In fifth grade, we have explored the use of line to create landscapes with a foreground, middle ground and background. The landscapes were painted using warm and cool colours.
My classroom is not quite back to normal, but hopefully by next week it will be! Taking a break from cleaning yesterday, I could not resist hanging up these colourful pieces to make it feel more homey!
In middle school this semester, I decided to try another project I did on my practicum. This is the final project after having done several studies exploring the colour wheel, tinting and shading, and monochromatic, complementary and analogous colour schemes. Students came up with their own idea for a composition. Their chosen composition needed to include the twelve colours of the colour wheel and at least one additional colour scheme. These pieces are from the sixth and seventh grade classes. The eighth graders need another class or two to finish, which will be just in time for the end of the school year!
I have finally moved back upstairs to my classroom. Let’s just say that in two days, I have made a lot of progress in order to teach in this space. I have used every spare minute in between my classes to organize and put away supplies. There is still quite a lot of progress to be made, and I will be very ready for summer once this is all over!
Here are Grade 2’s finished plasticine pictures for the story “The tortoise and the hare.” I had misplaced them, but knew they had to be somewhere amidst all the furniture. It was a relief to find them all undamaged and accounted for following the chaos. They really are quite impressive coming from second graders!
This is what my classroom and the entrance to the fifth floor look like on Monday morning, beginning of week three. The walls have been freshly painted a lovely shade of lavender and the floors are polished. They tell me I will be back up there by Friday, once the electricity is hooked back up again- I am hopeful, but trying not to be too excited. I know I need to move the contents of my makeshift classroom somewhere before Friday- the space is needed for the middle school play. It will be a big job! I am happy at least to be starting fresh and really be able to put my own touch to the space!
Here are today’s finished drawings from first grade. I had them build structures with wooden blocks and draw from observation to create cityscapes. Aren’t they great with the beautiful colours added?
It has been a whole week… and I am still in my makeshift classroom I am not going to lie, while there is a lot of evidence of God’s grace and provision over the whole situation at school, the past few days I have been pummelled with ungratefulness and discouragement, feeling like these next few weeks will be a mountain to overcome with my classroom contents in a terrible state of disarray.
The positives of my new space are that I am closer to the staff kitchen and photocopier, and make less trips up and down stairs than usual. I also am now able to see a bit of the dynamics that go on in other specials’ classes, and I am treated to continual music concerts throughout the day. The negatives are many. I am finding teaching in this space very distracting with many walkthroughs of people coming and going- having no walls contributes to this. As it is a multi-purpose room, the space is used for multiple activities during a day, including study hall, assembly, lunch, recess when it rains… and I find myself cleaning up many messes throughout the day which threaten art making. There is no storage space for any supplies or artwork, mostly I just leave my buckets out in the open and hope for the best. I am making do without a whiteboard, bulletin board or projector which I would use daily for showing examples or hanging artwork. With limited materials on hand, whenever I need something, I need to make a trip all the way up to the fifth floor (how did I used to do this 5+ times a day?) I feel ‘scattered’ both in planning and prepping lessons, and have many nomadic feelings of nowhere to go, nowhere to get work done. The space I have access to is either damp or cramped. To top it off, I find myself having to rework my plan for the rest of the year due to the limited storage space and sink access, which means no clay 😦
Today, as I made yet another trip up to the fifth floor to get supplies, I noticed everything in my room had been moved to the middle. It looked like they were repainting, and I had quite the time finding even the most basic supplies underneath all the tarps. On the plus side, it looks like I will have time to reorganize the room sooner than I thought! But because of the disarray, I probably will not lug down any more materials. Best just to stick with markers and oil pastels!
Please pray that God will give me strength and encouragement to potentially get through the rest of the school year like this!
Today was day one of teaching in my makeshift classroom. I was able to haul down most of my supplies to a designated corner of the multi purpose room, however I soon realized there are so many things I take for granted when I teach! For today’s lessons, I had to make do without my whiteboard, rulers, a nearby sink… we made it work. While the space was dim and damp, I enjoyed being right next to the music room and partaking of a mini concert during my break. Midday, I decided it was easier to travel up to my kinder and first grade rooms for their lesson. Fortunately these two rooms are next together and I only needed the same simple supplies for both groups. This was the smoothest part of my day- it makes so much sense to have them sit and work at their own desks that are the right size for them!
Here are a few of our creations from today. We started with written letters of the alphabet and transformed them into colourful, imaginative playgrounds.
There is never a dull moment here! Last night, there was a fire on the fifth floor of our school building (my floor!). Fortunately by this point, all the students had gone home and the cleaning staff who discovered the flames were able to alert the fire department quickly. The whole interior of the fifth floor hallway suffered damage, as well as several of the classrooms. These rooms may be out of use for some time until repairs can be done. The fire door at the entrance of the hallway did its job well to keep the fire contained. As I heard the news last night, my mind immediately went to all the hazardous supplies and student artwork in my room, and whether any of it would be salvageable. I began to think of the worst case scenario. School was cancelled for today as inspectors came and assessed the scene. Teachers were still expected to attend, as well as students writing AP and IGCSE exams- we were left waiting for quite a while for the results of the inspection before being allowed to venture up. The lesson learned here is: shut your classroom door when you leave at the end of the day! My classroom was virtually untouched because I had done this, it still looks bright and cheerful inside- while everything right outside my door is sooty and charred. Clean up crews were soon put to work and all the teachers on the fifth floor have begun to migrate our classrooms to other temporary locations within the building. While for some this may last the rest of the year, my room may be up and running again once things are cleaned up a bit. It is amazing to see the response of the school community- there are many willing to volunteer their time for all that needs to be done!
We are thankful to God for His hand in this situation: that there was no serious damage anywhere other than the fifth floor, and the fire was detected and dealt with quickly. Also that this all took place after school- no students or teachers were on the floor and no injuries occurred. I realize how blessed I am to be an art teacher with my own art room. I now get to experience a bit of what the many travelling art-on-a-cart teachers experience with a temporary classroom set up (at least for a few days!)
*Does this image look familiar to you? I am reminded of Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory
Gateway Art 