Square 1

*Credits to Deep Space Sparkle for the Sailboat Sunset Collage Lesson
'Easy Sailboat Project for First Grade'

Square 1 Art

I'm currently working with the PTA do do our schools annual 'Square 1' Fund raising Project. It's a school-wide project where each student completes a work of art on an 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch piece of paper that then gets sent to this company and turned into whatever products the parents order. It's very similar to the offer artsonia gives for parents for their child's work.

I'm very excited to be participating in this, however, the previous art teacher at the school allowed the students to do entirely their own work based on a 'theme so for example, the previous years work was animals, and so many of the students were complaining about the projects that I had assigned each grade. I was worried that if I let the students do whatever they wanted that the parents would be upset that the artwork didn't look 'finished' enough or that the students work wouldn't fill up the page or translate well into the finished products, especially kindergarten and first grade. So, instead of letting them have free reign I structured a quick 2 day lesson for each grade, and I do always encourage them to incorporate and use their own ideas into the work, but I always worry. Sometimes I wonder if I structure the lessons too much, I don't want the children to think I'm some kind of art control freak and have them get discouraged or frustrated thinking that I'm making them do things they don't want to. I understand that art, especially elementary art should have an element of spontaneity and give the students as many creative options as possible, but where do options start and structure begin?

Maybe the next time I do Square 1 I'll keep the outcomes and topics looser and see what happens, also, the next time I have to do this will be my 3rd year at the school and I'll undoubtedly be more settled in than I am now having only been here for 5 months. O.k. enough yammering on. LOl!