CHW India: Animals

Indian animals were one of the starting points for my 4th-6th graders' Cultural Heritage Week projects this year. India has some really beautiful, interesting animals. On my "choose your own adventure" bulletin board, one section had a list of Indian animals and some facts, like that the Bengal Tiger is the country's national animal and the Peacock is the national bird. I found a color photo of each of the animals I listed to display on the bulletin board and printed off reference photos showing most animals from multiple angles. How the students chose to use the animals in their artwork (or whether they went an entirely different direction) was up to them.

 Many students chose to create realistic drawings.

I wish you could see this 4th grader's drawing in person. I had to adjust the photograph because the colored pencil on black paper is subtle, but it is really cool.

Some students used my mehndi cheat sheet and worked the patterning into their composition.

You should enlarge this photo and read the artist statement. She was so thoughtful with her choices!

 Some students used the same idea in printmaking.

Two students asked if they could make handprint peacocks. I told them if they made it not look like a handprint turkey, they were welcome to try. They turned out kind of fun. :)

CYOA: Slab Figures

This summer when I was researching possible starting points for our Native American cultures study, I came across a blog post on lindsay lou's happenings that had information about a new-to-me artist named Dawning Pollen Shorty. Pollen Shorty is a Native American artist who makes awesome earthy figures out of the micaceous clay found near Taos Pueblo which she fires the traditional way. I don't want to post pictures of her work without permission so please, look her up, and check out this article about her family!

Only a few students decided to take a risk and try this "adventure" during our Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) Native American inspired clay lesson. It was a little challenging but the few who tried it did a pretty decent job. They started by separating a bit of clay that would later be used to form a head. The rest of the clay was formed into a slab and curved so that it would stand and support itself. Attaching the head was the trickiest part. Later, when the clay was dry, the students painted with tempera cakes. We don't have a kiln or access to one, so this year we tried coating the painted projects in a multimedia varnish. I am really pleased with the result! It added a nice sheen and strengthened the pieces.

Below is my choice board for our clay projects. You can read about the other CYOA projects here: 

CYOA: Embellishing Pottery

CYOA: Effigy Pots

CYOA- Clothing and Textile Design

In my last post, I described how my 5th grade students were choosing an area of Fibers to explore (Choose Your Own Adventure). The options were weaving, quilting, and clothing/textile design. There were many options within each of the three categories. Weaving was by far the most popular choice, but I did have quite a few takers on clothing and textile design.

One option, was the clothesline project I've taught a few times. Students paint a sky background then learn to cut and manipulate real fabric to design miniature clothes. You can read about the project on previous blog posts here and here or read the article I wrote for Arts & Activities magazine last December here.

You'll notice a couple differences between this batch of clothes on a clothesline and those from previous years. First, there is a lot more variety in the skies. When I taught the lesson before, I demonstrated how I like to paint clouds and put out the same paint colors at each table. This year since the students had more choices, those working on similar projects sat near each other and together asked me for the certain colors they wanted. It didn't take too long to dispense the paint, and if my pumps weren't prone to clogging and spraying, I would have let the students get their own paint. The second difference is that the overall level of craftsmanship might have been a little lower. Partly because a few, not all, of the girls were more interested in talking and partly because the students were working more independently and making their own choices.

 Another option within clothing and textile design was to create a fabric design on paper, with the idea that it would be pushed further. This option was a little disappointing. I think about 5 students chose this option and they had no sense of urgency. The stamps were created by cutting out foam shapes and gluing on to small pieces of cardboard. I told them that their stamps needed to be finished in the first class period so they would be able to print in the second. Only one student finished creating her stamps the first day and I think she forgot where she put them and had to start over! The other students didn't finish gluing until half way through the second class so they used their extra time to create a second stamp so that they could print in a pattern on the third day. I think what was most frustrating to me is that I know the students were capable of more. I did a stamp making lesson with 2nd grade and even with my Kindergarten students at the same time and the younger students seemed to work harder. I did feel a little better on the last day to see the 5th graders who made stamps at least adding interest with multiple colors. The stamped pattern above is the only one I ended up with a photo of. There were a couple girls adding multiple colors to one stamp to highlight certain shapes and if they had finished, it would have been really cool.

The Choose Your Own Adventure lesson was an experiment. I'm wanting to transition to Teaching for Artistic Behavior but I may have to use a modified approach. I won't know for sure until I get a chance to talk to my principals and until we get our new district standards written. I'm thinking that CYOA could be a happy medium. If it would be a requirement that, for example, students at a certain grade level complete a weaving project, I could whip out menus and the students could still have several choices within that requirement.

CYOA- Weaving

I wanted my 5th graders to learn about Fibers during their last lesson of the year, but I wanted to give them choices, so I designed sort of a Choose Your Own Adventure lesson! I thought about all the supplies we had available and the time that was left and came up with 3 "explorations" the students could choose from: Weaving, Quilting, and Textile/Clothing Design. Within each, there were more options. I used my big classroom bulletin board to post information about each category and the options within each. I took a cue from TAB and created "menus" to display for each option that would allow students to work fairly independently. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph my menus so you'll have to use your imagination.

 I only had a couple takers on the quilting exploration and neither finished. I'll write about the weaving exploration now and later post about the textile exploration. Weaving was pretty much broken down into paper, cardboard loom, and radial.

 Within paper weaving, students could use regular construction paper, magazine images, paint their own paper, or come up with another option on their own. All my paper weavers chose to use solid construction paper. Some layered strips to create interest, some made patterns with their colors, and one drew a picture over the top when she had finished.

This student showed an interest in color theory. He told me about choosing complementary colors and trying to make the illusion of blue fading to white.

 Loom weaving was a pretty popular choice. I had honestly never woven with students using anything other than paper before so it was a learning experience for me. I had a bunch of cereal boxes and other thin cardboard pieces that we cut apart to be used  for making looms. This worked ok, but a thicker cardboard would be much sturdier. I didn't expect the cardboard to curl so much. It wasn't really a problem other than not being able to store them flat. I'm hoping to order some more of the sturdy chipboard looms I know a lot of teachers have success with for next school year. Some students didn't have any trouble making their looms and threading the warp before the end of the first class but others took almost two whole classes because no matter how many times they've been shown, they struggle with rulers. 

Making our own looms

Pros= free, students get to keep the looms, measuring practice. 

Cons= time consuming, curled up, not super sturdy, ends of finished weavings tend to flare out instead of staying straight.

 Most of the students eventually got their looms constructed and loaded correctly before beginning to weave with yarn. There was a lot of peer tutoring happening naturally as the students were allowed to sit in groups with those working on similar projects. Some students, however, sort of slipped through the cracks and ended up with less than successful products. This is in part due to me learning how to manage a "studio", partly due to students missing classes and not having time to make it up, and partly due to minds focused on other things than technique at the end of the school year.

Whoops!

Common issues with loom weaving for students not paying attention confused students: 

• Thinking that over-under-over-under is just an option/skipping all over the place
• Looping the yarn around the back of the loom at the end of a row instead of flipping back the other direction
• Not pushing the weft close enough together
• Cutting the warp threads too short

 The student whose loom weaving is posted at the top of this section was a rock star. She really took to the process and enjoyed herself. She constructed her loom and picked everything up really quickly. She came in to work during extra time (and would have spent even more time in the art room if allowed) and finished early. When she was done with a class period to spare, she decided to work on some finger knitting. She also helped others who were struggling with weaving and started teaching some friends to finger knit.

The last weaving option, and by far the most popular fibers exploration in 5th grade, was making radial weavings on old CDs. Our music teacher just retired and gave me a shoebox full of old CDs as she was sorting through her classroom. It was another new process for me and the students but we got the hang of it. Since there were so many students interested in weaving on CDs and because there was a general level of confusion, I ended up having all the students working on that project in each class come around a table so I could demo and make sure they at least got started ok.

Here are the basics steps we took on our CD radial weavings

1. Loop and knot a long piece of yarn through the center of the CD (from the outside edge through the hole in the middle). Tie a knot on whichever side will be the back. 
2. Continue looping the yarn from the outside through the hole, working in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Several students (all boys, conincidentally) forgot that their "spokes" needed to go in one direction and kind of wrapped all over the place, skipping around to different sides and back again. This made it really messy and confusing when they started to weave.
3. Stop looping when there is an odd number of "spokes" on the front. If your students are anything like mine, you'll have to repeat the words in bold a LOT. When there is an odd number on the front, tie a knot and put a piece of masking tape over both knots. This adds security and gives the students a place to write their name with sharpie. It is very important to have an odd number of your warp threads when working on radial weaving. If there is an even number of spokes, the yarn just sort of stacks up. To fix this, I had students just scoot two spokes close together and act as if they were one thread every time around. For some reason I also had students trying to weave on the back of their CDs, which causes trouble when you run into the knots.
4. Get a "wingspan" of yarn and start weaving on the front moving in one direction the whole time in an over-under manner. The students struggled with tucking one end of the yarn under the spokes and then starting to weave with the other end so I eventually started having them use a small piece of masking tape to secure the end. Before taping, I had students trying to weave with both ends going in different directions. It works best to go over-under a few spokes then pull tight and repeat. If students try to go all the way around the CD before they pull the yarn tight, they tend to get weird loops that tangle.
5. When you run out of one piece of yarn or want to switch colors, tie the ends together and keep weaving. There are probably other methods than tying the ends of the yarn together but this was the easiest for my students.
6. Continue weaving until the front of the CD is full or the design is complete! Tie a knot to secure the end.

This student started off with an even number of spokes- note how the rings of green in the center are stacked. After the green, I showed him how to combine two threads into one to correct the problem.