Elementary Classroom Reflection
So far in my elementary field classroom, we have not seen much art or integration with any form of art. I am in second grade at Grant Elementary and the only experience I have to gather from has been the whole classroom working on their Famous Person Reports. Though this was mostly a writing and research assignment, the students also had to illustrate their works and create a timeline of pictures through their person’s life. I saw many students trying their hardest to create the human form in many stages of life and as true to character as possible. They experimented with color and background and some even found themselves getting frustrated when their art didn’t turn out like they wanted it to. In order to get their drawings to match their research and writing, most of the students did not draw from imagination, but rather observation of pictures straight out of their books.
There are a few things that are missing from this lesson for it to truly be art integration that I would implement in my classroom. I noticed the students getting so frustrated about trying to get their people perfect or copying the photos they saw in their books. I’d want my students to try to create a work of art about their person’s life or a collage instead of worrying about perfection details at such a young age. I’d also make the illustrations not such an afterthought and give more time in class for their drawings or artwork to come together. Their writing matters, but a picture says a thousand words, especially about what they have truly learned.
There are a few things that are missing from this lesson for it to truly be art integration that I would implement in my classroom. I noticed the students getting so frustrated about trying to get their people perfect or copying the photos they saw in their books. I’d want my students to try to create a work of art about their person’s life or a collage instead of worrying about perfection details at such a young age. I’d also make the illustrations not such an afterthought and give more time in class for their drawings or artwork to come together. Their writing matters, but a picture says a thousand words, especially about what they have truly learned.
Art Classroom Reflection
The lesson I observed was the first experience of the students learning about Chinese New Year and the dragons that are often a feature of these celebrations. There were no objectives I heard of but the idea was to build a paper mache dragon head and paper body for the students to navigate in a performance. The students accessed the internet to pull up pictures of the celebrations and dragons to work off of.
There wasn’t much presentation of what lesson we would be learning except for the teacher allowing each student to go under the body of the dragon and then assigning each student a job as a designer or paper tearer, unless they had another project to finish up.
The students seemed excited to start something new and the three/ four students chosen as designers were jumping out of their chairs but the classroom environment was a little tense due to the 5 adults surrounding students and some students worrying about not getting to participate.
Compared to the regular classroom, it was great to be able to see the kids get a chance to express themselves creatively and think outside the box. The big idea of this lesson seemed to come across better and the students understood a different culture’s celebrations on a deeper level than just reading about it or answering questions. Though it felt more engaging, all students were not engaged in this project like the individual ones in the classroom. There were more behavior issues because everyone was not on the same page in this classroom.
There wasn’t much presentation of what lesson we would be learning except for the teacher allowing each student to go under the body of the dragon and then assigning each student a job as a designer or paper tearer, unless they had another project to finish up.
The students seemed excited to start something new and the three/ four students chosen as designers were jumping out of their chairs but the classroom environment was a little tense due to the 5 adults surrounding students and some students worrying about not getting to participate.
Compared to the regular classroom, it was great to be able to see the kids get a chance to express themselves creatively and think outside the box. The big idea of this lesson seemed to come across better and the students understood a different culture’s celebrations on a deeper level than just reading about it or answering questions. Though it felt more engaging, all students were not engaged in this project like the individual ones in the classroom. There were more behavior issues because everyone was not on the same page in this classroom.