Tag Archives: art

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International Dot Day (Extreme September 15-ish)

Students using Drawcast to make dots on the iPad

I thoroughly enjoy collaborating with preK.  They have a very organic planning process that comes from the things that the students get energized about or the things that come up naturally in their classrooms.  Last week, a preK teacher asked me if I would read The Dot by Peter Reynolds to her class.  Her class had been examining what it means to be an artist and she is pulling in multiple ways of discussing the topic through activities and literature.

As soon as she mentioned The Dot, I remember International Dot Day on September 15th and how sad I was that I missed the celebration this year at our school (I have big plans for next year!).  So…I thought, why not just celebrate now instead of waiting.  I examined the Dot day resources online and discovered the Dot Project  using iPads to create dots.  I took this idea and looked for a free app rather than the drawing app that the students in the Dot Project used.

In the lesson, we read the book and discussed what it means to be an artist.  Following the lesson, each student took a turn to make a dot using the app Drawcast.  I gave very little instruction on Drawcast so that students could discover things for themselves.  I only showed them how to change their colors and brush sizes.  Students got busy making their dots, and I circulated and gave them tips when they needed to erase or when they couldn’t figure out how something worked.  Each finished dot was saved on the iPad and then uploaded to Dropbox.  On my own computer, I pullled the images from Dropbox and imported them into Animoto to make a video of all of the dots.

This same process repeated for 2 other classes and the final video was shown on our morning broadcast.

This trial run gave me some experience with dots on the iPad for next September’s Dot Day and at the same time gave students an opportunity to use a new technology while expressing their artistic selves to an authentic audience.

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Fourth Grade Folktale Collaboration

Each mask was created in art and is accompanied by a student-written story developed in class

As a part of 4th grade’s Native American unit, they studied folktales.  They spent weeks reading a variety of folktales from around the world as well as Native American folktales.  In the media center, they used Google Earth on the iPads to examine the regions of the United States where the Native Americans are found.  They noticed what landforms and water features were in each area.  Then, I told folktales from each tribe and they noticed how the land and regions came into each story.

In class, students continued to read folktales and examine the elements of each kind of folktale.  They began to develop their own story and implement these elements into the stories.

In art, the students designed masks that accompanied their tales.

The process was long and spread out over several months, but we are excited to finally have the finished products on display in our media center.  If you happen to be near Barrow Elementary in the coming weeks, feel free to stop in and read some of these stories and examine the beautiful masks.

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Photo Story Seasons: A 1st Grade Collaborative Project

Each student had a chair to put pictures in, a camera, and a cord for downloading

Over the past few weeks, students in 1st grade have been working on a seasons unit around their weather standards in science.  This collaborative project involved the 1st grade teachers, the art teacher, and the media center.  In class, students learned about weather in the various seasons, dressed paper dolls in appropriate clothing based on the seasons, and wrote sentences about each season.  In art, students created background images on construction paper for each season.

In the media center, students came for 2 sessions to create  photo story about their creations.  They took digital photographs of their paper dolls in each season, imported their photographs onto the computer under their own accounts, and used photostory to record their scripts for each season.

The amount of technology that students used in the media center was  a bit overwhelming, but they accomplished so much.  To do this project, students had to figure out:

  • how to turn on a digital camera and take a photograph that included all of the subject in the shot
  • how to login to a computer with their own username and password, which included understanding how to use the mouse and keyboard
  • open multiple programs on the computer and go through program wizards to complete the various tasks
  • save pictures into their picture folder and delete photographs from a camera
  • import pictures into photostory
  • arrange pictures in the correct sequence to go along with the script
  • use a usb microphone to record scripts for each photo in the photostory
  • save and view their final piece
Once I actually listed out all of those skills (and I’m sure there are some that I missed), it really is amazing what we accomplished in 2 days.  I won’t pretend that it was smooth and quiet, because it was very chaotic, messy, and loud.  It took multiple adults supporting the students, but the students were eager, excited, and productive.  I also won’t pretend that every student got their pictures in the right order or that they recorded the right script on the right picture.  I CAN say that every student went through the process and learned something about using technology to create a digital product.  They had permission to explore without endless instruction on what to click on and what to push on.  Instead, they had some freedom to try things and had a lot of adult support individually.
I think that as a result of this project, we’ll see many more uses of technology in our early grades, and we will continue to collaborate across multiple subject areas.
 
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Ashley Bryan Traveling Exhibit of Illustrated Africana Children’s Literature featuring Shadra Strickland

Images on display through September 27th

The Ashley Bryan Traveling Exhibit of Illustrated Africana Children’s Literature is now in our library!  This exhibit is provided through a collaboration between the Auburn Avenue Research Library and the National Black Arts Festival. The display is on the tops of the shelves and features 8 works of art by Shadra Strickland, award-winning children’s illustrator.  The exhibit will be with us until September 27th when Shadra Strickland will visit our school.  To support the exhibit, we have copies of six books that accompany the exhibit, a curriculum guide to inspire lessons using the texts and artwork, and a school-wide subscription to Literacyhead.

From the accompanying curriculum guide:

Ashley Bryan

“A renowned author and illustrator, Ashley Bryan is perhaps best known for his work celebrating the African American experience. In 1962, he was the first African American to be published as both the author and illustrator of a children’s book. Since that time, his work has expanded the catalogue of children’s literature by African Americans and has led the way for other African American authors and illustrators.  Born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx by Jamaican immigrant parents, Bryan always harbored a love of books, art, and music. He recalls writing his first book in kindergarten and never gave up writing and illustrating books until he was finally published at the age of 40. Bryan was a talented and dedicated student, graduating from high school at 16 and attending Cooper Union Art School on a scholarship. After serving in World War II, Bryan attended Columbia University and studied in Europe as a Fulbright Scholar.

Ashley Bryan’s children’s books have won several awards including the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration, six Coretta Scott King Honors, and the Arbuthnot Prize. Bryan’s work is heavily influenced by African American poetry and storytelling. His retellings of African folktales such as Beautiful Blackbird and Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum have successfully exposed a wider audience of children to the African oral tradition.”

Shadra Strickland

“Shadra Strickland studied design, illustration, and writing at Syracuse University before earning her MFA at New York’s School of Visual Arts. Her illustrations have received numerous awards including the American Library Association’s John Steptoe Award for New Talent and the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award as well as an NAACP Image Award and the Ashley Bryan Children’s Literature Award.

Strickland’s illustrations start with real-life images. For her work on Bird, Strickland spent time walking the streets of New York, and her research for A Place Where Hurricanes Happen involved time in New Orleans. Yet, her illustrations, while based in reality, also manage to capture the imaginative worlds that children create.

When not at home in Baltimore where she teaches illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Strickland can be found conducting workshops across the country with children, teachers, and librarians.”

Throughout the next month, students will be coming to the library to view the exhibit and participate in a variety of lessons exploring the illustrations and text.

Some possible lessons that students may experience:

1.        Where I’m From:  Read aloud one of Shadra’s books.  Discuss how the words and images help us learn more about the characters in the story.  Examine one piece of artwork from the exhibit that is from the picture book and use the picture to think about what the character might write in a “Where I’m From” poem.  At the end, students can either craft a poem from the character’s perspective as a class using Poll Everywhere in the computer lab or students can write individual poems

2.       Connections:  Students will examine two pieces of artwork from Shadra’s exhibit and compare and contrast the two images using a venn diagram on the smart board.  Following this, we will read aloud one of her books and continue looking at how the images have connections to one another.  At the end, students will have time to examine all the pieces in the exhibit and write a response on an index card about connections they saw between the artwork.

3.       Text to Self Connections:  Examine a piece of art from the exhibit.  Have a conversation around a series of questions as a whole group and with partners that build connection between the art and the students.  Read aloud one of Shadra’s books and continue the conversation of connections.  View the remainder of the exhibit and see if any of the other paintings have a connection to you.  At the end, students write a response on an index card about a connection they had to the artwork.

4.       Response to Literature:  Read aloud one of Shadra’s books and examine the artwork from that book.  Ask a guiding question that would build student response about the book.  For example, in the book Bird, how is Bird like a bird?  Students write a response in relation to the question.  This could also be done as a more open response to the book in a book review format.  In the computer lab, students could type their response into Tagxedo and print a visual interpretation of their response.

5.       Read Alouds:  

a.       White Water:  Inspired by the author’s own childhood experiences, White Water tells the story of Michael,a little boy growing up under Jim Crow laws. He and his grandmother must give up their seats on the bus for a white family and must drink from the “colored” water fountain.Michael begins to dream about the “white” water, and devises a plan to get a taste of it, but Michael soon learns that many things he has been lead to believe are simply untrue.

b.       Bird:  Mekhai, nicknamed Bird, is struggling to deal with the changes in his life. He grandfather has recently passed away and his older brother has been lost to drug addiction. Fortunately for Bird, he has the love and support of his grandfather’s friend, Uncle Son, and a passion for drawing that help him to make sense of the world in this difficult time.

c.       A Place Where Hurricanes Happen: Adrienne, Keesha, Michael, and Tommy all live in New Orleans prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. This story follows the events of Katrina as seen through the eyes of the four children, all of whom experience the tragedy of the hurricane in different ways. Ultimately, the book is a hopeful reminder that even in the face of devastation and loss, the human spirit is resilient.

d.      Our Children Can Soar:  Each spread highlights key figures in African American history including George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Hattie McDaniel, Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall and Barack Obama.

If you are in the Athens area during the next month, we invite you to stop in and see the exhibit.  For more information or to let us know you’re coming by, email Mr. Plemmons at plemmonsa@clarke.k12.ga.us

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