Teaching Experience

My experience teaching in this class taught me many important things. One of them is to be completely prepared for every possibility. Another is to be prepared with extra material in case parts of the lesson run more quickly or roughly than you had expected. This makes it easier to improvise and fill in time as necessary. Also, I found out that it is important to repeat important points such as due dates and objectives often during the class period. Also, it is better to make announcements before you believe you need to because students won't often listen and obey right away. This will allow for there to be time for important measures such as closure. Another thing that I learned is to never depend on your students to be excited and motivated for class. I believe if I am more animated and excited, my class will be too. This is something that I need to improve upon.

Stained Glass Art in Europe

This project is called Stained Glass in Europe. In this project, we first cut out the shape of the base to which the tissue paper would be glued. To do this, we first stapled the reference image to a sheet of construction paper. Next, first placing a masonite board under the construction paper, we traced the lines of the image using an exacto knife. This cut out the shape of the base from the construction paper. Finally, we glued tissue paper to the base to fill in places with negative space.  

An extension activity to this project could be to take the students on a field trip to places around town that have stained glass. This would be a fun escape for the students while still being educational and inspiring. The teacher could instruct them to draw one design from a window while on the field trip. Later, the students could recreate this design using techniques from the project.



Nature Prinmaking

This project is called “Nature Printmaking.” The object was to create a relief print of a natural object. First, we drew a scene or object from nature. Next, we transferred this drawing to a printing plate by pressing hard with the butt of a watercolor brush into a Styrofoam plate. Afterwards, we cut 9” x 12” sheets of construction paper. Then, we rolled ink (color complementary to the color of the construction paper) to the right consistency. Next, we rolled this ink across the printing plate until the ink was thick enough. Finally, we placed this printing plate on the construction paper, pressed down hard and evenly, and lifted the plate off. This resulted in a relief print. This process was repeated until a print of equal consistency came out.

An extension activity to this one could be to instruct the students to create another plate that correlated with their first one. This plate could then be rolled in ink (in a color that would stand out against the first color). Then, this plate could be pressed on a print pulled from the first plate. This would create a 2-color print.

This project is called “Cave Art Comes Alive!” The objective of this project was to create art similar to the way that the cavemen did. We were instructed to paint one of our favorite childhood memories. This content is similar to the subject matter that the cavemen painted. We were given an 11” x 14” piece of crumpled paper bag that represented a hide or rock wall. We finger painted with mud mixed with tempera paint. Also, we added natural materials such as leaves, pine needles, pine cones, grass to the painting.   

An entertaining and educational extension activity that could be possible to do with this project is instruct the students to act what cavemen would be like making art. I would create a set that included a “rock wall” (plaster wall covered in crumpled paper bags”, dark with only one light source (like a cave), and rocks and such to sit on. I would then instruct one or two students to go onto the set with their paint and paint acting the way a caveman would. Each student would get a turn to go up and add their own picture. The end product would result in a large collaborative painting that can be displayed.

This project is called "Little Leaves." The teachers first had us write down our favorite fall memory. In this project, we first skinned crayons (yellow, orange, red, red-orange) onto wax paper. Once we had enough wax shavings on the wax paper, the teacher would collect and iron it. This would create a flat sheet of melted wax, surrounded by wax paper, that created interesting patterns and design. Next, we traced 3 leave shapes onto the wax paper and cut these out. Then, we glued these shapes onto a piece of white 8.5" x 11" paper. Next, we drew 5 leaves surrounding and overlapping the wax leaves. We were instructed to fill in these shapes with cool colors using oil pastels. We had to have at least 5 drawn leaves and 3 wax leaves.  Finally, we added lines and visual texture to the wax and drawn leaves.

An extension project that a teacher could do could be to gather actual leaves and create a collage using them. The teacher could correlate the fall memories by asking the students to bring in pictures that remind them of fall. This could be pictures of them and their family or pictures from a magazine or newspaper. The class could then create one huge collage including the pictures, leaves, twigs, and other natural materials that they found. Each student would glue on their own pictures and leaves and such with the teacher’s guidance. The completed collage would be about 4’ x 4’.

Underwater Scratch Art

This project is called “Underwater Scratch Art.” The objective was to create scratch art that depicted an underwater creature in its natural environment. We were given sheets of scratch paper, a sharp dowel, and an image of a sea creature for reference. The teachers taught us scratch techniques. We tried these out on an extra strip of scratch paper. Next, we drew our sea creature on a piece of 8.5” x 11” paper folded in half. Then, we transferred our drawing to the scratch paper by placing the scratch paper underneath the drawing and tracing the lines of the drawing, pressing hard while doing so. Finally, we rendered the environment for the creature and made finishing touches paying close attention to detail and line variation.  

An extension project that a teacher could do following this lesson could be to use scratchart again but allow the students more creative and transfer it to a larger scale. Instead of a 5” x 8” sheet of scratchpaper, the students could have an 11” x 14” sheet of scratchpaper. Also, the subject matter would be determined by the student. The technique and process would be the same



Birds of a Feather

“Birds of a Feather” is a project that Monica and I created and taught. It is a lesson about the beauty of diversity. The pictures shown are of our board that displayed the pictures of the students’ projects and my project example.

 In the lesson, the students were asked to create a character and convey this character using different textures and patterns. First, they created their character by writing out characteristics on a note card. Next, they cut out shapes of the bird template that we provided them with. Then, they drew their patterns and applied texture (feathers and/or tissue paper) to the shapes. After this, they assembled all the shapes by folding, cutting, and gluing to create a bird form. Finally, they punched 3 holes, 2 in the wing and 1 in the middle of the body, strung 1 pieces of 18” yarn through each hole, and tied these three pieces together at the top.

An extension project that a teacher could teach following “Birds of a Feather” could be to instruct students to create their own flying animal. In “Birds of a Feather”, we provided the students with a template. In this project, there would be no template. If students are confused about construction, they can refer back to the bird template. Again, they would have to create a character. However, this time they can choose the medium and techniques that they want to use to portray the character. “Birds of a Feather” was mostly about technique. Now that the students know these techniques, this project will do more to encourage creativity and originality.