The Beautiful Oops! - celebrating mistakes

Today I would like to share about celebrating our mistakes and those of our students
While we may give lip service to this notion regularly, unless we tangibly show evidence of the value derived from making mistakes, our students simply won’t believe us.
Mistakes are crucial to discovery and can be doorways to new adventures.

I have shared this book - The Beautiful Oops - with my students this year, as a jumping-off point for discussions around this very topic.

Lets meet the Author:

I consider these first 2 artworks to be exquisitely beautiful. The objective here was to work on painting accuracy by laying down different colours inside each concentric circle track. Even though these students are still developing their skills for painting accurately, the accidental of colour blending along the way meant that they learnt about the medium they were using and also about a new technique in the process. Moments of significant discoveries, at their individual developmental stages. A trophy of new learning - if you will.
For me its these happy accidents that make each student's work unique.

Student aged 4-5

Student aged 4-5

In the next 2 samples, these previous discoveries about blendign with liquid paint/dye are now applied and used with purpose, this time being valued as THE focus of the work.

Student aged 6

Student aged 7

This Y4 sample shows further development of the technique - now being used for a specific sunset effect, forming a layer in the work that enhances the content, other techniques and media.

Student aged 8

My final reference to the book today are these 2 images showing how students can turn trash into treasure. A collaborative Y3 group uses paper off-cuts for creating a coral reef for their fish,
while Y1 students took great delight selecting just the right strip of guillotine trimmings for their weaving.

I leave you with this thought - The past is where you make your mistakes and the future is where you apply the lessons learnt from them.

Happy discovering everybody :)

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Whole School Art Mural for Back to School

So I wanted to try an idea I came across on Pinterest that I could do with every class in the first weeks of the new school year.

This will create a whole school mural that represents every child in the school.

This image is the first 2 grade levels on display, please excuse the wobble - its a pano shot from my iphone.

First I pre-cut wet grade paper to A6 size and by cutting for each class as they were due to arrive, meant I didn't spent hours over the guillotine :)

For variety, I selected a colour scheme for each class at the grade levels (3 per grade) as follows:
- red, orange, yellow
- yellow green blue
- blue, purple red

We used wax crayons and dye (liquid paint) for the medium

I modelled the steps on the board as the children told me what to do next, e.g.
T: "Who can tell me how to start drawing my face?"
S1: "You start with a circle, miss"
S2: "Actually its more like an oval"
T drawing: "Like this?"  .....and so on.

Through this tutorial (that was actually reversed because the students were doing the guiding and I was drawing same as they were) it broke down barriers between new teacher and student very quickly. I could also ascertain at a high level the type of approach students had toward art and how they felt about themselves as artists.

I asked the students to draw straight away with the indelible crayon to:
- get away from the 'it needs to be perfect' mindset
- get students to concentrate on what they were doing
- experience making mistakes and see that it is okay
- use a tool that was thick and cumbersome to work with,
- keep the drawings simple and get students to look carefully at shape, size and position of the elements of the face before drawing them.
In short - to be risk-takers/courageous artists and thinkers (IBO learner attributes).

Once students had 'lightly' followed the tutorial, I asked them to make any modifications that they felt their's needed, then to darken up the lines that they wanted to keep. I also asked them to colour some parts solid and to pattern other parts for individuality, aiming to be different from the people sitting beside them.
Finally they selected a liquid dye colour and gave their mini-me portraits a wash.

Once I have taught all the classes, I will have a huge mural across my ceiling that blends through the colour wheel from red to red:)

Here are some student sample close-ups - ages 4-6  :)

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

IB - How We Express Ourselves

Hi friends,

When I last taught a How We Express Ourselves Unit  with the Central Idea:
People use many different forms of expression to convey their uniqueness as human beings,
As a class, we took the Learner Profile Attributes and looked at them through the Visual Arts lens.
This is the result of our discussions. We found this activity a really useful way of coming to grips with the transdisciplinary nature of these attributes. I hope you enjoy them too.

 

In this image I printed the palette A3 and the coloured paint discs at a ratio of 1:9 (there are 10) some have USA / UK versions where needed) 

 

I also included plain discs with the titles only, should you wish to use the exemplars to write your own artist attributes with your students. This resource is now available from the link below. Enjoy :)

Teachers Pay Teachers

 

Dodecahedron Team Building Fun

Hello friends,

I just realised that I hadn't posted about this great idea, while trolling through my iPhoto folders. Not my idea for sure, but saw many great examples out there used for many  purposes. Here is how I used Dodecahedrons with my kiddies at the start of the year.

We started in Jan/Feb so I know that teaching friends in the Northern hemisphere who are heading toward the end of their current year, will be looking ahead to starting new adventures with their classes in September.

Being a 12 sided figure, there is a lot of work and time that goes into these mobiles so, to cut back on that aspect, I set them as a group challenge. The best group sizes would be 3 or 4 (multiples of 12). I made 2 versions of the faces, individual and group based. I then let the groups negotiate which faces they wanted to do independently and which ones they wanted to do as a group. They did this from the master  that I printed and we tracked this on the board. That way I only printed what they needed. I also printed on the 2/pg setting to reduce the faces from A4 to A5. This made them a manageable size for mobiles.

 The gluing together was a test of team work in itself. They used glue sticks and created the 2 hemispheres first before putting the orb together.

We knotted a string several times to create a lump on the end, then threaded this through before gluing the last flap together. You can just make them out below, floating beneath the self-portraits.

Looks great when a slight breeze comes through too. It reminds us of the bonds we built at the start of the year when making them.

Now if you would like a set of my team building dodecahedron, just pop over to:
Teachers Pay Teachers
Teachers Note Book
or Help Me Learn if you are in New Zealand/Australia. 
and grab yourself a PDF copy too.

Using Traffic Light Self Reflections in Maths Today

Hello Friends,

Further to my previous post (CLICK HERE), I have add some photos of student reflections, using the traffic light reflection system, today for Maths. Its a great way to cover the Reflective learner profile for PYP too. As you glance down the separate images, you can quickly see how easily you can gauge the temperature if the group or class, about the lesson  you taught that day :)

This is my poster on the white board at the front of the room. I printed it A4 and laminated it.

Happy teaching :)

Traffic Light Self Reflections

Hello Friends,

A quick one tonight :)

One new idea I use this year (and really love) is the Traffic Light Self-reflection. There are a few versions out there on the net, to check them out.

I made a poster and played around with the wording a bit until I was happy with it and then put it up above the white board.

I regularly use it in the last 5 minutes of a maths lesson but it can be used anywhere you want quick feedback from your students.

This really encourages on-going self-reflection by your kiddies (and by you - about your teaching - bonus). I also ask the students to write a 1-line 'because...' justification for their smiley choice. This way I can reflect on the planning I do for following lessons and how to cater to my students more accurately.

If you would like a copy, hop over to one of my stores and grab yourself a set.
(TPT)
(TN)
(HML) 
Would love to hear ways you encourage self-reflection in your classroom?  Link in your ideas or posts below.

Anti-bullying video

Hello friends,

Just came across this great little video on Facebook and found it on YouTube. Thought it would be great for the anti-bullying message in schools.

Til next time :)

Learner Profiles Matching Lesson extension

Hello friends,

I posted about my Learner Profile Mix n Match lesson for the start of this year in a post (HERE) earlier. I just wanted to show you our finished posters.

 

I took a photo of each students, with their backpack and Learning Journal, to represent the image in the resource. After drafting their Learner profile, they published them in these cute pencil frames from

http://allthatglittersinfirstgrade.blogspot.com

 

Remember you can get my activity forFREE from my TpT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

or from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Enjoy! Would love to know how it went for you.