Light Source #1 Results

So, here we go.  First day for kids in the new Art Studio and it’s RAINING!! Not a huge problem, although I would have preferred bright sun streaming through the windows for my lesson on light source.  Since this is “sunny California” and we have rooms with patios, I usually have large containers of water set up out there for washing dirty hands  (to avoid having 30 kids lined up at the sink) so I moved them to the covered hallway and hoped the kids would not disturb neighboring classes.  I also had a package of handi-wipes that came in handy, indeed!  Although, the time flew by and I'm afraid I sent a bunch of kids back to class with pretty icky hands -- sorry teachers!

As any teacher knows, there is great benefit from getting to teach a lesson more than once.  We definitely learn how to tweak it to make it better with each subsequent group.  Here’s what I learned:

1)  Shorten the Smartboard part of the lesson - transitioning from class to class takes twice as long as I had planned and there was not enough time.

2)  Keep the video clips in the Smartboard -- the kids LOVED seeing Dale Chihuly's team create hot glass bamboo! (see link in Light Source #1)

3)  Suggest that kids hold only the 3 oil pastels they'll be using for each bamboo shoot at one time - one color (not the same color as their background paper!!), black and white.  I had a few little guys making rainbow bamboo shoots!!  Oh, well!!

4)  Art Projects for Kids (link: http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/search?q=shading ) has a great step-by-step lesson for a similar project that would be helpful to teachers.

5)  A school on Artsonia has similar shading projects called "Pipes" and "Candy Canes", although the focus of the light source is different.  Here is the link:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=229988

6)  Teaching is so much fun -- I can hardly wait until tomorrow!!!!
I'll post some photos tomorrow -- didn't have near enough time to even think about a camera today!!!