Field Experience 3

What.
This week was my last week at Ridgeline Elementary. The students started making easter basket or plate sculptures out of the clay that can be fired to make it glossy and finished. It was done in our sixth grade class and students from the class next door would come and work on it in our class at times. I noticed how even the most disruptive students were very focused when they were sculpting and painting their little baskets. It was very quiet and each of them was figuring out through trial and error how to form their creation. One Negative Nancy student came up to me and said, "Mine is ugly." I quickly responded with something I learned with my first painting, "If it is yours, then it is your masterpiece." I explained that she had put time into it and tried to make it as best she could with what she knew about sculpting. The next time she would get better, and in time, if she became a professional easter egg basket sculptor, that she would probably be most proud of the very first one she had just called ugly. My mother used to paint beautifully, so last year, I decided to delve into my genetic skills to find the painting professional inside of me, and I painted a Willow Tree. Though it didn't turn out too awesome compared to other paintings, it was my own, and I worked a long time on that willow tree, so it was a masterpiece to me. I tried using this experience I had with trying new things with art to help this child understand hers was the first of many 'masterpieces.' She looked at me kind of funny after and said, "I still think it's ugly." It was worth a try though. Maybe someday someone will find that advice helpful.

So What.
I wished that the art project they were assigned to do was more connected with the curriculum or was done in their once a week art class because it made all the desks really messy and cluttered the room. It took up a lot of class time not to be related to anything, and no art terms or sculpting mechanisms were taught, so what the students learned was just like what they learned with play dough when they were young--it's squishy, it smells weird, it shapes when you mold it with your hands, and now its different from play dough because it gets put into a magic fire that makes it pretty and glossy."

Now What
For our Arts Integration into our last social studies lesson, we were studying the architecture of cathedrals. Charis and I taught the students about the different styles-Romanesque and Gothic- through a slideshow of pictures that I had taken of about 10-15 cathedrals when I traveled throughout Spain. We showed them some of the major inventions like flying buttresses, and we discussed the Roman and Germanic influence on cathedrals today. We split the students into 6 groups and with each group, they were assigned a story book page where they were asked to write about their cathedral characteristic or style and make an illustration of it with the tools we gave them.
Group one was given the topic of Cathedrals in the Middle ages. They were given paints and paint brushed and asked to paint an illustration  that went with the words they put on their page.
The next group was given Romanesque Cathedrals. We gave them empty toilet paper rolls, construction paper, scissors, and tape and asked them to create a pop up illustration of the rounded feature in Romanesque style cathedrals.
Group three was given a cardboard box, scissors, and tape. We asked them to create a 3-d page demonstrating Gothic cathedrals, with their many spires and massive windows.
Group four was given saran-wrap, permanent markers, and a religious traceable picture. We asked them to create a stained glass window, which was a window that usually depicted a religious scene in cathedrals.
Group five was given the task of creating a mosaic style Rose window, which was a large window with a basic circular design used in most of the Gothic style cathedrals.
Group six was given some images of the architectural inventions back in the middle ages. We asked them to sketch flying buttresses on their page.

All of the groups came up with creative designs for their pages in their 'Cathedrals in the Middle Ages' class children's book. I thought it was a success, but next time, I would have them rotate with their group every five minutes to the other project pages. This would allow other ideas to come into all the designs and to allow the students who liked some forms of art better than others a better opportunity to learn and experience other styles of art illustration.