The First Week!

The first week of school this year was all over the place! Our first day was on Tuesday and it was a half day so no students came to specials. Wednesday was a full day and then Thursday there was no school in observance of Rosh Hashanah and the Friday was another full day. Because each class comes to art for different lengths on time on different days, I wanted to choose a first day in art routine that could be modified for all the classes and stretched or cut short until we had a full week and everyone could be on the same page.

(Disregard the smiley face, just protecting my students!)

To that end, all classes did a 'self-portrait'! Students cute out a hole in the middle of their paper for their head to go in, and then decorated around the hole with pictures and words that described them. This served several purposes. First of all I was able to learn more about new students and dig deeper with students that I know already. It's all about relationships! Secondly, I was able to see where every one's skill is with drawing, fine motor skills, composition, and creative thought. This was especially helpful with the kindergartners. With the lower grades I had the holes cut out already or the paper folded and marked so all the students had to do was cut. Upper grades were expected to cut and fold the paper themselves. All grades were asked to fill the space around their faces and use lots of color.

These turned out very nicely, for some of the classes that moved a bit faster than others I had the students stand up and 'put on' their artwork and share it with the class. This gave them a sense of purpose to creating (the worked harder and did better because they knew they would be showing everyone else) and it also prepared them for when we do critiques and talk about artwork in class. Better to start them early with speaking up in class, the more they do it the more comfortable they'll feel! A great start to a great year!