uh oh.

Doh!

Sigh...

Sometimes things just don't work out in the art room, even when you think you have things all planned out. This lesson was one of those times.

I was excited to do a project with my 4th graders that was inspired by a series of ads Blattner Brunner did for Lego a few years ago. 

An exercise that focused on diagonals and tints and shades to make shapes 3d. An exploration between geometric and natural shapes.  Abstract vs. more realistic contours. A chance to discuss fractions in sculpture and drawing. In other words... way too much stuff going on!

We did guided practice drawings of individual lego blocks first. I emphasized really keeping their drawn lego creation simple. Keep it to around 7 or so blocks and use the detail in the cast shadow to really tell the viewer what they were looking at.

The kids did great with the guided practice, but so many got lost when they were asked to combine blocks together to create a different shape. Many attempted block forms that were way to complicated with too many shapes. I should have done more guided practice of adding shapes together. They had done a project earlier in the year (Marz Jr. inspired architectural drawings), so the use of line to make 3d forms should not have been foreign to them. For some reason, I didn't anticipate the confusion that happened. 

I did the lesson with one class, then did it with one more, making sure to emphasize simplicity in their lego form. After the second class, I decided to switch to this snowperson project, which still emphasized 3d form through light and dark, but abandoned the perspective aspect. If I were to attempt something like this again, I would use at least 2 class periods, so kids had more time to practice. I hate having projects take up multiple class periods though, since I see each class about 10-12 times a year due to our school size.

If students completed the project early I encouraged them to then build their lego drawing with legos from my classroom lego center.

Below are pics of some of the more successful projects. 

lesson fail.

Don't you "love" it when you think you have a super cool lesson planned and when you go to execute it with a class, the wheels come off? Me neither.

It happens to the best of teachers.

Since I am using this blog to reflect on my teaching practice, I think it is important to share these experiences as well as all the success stories that take place in my classroom. This will be the first, in a (hopefully) short series of posts that deal with failed lessons or parts of lessons and how I changed them to make sure students don't have a frustrating learning experience with me.

Last Wednesday I had a project planned that introduced 1st graders to the work of British designer Lo Cole. I loved the translucent overlapping that he has going on in the above image and I wanted the kids to create that same effect. To create the birds, students would use tissue paper. To be more specific, they would cut the bird shapes out of tissue paper. This is where things went awry. The kids had such a hard time cutting out the shapes from the flimsy paper. Birds were tearing left and right. To make it even more complicated, I had the kids fold the paper so they could cut out 2 birds at once. They had a hard time keeping the 2 layers together as they cut, so a number of students ended up with 3 raggedy birds instead of 6.

I had done a sample myself before doing it with the students, and it didn't occur to me that they would have so many problems. 

After I met with that class, I decided to switch to using tempera paint and stencils. Students would use primary colors to paint the birds and wherever they overlapped, they would mix secondary colors to fill those new shapes. The results were much better and there were very few frustrated students.

I'm going to reschedule that first class, so they can have an another opportunity to feel successful in art making. 

In hindsight, I could have had students draw the birds on the big sheet and tear small bits of tissue to fill those shapes. Students could use modge podge to adhere the pieces t the paper with a brush.

Lesson learned- do not have students tear complicated shapes out of tissue paper.