Artists and their Works of Art

Hey y'all! As you might have noticed, I am on an 'art in the classroom' kick. I have been doing an artist of the week in my classroom for the past two years as part of my Daily 6 (your typical Daily 5 literacy centers + a Visual Arts center). My kiddos LOVE this opportunity to be creative. I generally have a print out of an artist's most popular work, a short bio, and materials to replicate their work. Each time I posted a picture of my kiddos final products on social media, teachers asked about it. So, lo and behold... Artists and their Works of Art 

Here is a picture of the cover page:

In all honesty, this is my first ORIGINAL IDEA (which are hard to come by nowadays with the Internet, Pinterest, and TPT) for a new resource and I have never been more excited to share something with fellow teachers. This resource includes 14 different artists:

Piet Mondrian

Henri Matisse

Andy Warhol

Keith Haring

George Rodrigue

Pablo Picasso

Claude Monet

Vincent Van Gogh

Georgia O'Keeffe

Jackson Pollock

Edvard Munch

Salvador Dali

Georges Seurat

Faith Ringgold

Would you believe it if I told you I also managed to squeeze in math and social studies?! Well my friends, there are a variety of standards embedded in this language ARTS unit (get it, emphasis on the word arts). 

Here is a preview of the additional handouts:

I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get my hyperlinks to work after "flattening" and "securing" the PDFs. If you know, please comment below! Also, if you purchase this unit, I want to apologize for the inconvenience and if you don't purchase this unit, here is a list of all of the recommended books about the artists and links to their artists original works of art: 

Coppernickel Goes Mondrian (Artist Tribute)

Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow

Henri's Scissors

The Sheaf

Andy Warhol

Untitled from Campbell's Soup I

Keith Haring- I Wish I Didn't Have to Sleep

Untitled 'Five Dancing Figures'
Why is Blue Dog Blue?
Loup-Garou
Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail
Emily's Blue Period
The Old Guitarist
The Magical Garden of Claude Monet
Water Lilies
Katie and the Starry Night
Starry Night
My Name is Georgia
Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue
Action Jackson

Convergence

The Little Paintbrush

The Scream

Dali and the Path of Dreams

The Persistence of Memory

Sunday with Seurat

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Tar Beach

Tar Beach

Note: I am registered as an Amazon Affiliate

Still not sure if you're interested in purchasing this product, try Vincent Van Gogh for free! Click the link to my TPT store here: Everybody Loves Learning

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Painting with Picasso

It seems like many schools are limiting their emphasis on teaching the arts, such as music, art, and theatre. In my opinion, children thrive on learning through the arts. It builds their sense of creativity, imagination, and even their problem solving skills. Fortunately, I work at a campus that takes part in the Creative Learning Initiative (to read more about it see http://www.mindpop.org/creative-classroom/). This initiative is to inspire all teachers to teach using many art forms. It helps promote student engagement, social skills, and overall academic success! Isn't that what we all want?!

I love to start out a lesson with a great story. I read my students Emily's Blue Period by Cathleen Daly. It is a story about a young girl whose parents are separating and how it affects her life. She loves art, especially Picasso, and how his art style of cubism is "mixed up". It describes her emotions of dealing with changes in the home setting in a kid friendly way. The book also describes how Picasso went through a blue period when he was feeling sad and so that is what she does with her artwork. Of course, there's a relatively happy ending as most children's books have :)

After reading, we discuss how her emotions changed throughout the story. We talk about how families are all different. We also talk about the styles of art used in the story, (collage, mixed media, painting, etc.). We look at Picasso's 'The Old Guitarist' and describe what we see, a man, a guitar, he's sitting with his legs crossed on the ground, his head is facing down. Then we analyze the painting, I think he is playing music on the guitar because his hands are on the strings, I notice he is looking down because he might feel sad. Lastly, we relate the image to things that we already know about the subject matter, I think it is in all blue because we learned Picasso went through a blue period, I wonder if Picasso made the man look sad because he was feeling sad. This format provides deep and meaningful discussion, even with my firsties! 

I know that drawing people is hard, hey, I definitely can't draw people! So I modified Picasso's painting of 'The Old Guitarist' into something that both my firsties and I could draw. I gave them big white construction paper and had them do a step-by-step drawing in pencil of a guitar. Next, the students used rulers to create lines through their guitars and the background, modeling Picasso's cubism style. Then, I provided them with blue, white, and black acrylic paints. I gave each student a paper plate that they used to create the shades of blue in their paintings. They had to create a light, medium, and dark shade. They painted their guitars using shades of blue. Once the paintings were dry, the students outlined their original pencil lines in sharpie. The final product looked AMAZING! 

To tie it all together, I had students make a list in their writer's notebooks of things that made them feel sad. Then we shared out ideas as a class and added to our lists in case we forgot something that someone else mentioned. We completed the blue period lesson by writing diamante poems using nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The best part is that not a single student was disengaged during this lesson! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, keep teaching art in your classrooms! Especially since it is so easy to tie in to academics!

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Primary Reading Assessments

In December 2015 the US Department of Education passed a law that did away with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and left all remaining aspects up the the states. If you weren't aware, NCLB had many criticisms because it expected teachers to spend more time on testing than on teaching. The Act only focused on students who were academically below average and didn't consider the students who might be above average. It was developed to close the achievement gap and many provisions were made throughout the 14 years of its' existence. ESSA is a similar act but it places more accountability on the states. This is where it gets interesting.

Since I started teaching in Texas, I have been required to test students using two primary reading assessments, Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI) and Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) at the beginning, middle, and end of each academic year. I know all educators love acronyms, right? ;) After my district became aware of the changes in the educational act, our reading assessment requirements have changed. We are now only required to administer the TPRI at the beginning, middle and end, and the DRA only at the beginning of each year.



We held a campus-wide discussion to decide whether or not we were still going to administer the DRA in the middle and end of each year. As with anything of importance, there are a wide range of opinions. Many teachers aren't planning on administering more than the required beginning of the year test because ESSA is trying to cut down time spent testing and allow more time to teach. Other teachers are going to give the reading assessment all throughout the year but agree that not having deadlines is a nice weight off their shoulders.

Honestly, I have a split opinion. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to spend less time sitting at a kidney table testing individual students, recording results, and collecting and entering data? I love the fact our district is choosing to give us back that valuable teaching time. Hey, every minute in our day counts. But on the other hand, my entire classroom library is leveled based on DRA levels. Part of me feels that finding out the student's reading level is crucial to selecting the right books for them to read independently.

So, here I am writing this blog post seeing what y'all think about these changes?

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