercolors, paintbrushes, and cups of water back to her and get a wipe to clean up their table. After their table was wiped down and all the supplies were put away they were to put their head on their desk and wait for the class to be down and to start their other lessons for the day.
3. Student engagement of the lesson, classroom atmosphere, and environment
The students were very engaged in the lesson! They loved the art class and really enjoyed making the sunflower. They were very intent in their work, and really took it seriously. Some of them didn't paint the sunflower in the regular colors we see a sunflower and some students tattled on the ones that weren't "doing it right" to the teacher and the teacher just said that's okay because their creating art in their own unique way and that was really cool to me. She even went around and complimented the kids that were "experimenting" with their sunflower and said that was really neat all the colors they were using for it. The classroom atmosphere was very calming and they were really into the whole activity and engaged the whole time on their own work. I loved the environment. The kids really settled into their work and were really at peace when they were working on the art, which is so awesome. Kids need to be engaged and involved in activities like this during the day because they don't even know that they are more calm while doing them and really seem to like it.
4. Classroom behavior management
The teacher did a great job managing the class. She had her own ways that were different from my host teacher's ways of getting their attention. She went around and made sure that the students were on task and doing it in the least messy way possible. She told them not to make a puddle in their watercolors by adding too much water to the colors in the palette. She said that makes a mess and sometimes can splash colors on their artwork and the artwork of their peers around them unintentionally and that shouldn't be happening. She told them to be very careful artists and the students really seemed to listen to her. Since she doesn't see them very often she doesn't know all their names as well so I would suggest her classroom behavior management might have been better if she did even though I know that is hard. They got a little loud at times, but she brought their attention back and got them to focus by clapping or saying a chant that they echoed, like "Class? Class?" and they echoed "Yes! Yes!" back to her. Then they would be quiet and listen to her instructions.
5. Compare the art classroom to the regular classroom in regards to the teaching strategies, lesson presentation, student engagement, classroom atmosphere, environment, and behavior management.
The art class was very different from the regular class because the art teacher was not as familiar with the students as my host teacher is and used other chants and strategies to get their attention. She engaged the students more by having them follow her step by step in her instructions and having them do the project along at her own pace. I just thought it was really neat to see the difference between the two. The classroom atmosphere was a lot less stressful and more calming because the art teacher welcomed them and encouraged them to do their own thing and be their own individual artists. The behavior could have been a little bit better if she was a teacher that they had all the time because she had completely different strategies at getting their attention and an art class is a little more easy going than a real class and the kids know they are more free in an art class to experiment and use their creative abilities more. They don't have as big of a standard and set way of doing things in an art classroom. It's just structured differently and more fun because they get to paint and draw and they are going step by step through a process not just taught a lesson and they go back to their chairs to work on an activity. I really enjoyed sitting in on the class after taking this course.