Friday, September 5, 2014

Happy Friday | Elementary Art Reflections

This week was pretty crazy.  It started on Tuesday, which of course kind of throws everyone off, and then I found out I had strep after feeling pretty gross for a few days.  Today though, things mellowed out and I really felt great about what was going on in the art room.   
We finished our procedures and seating charts, and we moved on to the good stuff!  I was SO impressed with my 5th graders today.  I am really going to push them to think and talk about art this year, and we had a great discussion about abstract [abstract expressionism to be ridiculous] vs impressionism today.  We compared Henri Rousseau's work to Franz Marc's and they were really getting it!  By the end of our discussion they were identifying which artist made what paintings from some very tricky choices [I couldn't just give it away ;) ], and even if their answer was wrong, the reasoning behind each answer was awesome. "I think Franz Marc painted that one because he used jagged and curved lines to break up the animals." "I think Rousseau painted this one because it has more realistic subjects." I did not help them describe the art AT ALL.  I asked probing questions and they were so good at deconstructing and analyzing the work today.  My bar raised even higher than I expected for them, and it's only the second week!
I can't wait to see how our first projects turn out.  I am really letting the kids free this year.  I feel like I have taught my little birdies how to fly, and now I'm watching them jump out of the nest.  They are ready.  They proved it today, and I feel so excited for the year!  I will try to post tutorials on my lessons with them, but we'll see how many I can tackle.  I also had a first grader completely ace the first pre-assessment for our statewide ASW's.  Pretty awesome.


Overall, this week was not too bad [minus the strep].  I also got to meet our little kinder babies, and they are so stinking cute.  I'm ready to start with them next week too!  I hope you have a great weekend, and I'd love to hear about your week in the comments below!

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