Color Forms

 

My teacher-made example-- actually the third iteration of the project. Scrapped ideas included paper construction and oil pastels.  

This was the first lesson I taught in my Teacher Apprenticeship semester at GVSU, and it was a real roller coaster. The class: 5th grade art. The premise: Using color and form to describe school. Day one was practice with meaning-making and drawing forms; day two was arranging wooden blocks and drawing them from life, making sure to indicate value; day three was painting over the blocks, mixing together shades to create a dark value. With some classes, the lesson took four days— which, meeting only once a week, took a bit longer than it might seem— where an extra day was taken to reteach measuring, or to clarify my expectations. 

A student's arrangement of wooden blocks. After a very rowdy initial attempt at introducing these new materials, I began each class by asking: What do you think the rules are for using these tools? 

I learned a lot with this lesson: To self-narrate, scaffold new procedures, and make my guiding questions more thoughtful and creative. An alternative premise, if I were to teach this lesson in the future, the premise might instead be: Use color and form to describe how you wish school could be. Similar to a visual, abstracted social contract. I’m not sure if I would teach this again to 5th graders; the ideas and skills might be easier for middle school students. But, that being said, I’m incredibly proud of the work the students did during this unit. I had high expectations, and they certainly met them. 

Examples of student work, 5th Grade (Tuesday's class)

Examples of student work, 5th Grade (Wednesday's class)