I read the book to the children and as we always do, we broke into age groups.
The younger students (ages 3-5) created a watercolor fish. The inspiration for this activity came from: There's A Dragon in my Art Room.They started by drawing their fish on white paper and tracing it with black marker. Then they used liquid watercolors (many of them had never used these before and they LOVED the vibrant colors that they were able to use for their fish).
They cut out their fish and glued them onto a background. We had some turquoise paper which worked nicely for an underwater scene. Then came the decorating. Glitter, foam shapes, tissue paper, sequins and GLUE were all made available to the children for their fish.
The next age group (6-8 yrs old) created Gyotaku fish prints. The inspiration for this activity came from That Artist Woman.They painted the fish (we did not use real fish for this, but I have heard that you can... we bought the rubber fish for this activity) with acrylic paint. The students then created 1 print on a piece of paper. This pulled most of the paint off of the fish. Then they used a piece of muslin to create a second print, pulling the rest of the paint off of the fish.
The last group of students (ages 9 and up), painted river rocks. I bought river rocks at Home Depot. The children were able to choose the rock that "spoke" to them. Some looked for a certain shape, others looked for certain coloring. It was interesting to see how they searched for their particular rocks. They used acrylic paint and created their own individual rocks. Since I had made sure to have plenty of rocks on hand, some children went home with 5-6 painted rocks.
How on earth do you have 3 different age groups and activities happening at the same time? Do you have assistants? I teach after-school art classes - 24 kids in a class age 5 to 13 all at once. I'd love to break them into age groups but I can't imagine how you do it!
ReplyDelete:) Elizabeth
paintersofdreams.blogspot.com
Luckily, the grant that was written for the program allows for 3 teachers. We meet as a whole group in the main gallery of the museum to read the story. I show them the projects that they will doing for that day. Then I break them into their small groups and they go with the teacher that will be working with their group. The teacher of each group takes them to a different gallery in the museum, then demonstrates the steps and facilitates the project. Something else that we are lucky enough to have access to is high school volunteers. Each day we have at least 2 (sometimes up to 5) National Honor Society students who need volunteer hours. They help us get set up, work with the students and even better.... help clean up at the end of the session! They are an incredible asset to have! In addition to all of that, the parents stay with their children. This is really helpful for the younger ones. The older children are pretty independent, but its nice to have extra adult hands to help with glue and scissors for our toddlers and PreK kiddos.
ReplyDeleteWould it be possible to have some local high school volunteers help you with your after school classes? Or maybe some parent volunteers?
Thanks for your reply - I'll try to work something out, but I'm not too hopeful as the kids come to the group straight from their classroom and the parents relish the extra 1.5 hours before they pick them up :) Never mind, it actually works quite well with them all doing the same project. Of course the standard of the finished work varies hugely, but I find the older kids are incredibly supportive of the younger ones, and I see such progress with the littlies it is amazing. I had a little prep age boy telling me how he loved the "effective use of opposite colours" (his words)in an example I showed the other day, before we had started to discuss it. It's moments like that that make it all so worthwhile...
ReplyDeleteSorry I couldn't be of more help to you. I would definitely look into getting some high school volunteers. The National Honor Society students need hours and they are super responsible.
ReplyDeleteMulti-age groups are always amazing. I taught multi-age when I was a self-contained classroom teacher and it was incredible the amount that the little ones learned, not from me, but from their older classmates. And the older students learn so much by teaching!
Good luck and keep me posted as to how it works out!