The Imagination Station Headquarters!

The Imagination Station Headquarters!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Week 8: New Classes, new schedule and ohh yeah, Halloween!

This week seemed a bit jumbled, the schedule changed drastically to fit in Professional Development for teachers. This happens every year, so no surprise. However, three classes I have serviced for the last two months were dropped and three new ones appeared! If there is one characteristic that I have found helpful in this profession, its the ability to be flexible!
Many classes were finishing projects from the previous week on printmaking. It is important to try to give enough time for all the students to finish a project, but many finish early and others take much longer. This is a challenge at times, but to fill in the extra time for the "early birds" I had the 5th grade students make sketch pads with a simple binding method. When the younger grades finish early, I normally put a bin of art books on the table for independent reading or a bin of design blocks.
Finally, certain classes (PK-1st) made spiders out of paper plates. They had to trace and cut out the heads (previously taught, so reinforced!), then use a new skill of accordion folds for the legs. The students had a spider book read to them and we made a list of spider facts. They chose one, an adult wrote it in yellow and they traced the words. These were pasted to the spiders belly.
They other project that I did was a modeled drawing of Halloween symbols. The students (2-3rd Grade) were able to see how the lines and shapes previously taught could be used to make the drawing. After being colored in with crayons, we applied a black wash to give the drawing a spooky dusk setting!
The pumpkin is one that I carved with my own 5 year old, Jack! So yes, its Jacks-O-Batman-Lantern!