What worked:
* Calling each table one at a time to get up and go shopping as well as limiting their collage sheets to 2-3 papers each worked to keep hoarding from happening. You know, hoarding; Like when a child takes all the cool papers for herself and can technically never use them all. Limiting them also allowed them to not cause as much traffic as would have occurred had I not had the number limit.
* Students are just voracious for information to beef up their work. A perfect example is a child in Ms. Parente's class who could not go on until he found out what color Saturn was. I looked it up and placed before him several photograph images of Saturn and he only then moved forward.
* The level of enthusiasm around each child's work is just contagious. In the 12 years I have been teaching solely art I have never experienced this level of excitement by kids over their art before. I have to admit that all this time it the source of excitement I identified was very much coming from me and trickled down to them. That is good I guess, until you experience this and you realize just how much has been missing.
* Narratives are forming. Even students that began JUST drawing what they love to draw, as the days pass they begin combining the images together and a narrative emerges. See examples in pictures on this post.
What needs to be tweaked:
As the centers begin to offer more and more options I will need to have a specific place for them to 'live'. Seeing as I am only exploring right now I have to set up each center each class and take down after. Nevertheless, I still need to keep both centers apart so that students begin to identify what media belongs in what center. The main reason, for me, for keeping centers separated would be to again, keep centers separated and reduce the traffic jam at the 'shopping area'.
Next Steps:
Clear up an area in the class for one center to live. perhaps the counter by the small sink will be a good spot. It has a large accessible counter and I can place all drawing materials there and begin creating a more permanent home for them. This should help with clean up for children will become familiar with where things are and where things should be.
Begin reflecting what common themes keep coming up in students' art and limiting the topic of the resources but increasing the amount of visual resources per topic. For example, a lot of kids draw outdoor spaces and things found in the outdoors, such as parks, cars, people, sky, rainbows, birds. I need to reflect and come up with a common theme that can tie all these loosely related topics so that I can provide more varied, yet pointed visual resources.
These were Ayra's initial drawings. I printed out a slew of visual resources and placed them in the box the first day. She immediately got them and began drawing more dresses. (see below)
Her designs became more and more sophisticated. She also began to create a narrative which helped to connect two seemingly disconnected subjects.
Buttons, Cuffs and Shoulder pads oh my....
....and the exploration continues....
This is the child that for three days now has been making a meticulous rendition of the planets. Just Gorgeous work. You can tell how carefully he applied colors to each planet.
This child was so excited about her second cat drawing.
This child played with size to create a family of bunnies. Again, a narrative begins forming while playing with size.
In the old art classroom we would be concerned about the fact that these people are stick figures. But the focus here again is on the narrative that is being formed in the child's mind. The image is so rich. See the facial expressions, the action lines, the use of color and pressure on the pen and what they represent. This image represents the beginning of any good story, inspiration, topic of interest and left alone to play with the story parts.....
I have a child who is obsessed with Star Wars in this class. He began by simply retelling the story parts that interested in in his drawings. Yet, as you will clearly see below, he began using the story characters and started playing with the idea of 'what else can this character do?'
Here is what else this character could do.....
I have no doubt in my mind that every single line in this drawing plays a part in the story in this child's mind.
Now a perfect example of the level of persistence that exists in a child when they are interested in what they are doing. Below are a series of images.....the child tried to draw this animal six times before he was satisfied with the image. Now THAT is persistence.
Here is one of two final drawings using this animal. One has him combined with a hot dog and the child creates a story to unite the two seemingly disconnected images, the dog and the hot dog.
Last, this child has worked on the same page for 3 days now. I can tell from her dedication and time spent on this page that she LOVES what she's created. If they were now to write about this page she would most likely have a whole page to tell about it.
