Art Class Reflection
On April 5th, 2017, I observed Ms. Cambridge's (pseudonym) art room with the fifth grade class I am in for field. On this particular day, the students were continuing a project in which they were drawing pictures of animals by looking at a picture they had printed. Ms. Cambridge started her class by reviewing with the students the important aspects of their projects. These included paying close attention to spacing of their animals' features (eyes, ears, etc) aS well as being mindful of the shading/tint of their colors. The students were eager to share how they knew to push harder with their pencils to make it darker and loosen their grip to make it lighter. Overall, the students were respectful and very engaged in the lesson while Ms. Cambridge was talking. Once the students started working, the teacher walked around and sat at each table to make sure everyone was on task and had no problems. On the board, the objective was written: draw a portrait from observation using value. The students were working to complete this objective when I observed.
Elementary Classroom Reflection
For my field experience, I am working with a fifth grade class. My host teacher, Ms. Smith (pseudonym), admitted that she does not incorporate art aS much aS she should into her lessons. However, while the students were learning about colonial times, they were asked to write a description of one of the jobs a colonial person had, and then draw a picture of that person. The big idea that I think this went along with is community due to the fact that they were learning about the community in times of early colonization and how each person had different jobs that impacted their community. A way that I would change this lesson would be to have the students research the colonial job and then to make a tool or object that the person would have used by using materials brought in by the teacher. This would be a fun way to get their imagination flowing and to let them explore other materials than the standard pencil/paper.