I love children's picture books and have several in my home. Some times I will look at a book and think, I can't believe this illustrator has never won a Caldecott. When I was a child I didn't always enjoy museums. A matter of fact, when I was in 10 grade the drama club went to New York city for spring brake. We saw a play or musical a day, but in between we took in as much of the city as we could. Our chaperons wanted to go to several museums but all we wanted to do was hang out in Central Park and people watch. Both are beneficial. Picture books are a great way to introduce children to a verity of amazing art forms by artists from all over the world, even if they can't go to a museum . There are all kinds of medians used form woodcuts to collage to water colors. Children become exposed to great art and artists and they get to hold the art and take as much time as they want to explore it.
So What: The best way for me to effectively prepare to teach about art, artists, and their techniques and styles is to learn about them my self. I can take classes like the Arts in Education conference that will be on campus Oct. 1, visit local museums and art exhibits, and find out more about the life and studies of famous artists.
Now What: I am terrible at drawing and painting and so I have steered away from visual arts, but after reading chapter 7 I remembered the wonderful art teacher I had in fourth through sixth grade. We did things like puppet heads out of paper mache, clay statues that we sculpted, she fired and we painted and she refired. I always looked forward to her class. As a scout leader one of the favorite activities of the boys is to go up the canyon, collect leaves, pine cones and anything else they can find. Then we come back and make shadow art. We take a regular piece of paper and arrange our findings on the paper to make a picture. Then we slide are picture into a manila folder that has a piece of blue print paper in it and slide our regular paper out, we open the folder and let it expose to the sun for a few minutes, we roll up the paper and place it in a jar that has some ammonia in the bottom. The fumes bring the picture to life. When the picture is done we glue are original findings onto the first blank paper. We now have two pieces of art.
When we were doing our art project in class I was a little frustrated at first because I couldn't think of anything to draw that I was later going watercolor paint. Final I saw the picture of a canyon that my teacher had out that inspired me. When it was all said and done I really liked my picture. As a teacher I will have different kinds of art displayed through out my class room to help inspire my students.
As I read the section on clay I was thinking about my oldest son. The section said that kneading the clay helps to develop finger strength. When my son was in seventh grade we had an IEP. One of the things that both myself and his English teacher noticed was that he had a difficult time writing for long periods of time. It became painful for him. His teacher said that over the years she has notice, especially in her male students, that writing was physically painful for them. She said that boys tend to develop the large muscle motor skills but lack in the fine motor skills. Working with clay could really help with this problem. I might have the students sculpt with clay while I do teacher read aloud. They can sculpt something that comes to mind from the story. I also really like the idea from the yarn activity. I could have students make their own spring baskets (Easter baskets) then we could fill them with dirt, plant grass seed and observe what happens.
As I read chapter seven I had so many ideas of what I would like to try in integrating art into some of the core standards and I wrote those ideas down in my book for future reference.
I have a fail proof recipe for play dough that I love. It is different than the ones in the text. If you would like it let me know.
I would love it - thanks!
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