Gotcha Celebration

Today marks the end of my 6th week of student teaching. It is also the end of the month, thus all the good students that collected 70+ gotcha cards got to attend the Gotcha Celebration happening in the gymnasium all morning long. For this event I put together a new Fishing for Prizes banner. This banner is taped to a wall with a teacher hidden behind it. When the student puts their fishing pole over the wall the teacher attaches some small prize. Other events included Pin the Tail on the Wolf, bowling, pinata, basketball, and several other things. The photo below includes the 4th and 5th grade students waiting to begin the fun activities.

Student Teaching: Day 27

Getting accurate assessment of student knowledge. I had been brewing the night before over the results of the second grader's first critique day, and wondering how I may improve the results of the assessment and if it was possible that I was asking too much for the developmental level of my students. Or was I not providing an environment that limited the number of factors acting as distraction to my students. I visited the general and bilingual second grade classroom to check with the primary teachers of my students. I showed each of them the handouts I am using for assessing students' I was using and asking for their opinion of their experience with these students. One of these teachers provided a suggestion that in order to have the most accurate assessment of their knowledge I should provide folders to separate the space, read each of the questions and not allow the students to work ahead. As the general classroom teacher, she provided me with an idea that would provide consistency to our shared students and a solution for getting a more accurate assessment of my teaching through what my students have committed to memory. I told this to Mrs. Carey and she suggested that we borrow some folders from their classroom and try the assessment out on the next group of students.

Students perspective of performance. One of the interesting points that were made at my student teaching seminar I attended yesterday had been that our end goal is to provide students with independence and the ability to self-monitor. As a classroom that requires a lot of hand-on, students often illustrate an "I can't do it" attitude and lock up. These students will constantly request that you draw, cut or plainly do their art project for them. While I admire the student's ability to delegate tasks, the lessons I am trying to teach in my class are important for their frame of mind. For instance, students that are assisted too often with their art making will develop a bond with the participant teachers. These teachers allow the student to slip into a lazy pattern. They allow the voice of self-doubt within the student to grow. They come to you asking you to do something that you had asked them to do. They haven't even tried, and you know this because they haven't even attempted to place any marks on the paper. One student like that can be sad and tug at your heart because of their neediness. However, when a regular classroom has a couple to several students with the same attitude, than it will also drain you of a lot more energy. So by encouraging students to work independently and to apply themselves in their tasks without being worried of failure, than a teacher can save physical energy that could be better spent of providing students with more mental challenges through the fine arts.

1st Grade Drama. I heard today that two students had gotten suspended for their behavior on the playground the day before hand. The most surprising bit was that one of the students tried to strangle the other student. Its a little disheartening to hear such news. I am curious about what factors at home encourage such behaviors. In my classroom the remaining first graders were completing their second day on the pop-up houses. One of these students was adorable. He's a big kid and a couple weeks ago I had taken him to the office because of his voice level and behavior in the hallway. When he thought that he was in big trouble, he turned into a kitten -- totally the funniest transition I could ever have seen. Anyway, I motivated him to complete coloring his paper by telling him I'll have him take a picture with his artwork. So cute!

Black History Month Museum. The fifth grade class did an event for the school today. each was assigned researching an important black figure, writing a bio, dressing as the figure, and being in a "was museum". Tuan was really in character; being completely still until the token was in his box. Randy had his speech memorized. And Victor wrote his own rap to tell about his character.

Gotcha! Celebration preparation. I was asked today to do the water for the fishing game at the Gotcha! Celebration. It looks great! I used two different colors of blue paper - one for its sturdiness and the other to create waves. I also added many colored fish. I caught the attention of several of my students that stayed after school (I was working in the gym) and they helped cut out fish and put the marker details of them. Here is one of the fish.

Kindergarten and Pop-up Houses

Today the kindergarten class completed working on their Pop-up House project. They had spent one day learning about house types and parts of the house, one day drawing their home, and two days making/coloring their pop-up home.
Intergrating Spanish. Teaching in a bilingual school has provided me with an opportunity to consider how I might integrate Spanish into my art room. For my Pop-up house project, I had students learn vocabulary words for parts of a house in both English and Spanish. They learned that the Spanish word for roof is techo, window is ventana, and door is puerta. While it was not a vocabulary word I ended up also teaching the word "pomo", which means doorknob in Spanish. I like this particular word. It reminds me of some of the art theory I need to get reading/writing about for my thesis. In art, PoMo is short for post modernism. When I was an undergraduate in graphic design we used to talk about pomo and popomo (post-post modernism, the probable time period after post modernism) and jokingly label our time period as popopomo.
So Many Houses. During the process of this project I had read the student a book called "So Many Houses", which I scanned into the computer to put on the Smartboard. Its a little, short book. Scanning it allowed me to make it big and keep the students' interest. I showed the students different types of houses that they may live in. Like a house-house, an apartment, trailer, and duplex. Helping students to identify their home and be able to draw it allowed me to learn a little about my students too. While the kindergarteners primarily made the house-house regardless of what their home looks like, the sketch they made on the second day of the project provided me an accurate idea of what they went home to.

4th day solo

I saw Ciarra in the hall this morning and she asked me for some help on a poster she was working on for her class. I had her come back to the art room with me to help her. I also said hello to Vanessa, which she ignored. I'm curious what her mother had said to her. Also, I ran into Christian's morning teacher (1st grade). I had given him a lunch detention on Wednesday for his behavior on Tuesday. She told me that she had called his mother for something else and mentioned his behavior in art also.
Most every student was productive during the 5th grade studio time. I moved AJ because he was talking so much. Perhaps we should move the seats around so that he isn't right next to the two girls at the blue table that like to talk too??
My 2nd graders were awesome! They were working on their collages and the results are really showing up as being so totally fun! To the left is a sample of the student work. The face is showing the emotion of angry. It is emphasized by the warm colors and the flaming hair.

Today's 3rd grade group came into class mellow (polar opposite). The agenda for the lesson was to have the students watch a 30-minute video on Van Gogh, then use the remaining time to work on a crossword puzzle. They sat on the rug and were ready to watch a video. To reward this difference and the fact that it was Friday I allowed a group of students to sit in a row of chairs behind the rug. This freed up some space on the rug for the remaining students to sit and stretch out. I told them that they may sit however they would like as long as they were considerate of their neighbor and didn’t close their eyes or talked. Students followed this behavior, were attentive to the video and quiet. After the video, I provided the crossword puzzle on Van Gogh. I had one student ask if he could free draw, which I said was fine. This caused a handful of students to want to free draw also.

3rd day solo, part 2

Today's third grade class was very interesting and probably the prize winner experience of the week. This class came in with a very tense energy. Sitting on the rug illustrated a challenge and it didn’t help that I had to get at least two of them up to spit things out several times. Vanessa even insisted on watching as Jerrion spit out whatever was in his mouth to make sure he did (never, ever again going to allow this). The movie was having problems starting, as the output kept on changing over to the computer screen, which caused a couple of kids to complain more. Jerrion was the first to cause issues. He vocalized continuously that he didn’t want to watch the movie and that it was “for 2nd graders”. He soon moved to the discipline chair, but asked to sit back on the rug 5 minutes later. I don’t think he was liking being in the back closer to Mr. Holland. Lacyria and Vanessa were sitting next to each other with their backs against the wall with all the student work in it. Vanessa was watching me, not the movie, with caused me to watch her. Lacyria began to be very vocal as the movie progressed, which made it very hard for anyone to watch the movie. Vanessa was kind of egging on the situation, but Lacyria was definitely the ringleader. I wasn’t 100% sure on her name though, so I ended up allowing both of them to move to the tables. Lacyria lasted 30 seconds before Mr. Holland grabbed her and took her to Ms. Smith. For the next 5 minutes Vanessa asked maybe 3 times if she could go to the bathroom, which I wasn’t buying. After that, she walked out of the room. Jerrion ended up going back to the tables after this. He was still being vocal about the movie, and at the table he wasn’t like that Mr. Holland was telling him to be quiet. I ended up giving him a crossword and after a bit he left too. After these three students were gone the remainder of class was excellent.
I filled out three reports after school and talked to Ms. Smith. She said that Vanessa’s goal had been to get down to the office to be with Lacyria, which she had realized and made her sit in the hallway. I phoned Vanessa’s mother and explained what had happened.

3rd day solo, part 1

Today I am dividing the day's events into two separate posts. Something major had happened at the end of the school day and I want it to shine on its own.

The 5th graders are continuing to work on their Doodle for Google. Some students still needed to come up with 4 different ideas and others were ready to begin working on the Google logo. I was attempting to motivate all these students to move beyond the point they were at so that they may begin working on the logo. I must have been being pretty intense, as Ciarra had asked me if I was mad at her, which I told her I wasn’t. But at the end of class as students were lined up, Ciarra wouldn’t look at me as I was giving Gotcha’s to the students. I found that as Ciarra was leaving (she was last in line) that she had tears on her cheek. I may have been too hard on her, which I talked to her afterwards about. I provided her with extra Google logo worksheets to do at home.
The 4th grade class is sooo needy. Brandi attempted to = manipulate me into doing her work for her. Because I wasn’t she was getting angry. I walked her through the steps she was suppose to take, and would walk away – she would then have Mr. Holland do the same thing. I finally helped her do some drawing after she made a stencil, which earned me a brilliant smile (motives never more apparent at that point), but it got her to complete the next step; she was making the design on the wing. Before she could transfer it onto her poster, class was over.
The 1st grade class was beginning their pop-up houses. On the rug during my demonstration Isaiah was getting upset with Angel (and neither of them would quiet down). I sent them both back to their seats, which Isaiah didn’t like at all. I had them come back when they were to work on making their pop-up. Isaiah continued to get irritated and negative. I had Mr. Holland walk him to Ms. Smith. I talked to Ms. Smith later that day to see if I needed to write him up and we decided no, and that he just needed to decompress a bit.

Job Fair Orientation

Tonight I went to a required job fair orientation. Much of it made my eyes roll. "Blue suits are more successful than black suits, and brown is not a very successful color. Ladies, wear nude hosiery if you need to (but not black or anything with pattern). Don't wear anything trendy." Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the rest of the women going through student teaching in the art education program are a little envious that my adviser is gone. It seems that many of them are having difficulty gaining any control of the classroom.

2nd day solo

This fifth grade class is still working on their previous project - a self-portrait based on a photograph where the primary objective is to achieve a realistic value system. I was having a difficult time motivating Sharon to work on hers. Ever stoke she made seemed to be half-hearted and at points counterproductive. About 10 minutes before the end of class she complained about a stomachache. Earlier in the hallway as students were going to their classroom, I had one student complain of a stomachache. I recommended going to the office, but Mr. Holland mentioned the Phantom Stomachache; meaning students suddenly have a “stomachache” as a method of getting out of doing something. I didn’t quite believe Sharon because of this occurrence earlier and am interested in learning of how other teachers handle such an occurrence. Is it a regular thing? How do you be sensitive to students, but still weed out the ones that really don’t have pains?
The fourth grade class was a bit of a challenge today. I had 5 students finishing up their self-portraits from the previous project and the remaining students beginning their sketches for their new project. First, none the painters waited for guidance on how to stamp their works, which caused extra clean-up and wasted paint. Darrion at one point threw away his portrait, to which I made him go sit on the rug for a bit. Brandi messed something up on her project and threated to rip it up. I told her that if she did I would give her lunch detentions for the rest of the week and send her to Ms. Smith. Andreanna became very helpful at this point in calming Brandi down. She was motivating by the school’s agreement to reward all classes that had no one removed from the class during the week, so she helped Brandi fix her portrait. Tim was being a brat. He would make a sketch, and if it were too small or traced or if he threw it away, I would make him do it again. This aggravated him. I know at least two of these students ended up relocated on the rug or in the discipline chair.
The second grade class was doing their second day of printing for the Emotional Face Collage. Diego was working really slow. Last time in class he only developed 1 print and crumbled up his printing plate after that. It made me wonder how well Diego was with his English. Today in class he required a lot of step by step instruction, and I used more visual examples to help him out. [The next day I went to speak with his homeroom teacher, who told me that several of his other classmates may help him out by telling him what he can do next. She also told me that he has an individual learn program because he’s behind/slow. She agreed to translate simple lines of instruction, so that when I introduce the next step to this class that I may be able to say it in Spanish too.]
The third graders were finishing their still lives. Deon was particularly needy today. He has a lot of pent up anger, so when I was noticing him clinging his fists, I would make him unclench and stretch his figures out, than repeat that 5 times. He was getting bugged by others in the class, like Joshua, taking anything done very personally. I was almost fearful that he would act out on one of any of these occurrences.
Kyesha decided to sit with Janiya during this class period. She usually decides to sit by herself at the Purple Table, and seeing this difference was amazing. Kyesha pulled out more supplies (bigger paint brushes and tooth brushes) without asking for permission. She and Janiya ended up with little cups of paint filled to the top, which caused a lot of waste. Kyesha also painted her hands, which (stupidly) I allowed her to talk out of the classroom with. However, I think it was safe to assume it was at least dry (though tempera is water soluble). In retrospect, I should have had her clean her hands in the classroom.

1st day solo

Today is my first day of student teaching where I am completely in charge of everything. Mrs. Carey is on holiday all week, so students will no longer be looking to her for authorization and will prefer me over the unfamiliar sub. Knowing this psychological adjustment is actually going to play in my favor I went about my normal routine with sub in tow.
First on the day's agenda is the fifth grade class. They are beginning the Doodle 4 Google logo contest, so I presented the information to the class. Some of the fifth graders were a little too talkative in the back of the rug, though most were great. Desmond, Braedon and AJ were crammed into an area in the very back of the rug and were more interested in talking than listening. Desmond appeared to cause a lot of ruckus, aided by AJ who was the ring leader when it came to talking (which continued into studio time); DeAndre was his usual sassy self, but he at least fulfilled the expectations; Shanella and Charlease had a difficult time coming up with ideas (doesn't help they do a lot of talking to one another). Masonda did an overall good job. He seems to work better when he is stationed by himself and that worked really well for him. Tomorrow I am planning on reading over all the 5th grade Google ideas to offer feedback on post-its.
My second graders were having their first day of collaging. They are working on their Emotional Face Collages. The last two days in class they did printing of a face with an emotion and now they are continuing that by collaging neck, shoulder, ears and hair onto a piece of paper with one of the printed faces. Jesse was having a hard time. He got angry and poutty towards the end and didn't want to work. I allowed him to come back during his lunch recess to work some more and he did a lot better.
The first graders were drawing their houses and family in preparation to the pop-up house they will create during their next visit. Christian was very very VERY needy today. From the time on the rug to the time in studio. It took me 5 minutes to move him to the detention chair. I congratulated him for losing the bonus recess for his class, to which he went on for about 5 minutes talking to himself about how he doesn't care about recess. I walked away, as it wasn't necessary to really devote any more attention to his behavior. He completed his house, and when he said he finished his people, I told him (just as I explained on the rug) that stick people were not expectable and that he needed to add more detail to them. By the time I came around again, he was sitting on the floor by the classroom door pouting. Ms. Smith (the school's disciplinarian) came in about this point, and just talked to him saying stuff like "how do you know if you don't even try" to him saying that he can't draw people. At the end of class when everyone was in line, one of the latino girls said that Christian hit her. I don't know what the intentions were or how hard or if it was just a girl overreacting, but Christian was being a total brat today. I'm planning on going to talk to his teach in the morning and taking it from there.
The third graders were to be completing their still life project. Romeceo and Ellesse (+ her buddy that she play fights with) were having issues with one another, as they liked to talk loud enough for the other table to hear a comment about the opposite person. Romeceo said something that got the girls attention and ended up getting one of the girls to tell me about how her mom no longer hangs out with her friend (the mom's friend) because she was selling her body and she didn't like... (the cash that was around? I don't know). Anyway, strangeness. Ellesse volunteered to wash brushes again. She ended up washing the little bowls that held the white paint. I had cleaned out the drying rack at the beginning of the day, and Ellesse neatly stacked the little bowls in there like a pro. Must be one of her chores at home. :)

Emotional Face Collage, demo collaging

Today I demonstrated what the 2nd graders were to do next with their project. I went over the book "The Way I Feel" and had the students look at the hair in the layouts. They hair can emphasize the emotion that is being displayed, and each has a different treatment. Some hair is sticking up, while other hair is limp and depressed. As part of my demonstration, I reminded them of the warm/cool paper they made a couple weeks ago. They will be using that to collage the shoulders, neck, ears and hair onto a paper with the face. I then showed them a completed version and a version that had not been glued yet. Today my expectations were that the students would cut out most/all of their collage pieces. I would not provide them glue, though I did go around to see if students were ready to glue the neck the the shoulders, or the ear pieces together. I was aiming to monitor the students' collages by making sure they had an interesting design before they glued. By doing this I was able to insure the students were doing planning and making design decisions.

The Joy of Teaching Art

During today's 1st grade class I had my students drawing pictures of their home and everyone that lives in it with them. They are doing this as preparation for their pop-up house, which they will begin on their next trip to the class.
This class has Jamari in it, which you may recall from a previous posting. When he finished drawing his home, a blue apartment building, I provided him with a new piece of paper to start the next step. Drawing people was frustrating him. He started over twice, and when I told him that what he was doing was great he accused me of "having to say that" because I am a teacher. This comment brought into perspective some of the wonders of being an art teacher. We do get to like everything that our students make because most of it is wonderful. Having so many students with such different styles is an amazing change of perspective. As a teacher of visual arts, I get to see the wide diversity of "right solutions" to so many different topics. For example, I had one student in my first grade class that drew his apartment with the ground level having a whole floor of doors, like the hallway of his apartment building. While visually his solution was not realistic, it should complex thought and perspective.

Emotional Face Collage, printing day 2

Today begins the second day of printing for the second graders. I began the lesson by showing examples for their last visit. I talked to them about their successful prints, and what had gone wrong with others. For example, if the paper ripped, why? If the colors look blurry, why? For today's class period the students were to make more prints. If they had time, they may clean their print and try a different color palette. These are two of my examples of the same print using different colors and already at the final stage (collaged). The cool colored face has the emotion of scared, while the warm colored face looks more embarrassed. Having students see these types of examples can show students that color can change the mood of an artwork. By making the same connection in their own examples can express to me (their teacher) that they understand that connection.

House Talk with 1st graders

Today I began my Pop-up House lesson with the first graders. I had started this project a couple days ago with the kindergarten class, and have been working hard to adjust the questions and style of the handout I created for this project. It is amazing the developmental difference between these two age groups, as they are only separated by a single year.
Today's lesson began with reading a digital version of "So Many Houses", then talking about different types of houses that the students may live in. They helped assemble different houses on the Smartboard, including: a 2-story house, a duplex, an apartment, and a trailer. The students then were provided with a worksheet that they were to complete on the rug, as I completed my version on the Smartboard. This was primarily done for the vocabulary, which I had them write in Spanish and English.
Only one student, Jamari, was causing me trouble during today's lesson. He was not doing the work that I was asking him and the rest of the class to do today. I told him that if he didn't complete the worksheet I would have him in here the following day during his lunchtime recess. By the end of the classtime he had not even started his worksheet. So I followed through, and at the end of the day I went to his class and talked to his classroom teacher. I believe that by having him come the next day to my classroom, it would show him that he cannot come to my classroom and not work because that is unacceptable behavior.

2nd graders begin making printing plate

I gave the printing demonstration to the 2nd graders today. This image shows one of my samples (I will be doing different ones for each of my three 2nd grade classes). While the students did not get as far as printing today, they were able to transfer their face design onto their printing plate (made from Styrofoam) and begin coloring the print with either warm or cool colors.

The steps I had them do include:

1. Outline their favorite face with black marker (some of the students I had marked a face with a star to encourage them to use that face. This was because they either used an example I gave for their face or if it was too complicated.).
2. Raise their hand when they finished, so that I could tape their printing plate on the back of their handout.
   
3. They were then to use a dull red pencil to go over the black marker lines. By doing this, they are pressing into the Styrofoam and leaving a faint image. The red pencil made it easy for them to see which lines they had drawn.
   
4. Remove the printing plate from the back of their handout. Then go over the impressions with the dull red pencil again.
5. Raise their hand and request either warm or cool colors.
6. Begin coloring the face, remembering to blend the colors and emphasize the emotion with lines and design.

Most students at least began to color their plates. Any students that finished were given a book to read on emotions.

Groundhog Day - 6 more weeks of winter

So it's Groundhog Day. Again. At B.T. Washington art classes are labeled as Specials in each grades' school schedule. Students are rotated between art, music and P.E. One third of each of the grades go to each of these three areas. Because B.T.Washington has a self-contained specials department and is a 2-strand school (general and bilingual classrooms), the Specials are the only time during the school day that students in the bilingual program, gifted program, and general classroom are integrated within the same classroom. I have mentioned in my 1st day of student teaching that the schedule is set up so that we see a third of each grade level each day, which means that when I plan a lesson I will teach it three times. This is why Mrs. Carey refers to the repeated days as Groundhog Day's, a direct reference to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray where he plays a weatherman living the same day over and over. So if I mention that it is groundhog day when its any day not February 2, this is what I am referring to.

On the topic of Groundhog Day, see the official site for Phil. He says we will have 6 more weeks of winter. Boo!

Rainbow Fish Pop-up

The Rainbow Fish Pop-up is the first project I completed with the kindergarten class. I did not get any pictures of their book, but I have my teacher sample here so you may see the final results.
Students completed this project over the course of 4 days. During the first day they were introduced to color mixing. They used primary and secondary colors to paint 1/4" stripes in a rainbow pattern (R.O.Y.G.B.P.). For this age group it is important to emphasize proper material treatment, particularly keeping the brush clean between color changes and handling the brush. Also, when you demo tell the students that they want to leave no white spots between the paper.
During the second day, the students made the water paper that the pop-up would be assembled on. Blue paper with blue paints, students were encouraged to use at least 3 different brush strokes, lines and colors.
On the third day the students were read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. This is a book about sharing, and the students made their pop-up based on this book. They learned about making a pop-up. Then they cut out their rainbow fish from their rainbow paper and begin collaging other elements like seaweed, a starfish, an octopus, and other fish into their background. They will complete this on day 4. They will get a shiny gill and googly eyes too. :)

January Gotcha Celebration

Schools are a community, and teachers must work together to offer constancy to all students within the school environment. Students must be held accountable for their behavior anywhere on the school's property; not just their homeroom. At B.T.Washington, students only come to the art room 1-2 times per week. It is vital that students have the same expectations in the art room as they would have in any other place within the school. B.T.Washington has a system in place that they call the High Fives. Students are to "be respectful", "be responsible", "be there and be ready", "be safe", and "follow directions" in all locations of the school. There are rewards to following these five simple rules, and today marks one such occasion. At the end of each month, students that have earned themselves a set number of Gotchas get to attend a 45-minute trip to the Gotcha Celebration. Gotchas are paper tokens that student can earn daily be being recognized for their High Five behavior. This is part of B.T.Washington's positive reinforcement strategy.
I got to help set up the gym for the Gotcha Celebration. They were assembling new activities, and one of these was a Fishing for Prizes activity that needed a banner made of blue paper to represent water. The activity would consist of students using "fishing poles" to hang over the blue banner. Behind this banner would be a teacher and some prizes. When the fishing pole is hung over the banner, the teacher would put a prize on the end of the pool. I had about 10 minutes to put this together.
While the event was going on, I was in the art room. The students that had not collected enough Gotchas to be able to attend the event got to be in the art room watching different educational videos. While the videos proved to be entertaining, these students were not happy to be in here. Thankfully, Mrs. Smith was there monitoring the more naughty groups.
One thing that surprised me was that some of the students that had caused a lot of trouble over the last couple weeks were able to attend the Gotcha Celebration. Mrs. Carey and I discussed this can came to the conclusion that students that are sent out of the classroom to talk to Mrs. Smith, the school's discipline manager, should have the additional consequence of having to collect at least 5 more Gotchas than the medium the rest of the students have to achieve. For example, if the medium is 80 for the month of January and you were sent to Mrs. Smith twice, you would need to collect 90.

2nd graders recognizing emotions with warm & cool colors

Prior to today I had been team teaching, but today is different. Today I led my first lesson with the 2nd graders. I started by reading the book "The Way I Feel" by Janan Cain. I had the students look at the facial expressions and the use of color as I read, then talked with the students about some of the more expressive pages. I had them look at the eyebrows, eyes, and mouth on these faces. I didn't talk about the hair, though it is very expressive in this book. The most important thing from them to recognize is the faces, as they will be drawing faces today that have different emotions. The color is important too. Warm colors with an angry face emphasizes the emotion, as blood goes to your face if you get very mad. While cool colors with scares shows you are trying to stay under the radar... or that "you were so scared the color drained from your face" can be expressed with toning down colors with white. Before having the students go to their seats, I went over illustrating these emotions on the Smartboard. I had students put "angry eyebrows" on a face and so on. Once every student had a turn, I showed them their handout. I told them that I expected them to draw two different faces with two different emotions. They needed to write the emotion on the provided space, select if they thought warm or cool colors described the emotion best, and describe a time when they felt that emotion. While the last wasn't always successfully answered, the faces were very fun to see.

Reading Recovery Banner

The other day I completed the reading recover banner, and I emailed the file to the teacher. This morning she brought it in to show to me and Mrs. Carey. She also invited me to attend the event.

Still Life resource

National Gallery of Art has an amazing Still Life Composer resource that may be integrated into the classroom. I found it particularly useful with a Smartboard, as each student may add an item to a composition. The lesson I used this with was a starting point for the 3rd grade's still life project. The skills that they needed to recognize for the project was overlapping objects, foreground/middle ground/background, and that items in the background are usually going to be smaller. Below is an example of a composition made at the National Gallery of Art.