Leadership and Kindness in Third Grade

For a few weeks, we had to focus our lessons on the discussion of Empathy and Kindness because of the clash of strong personalities in the class.

We've created a book to discuss Empathy and watched the ClassDojo Empathy videos

Today, I was immensely proud of Ms. Phillips homeroom, because they practiced their kindness while being role models for some of our Pre-K students.

Third grade became the art teachers as they paired up with Pre-K students to teach them about primary and secondary colors.

 Some students explored the software Paint on the computer.

All third-graders embraced their leadership role and guided Pre-K through the entire activity. 

They were patient, kind and very good teachers!

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ― Mahatma Gandhi.

This class proved the words above to be an absolute truth. There was not a misguided word among themselves the entire period, because they knew that the class was not about them. It was about helping their fellow schoolmates to learn.

I'm proud of what these future citizens of the world have showed me today, and we will continue to exercise kindness and empathy through ART every week!

TAB or Choice Based Art at Sallye B.

This year I'm excited to move towards TAB in our art classroom. 

TAB stands for Teaching for Artistic Behavior and in an art classroom it will mean that students are treated as artists and they will pursue their own artistic interests.

"The real product of art education is not the works of art, but the child." 

A group of 4th graders chose to paint.

This quote by Lois Hetland summarizes a strong believe I have about art education and that's the reason I'll be - albeit slowly - changing my teaching philosophy to TAB. 

Ms. Hetland continues to say: " I think we have to be careful of that trap because you can turn your class into a production factory and then your kids don't develop artistic minds, even though they may be making beautiful work that is hanging in the hall. What I'm really urging here is more autonomy on the part of the student artist–they need to be making the decisions if they're going to make a better mind."  http://www.everyarteverychild.org/assessment/studiohabits.html

With that in mind, we are transitioning to TAB here at Sallye B. art. There still be days where we will work on building skills and techniques or creating collaborative projects as a class. But, hopefully soon, all students will be working on their own artistic endeavors. Digging deep into their artistic intent and expression to develop "better minds."

Another group chose collage

5th Grade - Radial Balance

5th grade is learning about the Principle of Design, BALANCE.

Students took notes of the three types of balance we will study.

Then they drew a quick sketch of a simple design that shows Radial Balance.

This class will translate their designs to a 3-D collage using construction paper.

Ms. Lee's class are using different materials to also create a design with Radial Balance, but they are using foam shapes on cardboard to create copies of the design using the proccess of Printmaking. 

We are using fellow art teacher Cassie Stephen's video to illustrate the steps.

She also shows us a clip in that video about how United States currency is printed! 

Cool!

Kuddos to Brady and Markaz for working hard on their project, finishing on time and being able to each pull two prints from their design.