Djembe's with Amy & Jess

Amy and Jess did a really incredible job with this Djembe lesson.

Their theme permeated every aspect of their class time.

Symbols showed up on their staff name tags, and classroom rules. 

Jess wore a traditional skirt from Rwanda, a country that she had visited just a year earlier.

Jess also borrowed drums and shakers from her friends at the Croatan Studio and Amy found music and videos to play during class time to inspire their students.

Classroom Rules

 Mini-Project Worksheet/Check List

 

Main Project Check List and Symbol Worksheet.

 

I was also really impressed with how Amy and Jess shared the roles of teaching, it was obvious that they had talked about this ahead of time and delegated well.

 

At the end of class, Jess and Amy had their students play their instruments as part of their debrief and critique.The students had a really great time, and it was fun to add a little music making to what is typically a very quiet class.

Lukasas with Hanna

Hanna did this lovely Lukasa project with our older students, 

and started it out with a mini lesson on Shrinky Dinks.

How fun!

 Here is the check list Hanna created for her 

Shrinky Dink mini lesson.

 Once the students were done their mini lesson, Hanna gave a short presentation on Lukasas. I love that she found ways to get her students up and moving to help with the motivational part.

 Here is an image of the worksheets Hanna provided for her students to use while making their Lukasa.

 

Hanna had her students first draw a story on their worksheets and then pick beads that represented those images and add them to their clay Lukasa. A few kids went on to add animal heads, arms and legs.

 

Hanna wrapped things up with a final discussion. 

Fun was had by all.

Silhouette Illustrations with Deanna

Castle Image from Shiggy.com

 Today Deanna taught her students about Silhouette Illustrations.

She got her students started with a mini-lesson that centered on book mark making.

 Here is one of our students working with the mini-lesson check list.

For her main lesson, Deanna chose to focus on the works of Kara Walker. This was tricky to navigate as many of Walkers images are very dark silhouettes that convey truth in our society. 

Deanna chose to steer the students in the direction of lighter topics

such as folk lore and fairy tales.

For her motivation, Deanna used a matching game that incorporated the titles of famous fairy tales, 

to keep her students engaged in the process.

Deanna provided an abundance of visual references for her students.

This really helped them create individual pieces of work.

 Here is Deanna doing her final critique with her students, and below are 2 finished illustrations about Jack and the Bean Stalk.

Click HERE for a similar lesson plan from Crayola.

Lindsays Graffiti (& Keith Haring) Lesson

For Lindsay's mini-lesson, she chose to have the students create a "graffiti wall" using stencils of Keith Haring images. 

I love that Lindsay got her students to work together this way, as so often they are working alone. 

I also really like that Lindsay created a brick wall with red pieces of paper for the kids to add their images to. 

This was a simple, and really fun idea.

After the mini lesson, Lindsay began her talk by focusing on fun fonts and images used in graffiti.

She used games to keep her students engaged 

in the motivation piece.

Here is Lindsay showing the elements of her finished exemplar.

Here is one of the checklists Lindsay used to walk her students through the steps of her main lesson.

Here is Lindsay with her students doing their final group critique.

I love that she talked about both the mini and main lesson together.

The kids did a great job!

Click HERE for similar lessons on www.HaringKids.com.

Kim's Community Fireworks

 

Kim started our "Community Stories" theme off with a BANG, by having her students learn about fireworks and how they celebrate community events.

For the mini-lesson Kim had her students create cut paper "fireworks" out of geometric shapes and chalk.

For the main lesson, Kim offered a slide show of different community events from around the world that are celebrated with Fireworks. She offered her students a chance to come up to the images she displayed on the screen and point out the different elements that are connected with community.

Kim also created a card game with a word that represents a single person on one side and a community of people represented on the other side.

 

When Kim was done with her slide show her students began a printmaking project. Kim chose to have the kids use cardboard in order to create mono-prints of buildings, crowds and fireworks. 

 

 The turned out really neat!

Spring 2012 Theme "Community Stories"

Folk Tales
Fables
Generational Stories
Community Heros
Objects that tell stories (monuments, family album)
Puppets
Cultural Stories
Comic Books
Music & Songs
Film & Documentary
Icons

Fall 2011 Final Show

MONSTERS!

What an amazing semester it has been!

With only 3 Moore students and almost 20 YAW students, 

it was a busy and eventful season.

In order to keep things streamlined and organized, Natosha, Gladys and Maggie decided to do a unit on monsters and create 2 week long lessons. This allowed them to really collaborate together, taking turns teaching and assisting, and helped build a growing concept with the kids. The younger and older students did all of the same lessons, and Natosha, Gladys and Maggie worked hard to create adaptations that were appropriate to the 2 age levels as well as cognitive and physical development skills.

Some of their lessons were:

Turning body tracings into monster characters.
Creating a family and friend tree 

so that the monsters would have relationships with each other.
Creating food for the monsters to eat.
 Construction homes for the monsters to live in 

and planets for them to live on. 

To help them stay organized, Natosha, Gladys and Maggie created bags for each student. It contained their own going work week to week as well as materials, name tags and lesson check lists.

I'm am REALLY proud of the very hard work and dedication these gals put into this semester.

The kids had a great time with such a well rounded and well organized unit.