Elementary Field Reflection
In my field classroom, there is a lot of drawing involved with writing. In everything that they write they also have to draw out their stories. They never really get the chance to discuss their drawings, though, which I think could be interesting. When I had conferences with students about their drawings, I noticed the artwork only had to do with a very small part of what they wrote about—usually the most important part. In reading, the class discusses the pictures in the books they are looking and make inferences of what they think will happen next. When the counselor came into the classroom, she showed the students a book called “Oops!” about mistakes and how to overcome them. I really enjoyed this lesson because it showed things like a splotch on your piece of paper and how you can turn that into something beautiful and artfully created. After they read the book, the counselor gave them each a piece of paper that already had different “oops” mistakes on them, and they had to use their imagination to create something out of it. This is my favorite way I’ve seen Art integrated into the classroom. It is really exciting to watch the students use their imaginations because they truly think so much more outside of the box than I do and they are not as caught up with if it is perfectly created. I think my host teacher could integrate art into her classroom a lot more than she already does. While drawing pictures with their writing samples is great, the students could do a lot of other things integrated with their learning. I think a lot of the studios we have done in class would be great for the kids to try out. I think a great one for the kids to try out is the story quilt. If my host teacher had the kids create a story quilt first and then create a story from it after, they would be using their imagination a lot more than if they wrote the story first and then drew the picture. I notice with second graders that they tend to get stuck wanting to write narratives about their own lives. I think this story quilt could help push them outside of the box and let them get more creative with their types of writing.
Art Field Reflection
I have observed two class periods of Art with my second graders in field. The first class was all about shapes, water colors and crayons (and how they create resistance), and creating art that represented something they were thinking about. The teacher had everyone meet in the front of the room and discussed the rules and what exactly they were doing, even though they had already started on the project the week before. As the kids were doing their artwork, the teacher walked around and discussed with the kids what their focus was and what they were trying to make. It was really exciting to see how focused the students were getting about their artwork. One student I talked to said he was imagining an opera as he was doing his artwork and said he had hid little images of people throughout his artwork. It was interesting to see how abstract everyone’s art was, but they still knew exactly what they were portraying. The kids in the class are given 5 minutes of no talking while working, and then from there the level of voices goes up slowly. I really didn’t notice a big difference from when there was no talking to when there was level 3 voices allowed. Everyone was very into their work and the environment of the classroom was very cool to see. The kids all seemed to know how to use the materials correctly, but the teacher was good about helping kids out in a positive way to remind them if they were using them incorrectly. One thing I really liked about the teacher’s classroom management was the way he had them quiet down to listen. He would say to the class, “Mona!” and they would all reply “Lisa!” How cool. The art classroom is a little more laid back and lets the students work at their own pace and use their imaginations. This is a little different from the classroom setting where everyone is expected to kind of work at the same pace and get their work done precisely and in a timely manner.