Square 1 Art Fundraiser

Every other year I work with the PTO (parent teacher organization) to do a school-wide fundraiser along with the company Square 1 Art.  If you're not familiar with the company, click the link HeRe

They basically put your students work on all different types of objects and a portion of the money comes back to the school. Two years ago I had the students create different animals, fishes, birds, cats, etc, and then fill them in with different patterns. This year I had about 3 weeks to get over 600 forms completed, so I decided to create painted landscapes with everyone.  At first I had a few classes use tissue paper to create a collage and then add a marker landscape over it, but there was too much room for error and I had to be a drill sergeant to make sure the kiddo's really glued the tissue paper flat. Here are a few of the tissue paper samples.  These are the brighter ones, unfortunately some of them ended up coming out really dark

After trying a few classes without the tissue paper, using only paint and then marker over that, I found the results to be pretty much fool proof.  Here's a few samples....I always marvel at the variety of results I get even though I'm teaching the same things to every class!

 

The Lost Common Core Standard

 

 

I found this post and loved it so much I had to share it.  

It is directly taken from the website Venspired  A website created by a gifted and talented teacher named Krissy Venosdale who blogs about her ideas and reflections on teaching.  

I got to her site from Ms. Leban's Art Blog

Here is her September 15th post, it's so great I wanted to share it, especially because as a special-area teacher we are, to a certain extent, liberated from the common core standards and  can pick and choose which, what, where, and how we want to utilize them.  As such, we have the freedom to explore themes that are sorely neglected in many general education classrooms.  Things like creative problem solving, learning to work with mistakes to create new learning opportunities, exploring options for possible solutions, voicing and expressing our opinions, ideas, fears, and hopes, and of sharing in the organic process of creating collaboratively.  Let me just add that I am saying that it is not the fault of classroom teacher that so many creative things have gotten sidelined from education, to the contrary I have met many amazing, creative, and innovative classroom teachers who just don't have time in their day due to test prep, curriculum benchmarks, and state pressure to provide 'accountable' results on student test scores,  to dedicate the kind of exploitative, hands-on activities that help foster life long learning skills.  As a result it behooves us, the art, music, physical education, and even library teachers, to push our children to be courageous, curious, collaborative, and inspired.

Ms. Venosdale's very eloquently written post is directly quoted below: 

 "There’s one more Common Core Standard. It’s the lost standard.   It’s the one that won’t be tested until far into the future.  It’s the thing we have to make sure is being taught, modeled, and encouraged every single day in our classrooms.  It includes Language Arts, Math, Science, Art, History, Music and so much more.  It’s contains the power to make the world a better place.  It requires our kids to have the confidence to dream and the courage to do.  It insures that our students are more than scores in the newspaper.  It might be the lost standard, but we cannot let it become the forgotten standard."

NAEA Post # 3-Daniel Pink and the Arts

The basis of this workshop was the book A Whole New Mind by author Daniel Pink.  I had read the book a few years ago and was really impressed and inspired by the way Pink advocates for the importance of creativity and creative problem solving.  The book isn't necessarily about the arts or the art of education but is really more of a commentary on how our current world is really in need of people who can think outside the box, who are visionaries, creators, and problem solvers, basically right brain thinkers.  You'll have to excuse my less than succinct recount of his book and although I don't remember the specifics I do remember that it was a good read, and now after having attended this workshop, I may just go back and re-read it!

Now onto the workshop.

The title was: Why My 5th Graders Will Rule the Future!

It was given by educator Bob Reeker, a Nebraska art and technology teacher, who provided his attendees with many great ideas related to creative problem solving, directly inspired by Pink's work. 

The description from the conference went like this:

"The work done by Daniel Pink about creativity is powerful. This Lincoln, Nebraska, practitioner took Pink’s work into his elementary setting allowing students to explore play, design, story, symphony, empathy, and meaning via sketching."

Here are some notes I took: 

·         5 Principals of Creativity: design, symphony, empathy, story, play, and meaning.

·         Each activity asked 3 questions:

o    What do we mean by it?

o   How can we develop this idea?

o   What is the art problem to be solved?

·         Design:  A ‘Thingamajiggy’

o   Draw a simple object, ask your students to define the function, make it aesthetic, and re-design and give 3 ideas for its use.

·         Symphony: Synthesize 3 objects into 1

·         Empathy: Shared drawings, (cannot deface prior drawing).  The first one is about 5 minutes long and the rest are 2-3 minutes long.

·         Story: Used visual puns to illustrate, you could do ‘and thens…’ like story endings.

·         Play: Use nouns: person, place, and things, in numbers.  I.E. four scuba divers,  2 mountains, and 3 lollipops. Students need to illustrate it.

·         Meaning: Bulls eye chart with most important things being place in the center and less important things go on the periphery.

For future reference, the Oprah website has a nice meaty excerpt from Pinks book, enjoy!

Fridays Super Session-Art Talk with Janine Antoni

 

So, a little bit of back story before I begin...

When completing my undergraduate degree I had to create an exhibit of my artwork AND a thesis paper.  The paper didn't have to be about my artwork because it was a requirement I had to fulfill for my scholarship.  At the time I was completely obsessed with installation art, a type of art that at the time was really just starting to gain notoriety and emerge as one of the foremost avant garde forms of artistic expression.  What does this have to do with NAEA and Antoni...? I did my thesis paper ON HER WORK!

Needless to say I was ECSTATIC to see her speak.  What was really amazing was the way she discussed the progression f her art pieces.  The main crux of her address being the artistic process..

One part I found particularly interesting was when she cited a quantitative study of how a scientist tested over 5,0000 kindergarten aged students and asked them to come up with uses for a paperclip.  98% of those children score at genius level, finding over 200 uses each!  The scientist then studied the same children at age 10, where by only 30 some-odd percent scored genius level, and finally the students were again tested at age 15 where only 12% scored genius level.  The main question being raised after hearing the results of a study like this; what happens to children and their ability to creatively problem solve as they progress into adulthood?  

Antoni brought up a few key points regarding the importance of creative problem solving and the artistic process.  She didn't get overly scientific or education-related but she did use anecdotes from her own life and images from her artwork past and present to discuss her journey as an artist, and more recently as a mentor/teacher of Columbia MFA students. 

To be honest, I teared up a bit, it was so wonderful to hear her speak and learn firsthand where the inspiration and ideas from her work come from in her life.  I wish I could recorded the whole speech and posted it here for you but it just wasn't feasible...Pictures will have to do, but I highly recommend learning about some of her work and if you ever have the opportunity, go see her art in person, It's a wonderful experience!