Time Travel to the Future!

This past week, students in 4th grade turned our time machine forward as we traveled to the year 3019! As students entered through the shiny metallic curtains, they were greeted by a lightboard that said "welcome to the future," led lights, futuristic images on large screens, moving graphics projected across the wall, and futuristic beats pumping out of the overhead speakers. Their guide for the future was Mr. Callicotte IV (the great grandson of Mr. Callicotte).

Students then participated in a conversation about the scope of their current project and told that their day in the future would be all about fluency (the ability to come up with many different ideas). After talking about the important role fluency would play in their art project, students discussed what the future would be like if students in their generation did not continue to practice fluency. Students also discussed how being strong in fluency can impact their lives as 4th graders, like how a student who can come up with many ideas in a short time period will be more likely to solve a difficult science problem or a difficult situation amongst friends at recess. 

Then it was time for students to participate in 2 different improv acting exercises that focused on idea generation and got their creativity warmed up!

Students then discussed George Land's study that illustrated how kids start creative, but like strong muscles, creativity declines over time without practice. Students learned 3 different strategies to help strengthen their fluency and practiced applying these ideas. 

Students then repeated a fluency challenge that they did in a previous lesson and compared the results. One class went from an average score of 2.1 to an average score of 17.6!

Students will use their strengthened fluency in their next art class as they assume the role of product designers and create inventions that would fit into a futuristic culture!

4th Grade Travels to the Ice Age!

This past week, 4th grade started our time travel project!

As we turned the time machine backwards, it took us all of the way back to the Ice Age! Students entered a room with glaring blue lights, the sounds of a blistering wind pumping through the speakers, snow falling projects onto the wall, snowflakes hanging across the ceiling, and candles leading the way to a big bin with time capsules frozen in a very large block of ice.

...oh yeah, and there was this snow-covered caveman, Frosty Frosterson, to guide them along the way.


Students were introduced to the concept of a time capsule. Frosty told the students that these time capsules were brought from different time periods throughout history and that each one contained artifacts of information about a popular toy from that period. It was up to the students to investigate the artifacts to try and understand what life might have been like in that period of time.

Frosty Frosterson chipped the ice block apart, gave each group of students a time capsule, and they were on their way!


          
After investigated the artifacts, the students shared what they thought life might have been like at the period of their time capsule. Students then generated ideas for what we might put in a time capsule for the year 2019. Popular items included many video game consoles and games, iPhone 11 Pro, Airpods Pro, scrunchies, hydroflasks, and many popular sports teams.

Students and Frosty discussed how artifacts and products can teach others about the culture of a time period. This will be important knowledge to remember as students travel to the future next week and will need to invent products that would fit in a very new culture.

2nd Grade Visits the Museum!

This week, classroom teachers handed each 2nd grade student a golden ticket to the museum, which they carried on their way to the art room. As they approached the door, they saw a red and could hear The Ticketmaster (me) shouting into the classroom, "the visitors are here!"



Greeted at the door by The Ticketmaster, students placed their tickets in the ticket box and entered the room with excitement and anticipation as they entered the room, only to be greeting by a large image of a museum sign pointing to a construction site.



"Visitors young and old, I welcome you to the most magical... the most magnificent... the most miraculous... the..." proclaimed The Ticketmaster as he turned towards the construction site. "Oh dear... umm... give me one second..." said The Ticketmaster said nervously.

After making a phone call to his "boss," The Ticketmaster explained to the students that there appeared to be a problem. The museum was suppose to be open, but it was unable to be completed, because this wasn't a museum about ancient fossils or famous artists. This museum was designed to be a magical place about each individual student. The people at the museum couldn't complete the museum because they didn't now everything about each individual student, so The Ticketmaster asked the students if they would help create the museum.

After he Ticketmaster explained that, inspired by the book Me Museum, each student would spend the next several weeks designing architecture, paintings, sculptures, gardens, ceiling murals, gift shops, and tickets for a museum all about themselves.

Students immediately transformed into architects as they spent the rest of their class designing the outside of their museums.

  

Stay tuned for updates on the development of their museums!

3rd Grade Visits ChapMart!

This week, as 3rd grade students entered the art room, they were unenthusiastically welcomed by Mr. Grumpy to the fictitious grocery store, ChapMart. As students sat in The Hive, they saw an image of the cereal aisle and heard grocery store sound effects playing over the classroom speakers.

   

After Mr. Grumpy told the "customers" of this weeks specials, he proceeded to complain about having to spend the entire morning reorganizing the cereal aisle based upon which cereals were designed for adults and which cereals were designed for kids. Suddenly a crashing sound came over the speakers and cereal boxes came crashing down onto the aisle floor, sending Mr. Grumpy into a nervous fit, as he has already been written up 3 times this month. 

Mr. Grumpy asked the customers to help him not get fired, by organizing the cereal boxes at the tables. Customers moved to the tables and worked together to place cereal boxes designed for adults on one side and kids on the other. 

Customers gathered together as a whole class to take time to reflect on the designs of the boxes and discuss the similarities between the kids' boxes, and then the adults' boxes. 

Customers then discussed the purpose of "audience" as part of the design process. Customers investigated board game designs in search of who the targeted audience could be. Customers were then transformed into designers as they identified their audience, listed important design elements of a board game, and began to generate ideas of their own board games.

A lot of fun will soon be created by the creative games I saw being planned this week!

Investigating Dublin's Profile of a Graduate

This week, students were assuming the role of "secret agents" as they investigated Dublin City School's Profile of a Graduate.

The art room was transformed with laser lights, suspenseful music, signs and projected images. As students entered the room, they were told about the secret mission they would be completing and were given disguises and flashlights. Students followed me as they tiptoed, jumped, and crawled their way to the "secret room". One student even carried a briefcase with classified documents! Check out the video below!

Once into the room, students were presented with their "mission" to investigate the "code words" on the secret document (the Profile of a Graduate) in order to answer the questions "why do we need to learn all of this information at school?" Students were given a "mission report" that they used to select one of the "code words" and complete the following missions:

Mission #1 - What does this word or phrase mean?
Mission #2 - Why is this word or phrase important to our lives?
Mission #3 - How does this word or phrase relate to art class?

  

Students chose code names that we all used for the class (mine was Agent Butter Cookies 😂!) After students investigated their "code word," they began to create artworks to represent their word or phrase. I am excited to share their artworks with you soon!

  

 

March Document a Second

Tell me that you don't have 10 minutes of each lesson to allocate to documentation and I will tell you that I completely understand, because I was there before. But can you tell me that you don't have one single second to devote to documentation?

Here is March's "Document a Second" video (spring break took 1 week away): 

DOCUMENT A SECOND!

I recently took my Ohio State students through an introduction to documentation and it was a good reminder of the first time I sat through a presentation on documenting student learning. I was so overwhelmed with the thought that on top of all of the million things I was trying to make happen in the little amount of time I have with my students (45 minutes, every 4 days).

While I have come to realize that adapting my curriculum and pedagogy has freed up a lot of time in each lesson for me to capture moments of learning, I completely understand the worry and struggle of allocating time for documentation within each lesson, so I decided to start experimenting with a project I am calling "Document a Second".

Below you will find my first video of the project, which is a compilation of 1 second videos during my art classes over the month of February. While snow days, schedule changes, and my days off to care for family members left me with only about 11 teaching days in February, I think the video still does a good job of documenting the learning moments that happen in my classroom every day.

Tell me that you don't have 10 minutes of each lesson to allocate to documentation and I will tell you that I completely understand, because I was there before. But can you tell me that you don't have one single second to devote to documentation?

I'm excited to share March's video with you next month!