Day 6: Stop Motion Animation

Day six was entirely a work day for the stop motion animation videos. Everyone wrapped up their scenery and script and started creating their videos.

Of course, the two boys, who had not wanted a long script had a very short video and were the first ones done. Directing and helping them on their project was slightly complicated because one boy was much more willing to keep working and follow directions than the other and he began to get frustrated at his own partner.

By now I had begun listing alternative projects on the board every day so when someone was finished or started goofing around I could point to the board and say “which project do you want to work on next?”. This worked with some success.

I recently read a blog post from a colleague about an activity jar in the art room. When a student is finished or not interested in the current project, they can draw a variety of art activities from the draw and then choose which one they want to do. I wish I had known about that before and had an art activity jar ready to go for the students who only dutifully completed their projects so they could then distract others and be social.

But once again, the circumstances of the classroom not being an art room and not being stocked with any supplies except the ones I needed for my lessons, would have woefully limited the options of any activity jar.

We also ran into technical difficulties with sound and the software. I had downloaded demo versions (because couldn’t afford a school license), which my group of three girls quickly found only allowed them to take 50 frames. They had planned a long video, so the work around became to create as many small videos as they needed to complete their movie and I would help them put them all together when they were done. They ended up creating 7 (!!!) videos of 50 frames and their entire movie ended up being 3 times longer than the group with the next longest video. They were so invested in their video that they worked really hard over the next three days to complete it and recorded a lot of their audio during class breaks.

Overall, this work day went very well. All the students were very engaged and enjoyed working on their videos. They were really proud of what they created and I was proud of them!

Here are their final videos!

Day 5: Paper Plants, Terrariums, & Stop Motion Animation

This day was fairly laid back as it was mostly a continuation of the previous day’s lesson. The night before I had baked their dinosaur eggs in the oven so they would dry faster and be ready for handling the next day.

I started out by showing the students a PowerPoint about the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event and the art of stop motion animation. We even watched a ten minute stop motion video made by Iowa City 2-6^th graders: The Robot and the Butterfly.

Originally I hadn’t intended for their paper plants and dinosaur nests to be part of the stop motion animation lesson, but I realized that the paper plants would introduce them seamlessly to the idea of creating background scenery and props for the videos they were going to be making. We watched a demonstration of the stop motion software they would be using and I assigned them into groups for making their videos, instructing them to finish their plants first and work on scenery and script in their groups after.

After gathering all their own painted papers (which we had labeled with their names or initials on the back the day before), I showed them a demonstration of how to trace and cut their leaves out of the paper, how to use wire and frog tape to construct their leaves, then how to use wire and tape to construct their stems and make a multi-stemmed, multi-leaved paper plant.

As each student finished their plants, I super glued moss from the craft store onto a Styrofoam base and they stuck their wire plants in the foam. They could then arrange their eggs around it and have a complete nest.

As they worked on their plants they discussed what they wanted their movie to be about. With one group of three girls, the girl who finished her nest first acted as secretary for her group and wrote down their setting, characters, and plot ideas as the rest worked.

One group of two boys had a bit of a harder time staying on track with their plants, and also later with the script. They didn’t want to write a long script, they whipped up something fast for their scenery, and weren’t much interested in putting forth more effort when I prodded. They immediately wanted to get to the animation. I told them that working with the software was going to be put off until the next class because all the preparation work they were doing now was very important.  Eventually they put more work into their scenery and script and finished their nests.

At the end of class, we took a break from fake plants and used *real* plants to make an awesome dinosaur terrarium.

Everyone was very excited for Monday to start animating their videos.

Day 4: Dinosaur Eggs, Nests, & Cyanotypes

Like previous days, I put our list of classroom expectations on the board with (Keep making art when you are done!) underlined. I also put up a schedule for the day on the board.

There were a lot of moving parts for this lesson and I wanted to make sure we all knew what was going to happen and when.

First, a visual PowerPoint with information about dinosaur eggs, nests, and prehistoric plants we still have today. The students also learned about contemporary artists who make fake plants out of recycled material. We also discussed the history of photography and Anna Atkins, possibly the first female photographer, and her cyanotypes of plants.

Next, it was important for the kids to paint all the construction paper we were going to be using for our leaves. Could we have just used colored construction paper? Yes, but it wouldn’t have been as visually interesting.

We broke out the paint and the brushes, and after the students picked a plant they wanted to create, they began painting construction paper in the greens, yellows, blues, and pinks they needed. After finding out that magnolias had been around during the time of the dinosaurs, all the girls in the class opted to make a magnolia tree.

We left all the paper to dry in the classroom now and moved our classroom outside to create our own cyanotypes. The students used tape to mask their watercolor paper and to tape down plants, then spray paint to create their cyanotypes. Spray paint was a huge hit with this group of 2-4^th graders and they created some truly awesome cyanotypes.

When we moved back in, our painted papers were still drying, which was fine, because we still needed to make our dinosaur eggs!

So we mixed our dinosaur egg batter as a class (coffee grounds, flour, water, and salt) and each student selected 4 toy dinosaur figurines as their baby dinosaurs. Then outside we went again to mold our eggs.

At which point the class was nearly over. We still needed to make our paper plants, but this was deferred until the next day.

This lesson went really well. I feel most comfortable and the students seem the most productive when there is a lot going on. We were moving pretty fast, but each activity was engaging enough that it wasn’t overwhelming.

This is probably the last day that I did a formal, paper exit survey. I found that no matter how I varied the questions, I wasn’t getting much information out of the students from them.

Day 3: Dinosaur Busts & Dinosaur Eyes

Once again I started today with a list of expectations. I added one expectation based on observations from the day before: “If you are done with your project or waiting for something to dry, work on something else! If you don’t know what to work on ASK me and I will help you.”

I noticed that when students had any down time at all, and this especially happened if they finished all their painting pieces quickly and had to wait for them to dry, monkeying around immediately ensued. There were, of course, other things for them to work on and I began listing their option on the board so they could choose. But they still needed to be redirected by me.

For this lesson the students learned about busts and ceramic artists. We also talked about ceratopia “or horned face” dinosaurs. I figured if you’re going to make a dinosaur face, nothing could be more interesting than a horned face dinosaur.

As a started activity/extra project to work on I showed the students how to make glass “dinosaur eyes” with glass pebbles, paint, and sculpey.

I demonstrated how to make an armature for their bust with aluminum foil and tape and then demonstrated how to mold the clay around it, creating facial features and texture.

The students used the images I provided to choose a horned dinosaur or another favorite, and got to work on their clay busts. As they finished up, the dinosaur eyes became a popular activity and any leftover sculpey was used to make earrings, pendants, coins, and figurines.

The students really loved working with the clay and the sculpey.

I’m not very good with clay. I tried to make this as engaging a lesson as possible, yet of all my lessons this is the one I’d modify the most. Part of the problem was the students immediately began making busts that were too small. This is partially my fault. I knew we had limited foil in the supply and I didn’t want to crumple a bunch of it for my demonstration. However, because I made a small demonstration dino bust, the students all made dino busts about the same size.

I also would modify it in the future by demonstrating more items that could be made with the sculpey. After making a few dinosaur eyes, the students wanted to continue playing with it and molding the sculpey, but made a bunch of random things. Which I don’t mind, but if I had known how popular the sculpey was going to be, I would’ve devised a whole and longer activity around the sculpey, a diorama maybe. 

Also, for the busts, I would’ve had the students use regular clay despite the fragility. The marble clay that was in Belin-Blanks supply closet was easy to work with, but cracked terribly as it dried. We ended up gluing many of our pieces back together in the end. We spray painted our dino busts on our last day of class.

Day 2: Acetate Birdosaurus

Before the students even arrived for the second day, I had put a short list of expectations on the white board. There were three rules based on my observations from the day before: 1. Raise your hand to speak during teacher talk time and demonstrations. 2. Be nice and respectful to others. 3. Be respectful (careful) with materials.

It seems a lot more difficult for students to know what appropriate behavior is in the art room. For one thing they are not always or even usually in their seats. Aside from presentations and demonstrations, they are usually moving around getting materials or working. I like the flexibility of the art room, and I appreciate getting students to a point where they know what to do next and can work mostly independently. However, the flexibility and independence can also lead to more misbehavior for squirrely or unmotivated students.

After we went over expectations I showed the students a visual PowerPoint about birds, dinosaurs, and the artists we were emulating for our project that day. We also watched a short video from PBS about Jack Horner’s quest for the pet “chickenosaurus” that the kids found very interesting.

The kids gathered for the acetate collage demonstration and I enumerated the steps they needed to complete and in what order. Then the rest of the class time was spent drawing in acetate, painting, drying paint, and collaging our paintings.

The students needed to select a bird to transform into a dinosaur for their collage. I had a large book of birds for them to flip through. Each student wanted a printed off bird to first trace. In a class of seven it was easy to find and print a bird for each student. With a larger class I’d need to have a limited selection of pre-printed birds to offer.

I was surprised this first day to find that my most disruptive student was also the best at following directions as far as art projects went. She was hyper-focused, followed all the steps to a “t” and quickly produced the most well-crafted and aesthetically pleasing collage.

Also, one of my students who was more difficult to engage later became very engrossed in painting on acetate and wanted to, and did, make three different acetate collages over the next three days.

 The finished projects turned out really well and best of all the kids really seemed to love painting on the acetate.

Day 1: Dinosaur Discovery

I was a little worried that since the rooms at Belin-Blank aren’t “art rooms” but regular classrooms, that I would not have all the materials I needed. I had to write up a list that included absolutely everything we could possibly need including art staples like pencils and crayons.

           

The staffers had done a great job of supplying everything I had asked for--the real question was whether I had remembered everything I needed.

           

I had planned to introduce myself with some photos and information and then do a classroom ice breaker activity.

I had helpers hand out three sheets of paper per student and gave the students about two minutes to draw three separate things about themselves. Since I was giving them limited time I told them I did not expect their best drawings, only what they could quickly draw in two minutes. I prompted them to think about family, pets, favorite sports and food, hobbies, etc.

After all drawings were completed, we folded our drawings into paper airplanes.

Two things happened here I had not expected: first, the students needed a lot more help than I expected to learn to fold paper airplanes (some of them) and second, the impromptu quick drawings ended up being an excellent pre-assessment of their basic drawing skills.

I had the students throw the airplanes all around the room, then gather three of them that they hadn’t drawn. We gathered in a circle and as each student unfolded someone else’s airplane they took a guess at what the picture was and who drew it. In this way we learned new things about each other.

This intro activity took longer than I expected, but I think it was worth it since I was trying to foster community and get the students feeling comfortable with each other.

After the intro, I showed them my visual PowerPoint about paleontologists and artists/scientists.

After the slideshow, I had students work on painting their journal covers. I showed them a method of using rubber cement as resist to create a dinosaur design. Students created two covers, and then we moved outside for our excavation activity.

The students used hammers, paintbrushes, and magnifying glasses to “excavate” dinosaurs out of a plaster/sand rock. They each had 3 dinosaur skulls to find and 4 dinosaurs.

Back inside, now that the painted covers were dry, I showed the students how to construct their journal and how to bind it.

I expected that drilling holes down the spine with the awl and sewing would be the most challenging aspect of this lesson. I fully intended to help and support nearly every student, taking turns. However, I was amazed at how quickly they picked the process up. One girl bound three journals, another girl bound two. A boy, who appeared to be younger than the rest, bound both of his journals mostly by himself.

I directed students who had finished their journals to begin sketching their dinosaur finds into their journal. Two girls attempted to render detailed drawings of their skulls and skeletons.

 

I was surprised by how young they were and how underdeveloped in some areas (why is folding a paper airplane so hard?) and simultaneously amazed at the ways they exceeded my expectations.

As our time was coming to an end, I helped two students who wanted to take particular journals home bind them quicker, and I also passed out my exit survey to all the students. 

 

According to the exit survey, a couple of the girls didn’t enjoy getting a little dirty during the excavation, but most of the students enjoyed the digging part, and all the students enjoyed making the journals. I had at least three follow up questions to the “What is one question you still have?” about related topics.

 

Two things I plan to change for tomorrow: first, I will discuss classroom expectations right away. I had waffled on it because it’s only a two week course, and I felt I didn’t want to waste time on it. Second, we will need to begin cleaning up much sooner in the class period. The kids were a tremendous help with cleaning, but the classroom is not an art room, and unfortunately there is a non-art class that takes place an hour after mine ends. So, leaving a few supplies out here and there for access the next day is not an option at all.

Overall, I think our first day of sketchbook making and digging for dinosaurs was a success!

Exhibition

The exhibition was a great experience. It was a nice feeling to be done with the workshops and to have all the products of everyone’s labor cleaned up and on display. It was enjoyable to show up and just take in the students’ work and spend time talking with them like everyone else who was attending. Meeting the students’ family and parents was interesting as well.

It was also slightly bittersweet to be done with everything knowing that I probably would not see my students again. But there wasn’t a lot of time to think about that during all the mingling and conversing—which was a bit exhausting for this usual introvert.

The one thing I wish could be more apparent in a final exhibition like this is all the learning that took place. Maybe someone would look at a few products of the students and say “Wow! How did my kid do that?” Or conversely “What in the world? That’s not that impressive.” No matter which thought a viewer may have had, what is lacking in an exhibition is anything that communicates skills and processes learned and student growth.
I think I need to do more research on how to show student growth and communicate more about learning processes in exhibitions. I know there are teachers doing this and knowledge available in this area. Overall, I was pleased with the exhibition and I think the students were as well. It was really gratifying to see students excitedly pointing out their work to siblings or telling their parents the process they went through to create something.