Transitions in the Artroom: Hands-On Demo, pt. 2

In my first post about the hands-on demo part of your class structure, I explained how I got everyone in place and ready to learn - Whew!

Now it's time to start the demo - On my demo table, all the materials the kids will use that day are laid out. I have labels, if necessary, spelling the terms (and simple definitions) for the students so they connect the written word to the object - crayons, oil pastel, paintbrush, tooling foil, brayer, etc. Start your demo going over this media vocabulary as well as the terms for the technique/standard/principle/element that day. The final 30+ years of my teaching career was spent with a HIGH percentage of English Language Learners at school. Chances are the only place those kids are going to see some of these words are in your classroom! Have a word wall to post these words as you introduce them to your groups and keep the words up year-round. Categorize the vocabulary by grade level but you'll be exposing everyone!

If time permits, create step-by-step examples ahead of demos. I prefer to only introduce one step per class - by the time we make it through all the components of a class, there may be only 10 - 20 minutes of hands-on project time. Always review what was done in previous classes (because somebody has been absent or you gained a new student or two). These examples help in a pinch for those kids who show up on the last day of a six part/class project. Give them an example to finish and they can jump in & gain exposure to using the media while working alongside the others! Grades are optional if they did less than half the steps by themselves. It gives you a glimpse of their visual and listening skills - file the info away for future projects.

As a project approaches the end of the process or when you won't be introducing a new step, use the demo time to critique in-progress student work. Use student work from a different class. So, projects from A group in 5th grade are critiqued by B group in 5th grade. Choose 3 examples - 'A', 'B' and 'C' work. With each artwork, have students point out what's working and what needs improvement. Teach respectful comments and do NOT reveal the student names of the work being analyzed. The goal here is for students to reflect on their own work once it's passed out. Hopefully, they will use the discussion to guide their choices when completing their assignments.

When time's up for the demo, you need to quickly transition to the next activity - passing out supplies. After calling table helpers to the distribution area to wait for your directions, dismiss the standing students first - reminding them to walk to their places. Seated students go next once traffic clears then finally students at the demo tables put tables back into the correct area & everybody except helpers are seated in their places - Ta Da!

Transitions in the Art Room: Direct Instruction

My last 2 posts discussed the transitions Meet and Greet followed by Attendance, Now we get to the meat of the class - direct instruction. This portion of the class should take approximately 5 - 10 minutes depending on lesson. I liked to use the minute per year old scale to keep it short and simple. Kinder attention span varies from 4 - 6 minutes. 5th graders can handle 10 - 12 min.

What it looks like: students in assigned places, hands and feet to self
What it sounds like: voices off unless responding to teacher, body quiet

This portion of class can include a lot of visuals:
national/state/district Visual Art standards
content and language objectives posted and referred to during teaching
illustrated step-by-step procedures
illustrated vocabulary words
PowerPoint/Keynote presentations

Those visuals need to be set-up in advance. With today's scheduling nightmares (no time between classes), it's best if you can make charts that can be switched out easily. I know some students who have been trained by their teachers, to post objectives, directions, etc. as soon as the class enters the room. While you are taking attendance, one or two kids can quickly find what you want posted, put it where it belongs and get to their seats by the time instruction starts. I suggest you train 2 or 3 to begin with - once everyone sees it being done correctly, repeatedly, others can earn the privilege as the year goes on. At the end of class, these same students quickly put things away. When you are training your first group of students to do this, choose students who always like to be the 'boss', who are always concerned with getting things just right and can follow directions the FIRST time. Hopefully these are also the ones who finish regular assignments on time or early.

Of course, some of you have the luxury of HUGE classrooms! You may have room to permanently post these visual resources, only occasionally switching them out.

To begin direct instruction, I usually reviewed, through questioning or student to student discussion, what happened in last class IF it was a continuing project. Next, introduce ALL the information needed for today's lesson. Once students get materials in their hands, it will be extremely difficult to get their attention again.

I often moved on to a hands-on demo during direct instruction to show exactly what would be done and tools/materials necessary for completion. Some of my colleagues would do this seamlessly by using a doc camera or other technology that would not require students to leave their places. My classroom was not setup for these methods so I'll talk in my next post how I set up hands-on demos. Regardless of your methods, Direct Instruction WITH a hands-on demo should not exceed a total of 15 minutes and less than 10 min. is ideal, especially for your youngest students.

It would be great for my readers if you would list below what YOU include in your direct instruction section of your lessons.

Next up: the Hands-On Demo component of Art class.

Art Vocabulary Games

My brain is pretty much fried after 3 days of classes on incorporating more vocab into our lessons. We have been busy building our vocab lists based on our state standards and pacing guides...

Today was entertaining though, because we learned some new word games - Save the Pig looks interesting & fun - a PC version of hangman...

Draw a pig, then the blanks for the word's letters. Kids name a letter - if correct it goes on a blank & they get to guess the vocab word. If incorrect, erase a part of the pig hence the name "Save the Pig!!!"

Art Vocabulary Class

Started a class today on using vocab in the artroom. We're using the book Building Academic Vocabulary by Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering.

Today was spent getting to know the other Art, Music, Band and PE teachers in class from across the District. Making posters with our small groups that summarized a chapter...

We also put together a first draft of our proposed art academic vocabulary. More to come in the next few days...