A Little Bit of NYS Common Core...TEXT HEAVY POST!

Friday was the last day of the 2nd quarter.  Usually we have a half day with students and a half day of time for grading and submitting report card grades, however yesterday, they cancelled school with the students and gave us a full day of staff development regarding the Common Core.  I'll have to admit, at first I was a little annoyed and not really sure how this was going to connect to my subject area, but alas, I was pleasantly surprised!

I didn't have to attend any of the common core meetings about math, but I was asked to attend the 1st-2nd grade ELA Common Core meeting.  Here's what I learned there:

NYS contracted out to a company called Core Knowledge to create  K-2 curriculum for the listening and learning strand of the Common Core.  Since the younger students, especially Kinders and 1st graders, aren't at a high enough reading level yet to start reading in-depth texts, the Common Core focuses more on listening to text for comprehension and decoding.  In other words, teachers at these younger levels are asked to do more read-a-loud activities with students for "Listening to Learn."  This right there took a little bit of weight off my shoulders...all along I've thought, how am I supposed to incorporate reading with my kinders?  Well, I don't necessarily have to have the Kinders read on their own (aside from my art sight words...shape words, color words, etc.) but it's OK to do read-a-louds with them!

The idea behind doing more read-a-louds at this younger age is that students will begin to have a larger vocabulary for when they do start reading.  There were some great statistics that I can't remember from the presentation...about students from fluent families (families who read to their kids at home) versus students from poverty (who don't get reading at home) and their drop out rates from school...and they obviously showed that students who are read to at home at a younger age, have a higher chance of graduating school.

Another thing is that these grade levels should be reading 50% fiction and 50% non-fiction works throughout the year.

Anyways, back to the exciting part.  Our school district is adopting the curriculum map created by Core Knowledge for K-2, and I rather like it!  Each year builds upon the other year and incorporates science and history in the younger grades.  The curriculum currently has 9 strands, or units, for the school year (before next year, three more NYS specific strands will be added).  Again, these units are just for the listening and learning strand of common core...not writing, reading, math, etc.

Here are what the current strands are and my brainstorming for extension activities in art class:

Kindergarten
Nursery Rhymes and Fables (3 weeks)
The Human Body: Five Senses (3 weeks): self-portraits, artwork with texture
Stories (3 weeks): Elmer, listen to a story and draw a picture from listening to the details
Plants (3 weeks)
Farms (3 weeks): drawing shape barns and animals, incorporating a background
Kings and Queens (3 weeks): design a crown
Seasons and Weather (3 weeks): trees in the different seasons, background details
Colonial Towns and Townspeople (3 weeks)
Taking Care of Earth (3 weeks): recyclable art

Now, some of these might not fall where I'd like them to, but it's okay for me to do a fall season tree drawing in the fall, even though the seasons unit won't happen until probably spring time...this will help the students have background knowledge in the unit when it happens in class.

1st Grade
Different Lands Similar Stories (2 weeks): Compare artwork from different cultures/styles that are of the same subject/story...i.e. compare Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles with Lichtenstein's Bedroom at Arles...compare Mona Lisa with modern parodies of Mona Lisa and then draw your own modern Mona Lisa!
Fables and Stories (3 weeks)
The Human Body: Body Systems, Germs, Diseases and Preventing Illness (3 weeks): color mixing by squirting paint on hands and shaking hands...connect the spread of colds with the mixing of the paint all while reviewing primary and secondary colors....draw germs using organic shapes
Early World Civilizations (4 weeks): Cave art
Early American Civilizations (4 weeks): Native Americans, Colonial Quilts
Astronomy (2 weeks)
Animals and Habitats (3 weeks): shape animals with depth and appropriate background (fits right in with my shape animal unit I already did!)
Fairy Tales (2 weeks)
History of Earth (3 weeks) My dinosaur unit will fit great here! Plus, it will get both 1st grade teachers on the same page with what they teach...they'll both be doing the dinosaur unit before they go on their field trip to Dinosaur World!


2nd Grade
Fighting for a Cause (4 weeks) This unit is about people like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, etc.
Fair Tales and Tall Tales (2 weeks)
Cycles in Nature (3 weeks): Eric Carle, catterpillar to butterfly
Insects (3 weeks): viewpoint drawings...view from a bug...
Ancient Greek Civilizations (3 weeks): pottery with patterns
Greek Myths (3 weeks)
Early Asian Civilizations (3 weeks): Chinese New Year
Charlotte's Web I & II (two 3 week units): This unit is one the 2nd grade teacher is going to try out this year and suggested a large paper-mache type sculpture of Charlotte herself!
Immigration (3 weeks): Statue of Liberty, Keith Haring

2nd Grade Shape Collages

After finishing up with our Chihuly project, my 2nd graders did these shape collages.  I gave them a "quiz".  On the paper, I had them circle all the geometric shapes on the first question.  On the second question, I asked them to circle the organic shapes.  On the back, I had them list the primary and secondary colors.

It seemed amazing to me that after doing a Chihuly project, where we specifically talked about organic shapes, most of the students still couldn't identify an organic vs. a geometric shape on paper!

Either way, after spending so much time on these collages, they know the difference now!  We spent a total of about 4 days...plus another catch up day for those who were absent.  Two days for the geometric collage, two days for the organic collage.  The inspiration for these collages can be found on Mr. Hall's blog.

For these collages, we talked a lot about having a variety of shapes in different sizes.  Even though these are abstract, we talked about having a good composition: don't put all the same shapes next to each other, don't put the same color next to each other, have a variety of sizes and shapes, etc.

Chihuly Sculptures-2nd Grade

Whoo! There are finally done! We have spent 4 class periods on there...2 Ti color and 2 cutting and melting ad gluing each student's sculpture together! The pictures definitely don't do them justice...

Here's what we did:
1. We drew a large organic shape and colored it using right colors and patterns like Chihuly.
2. On a second piece of Shrinky Dibk, we drew 4-5 lines to make strips and we drew a smaller organic shape. Then we colored them in as well.
3. I called students up one at a time to melt their sculpture and glue them together. I ran the heat gun and glue gun, but when we glued them together, I had individual conversations with students about placement and composition in the sculptures.

Finally onto the next project! (I am posting this from my phone do pardon my pictures if the are out of order...I will link my site reference when I get home from school and have access to Pinterest!)

A.P.P.R.: Pre and Post Assessments

I've had a few people commenting on these assessments so I decided I would share what I've come up with so far.  I've already shared my rubrics for the self-portraits but here I will share what I've decided to do for my pre and post assessments at every grade level.

In St. Lawrence county, we had one staff development day in March that we all got together at and tried to come up with regional assessments.  We had a really difficult time and never really finished, nor got back together to finish.  I wasn't really happy with what we came up with either as it was way to specific and for most of the grade levels, didn't match what I taught.  I really don't like the idea of repeating an exact project at the beginning and end of the year, and that's what they wanted to do.  I feel like the following assessments I made allow for students to create something different as their end product so they won't be taking home two identical projects (aside from the test assessments!).


Before I share these though, please understand the following:

         1.  I won't have to use all of these each year...this year I have figured that I will need to do assessments for 5th, 6th, Kindergarten and 1st grade as these are my largest grade levels that will give me my 51% student population.

         2.  I may have to change my assessments at the beginning of the year a bit, depending on whether or not my superintendent approves of them as rigorous assessments.  (I'm guessing that I will have to take the time management aspect out of my rubrics as it will be difficult for the other teacher to assess this since she won't be in my room...unless of course I would be allowed to assess that part of the rubric.)

Kindergarten

I've shared the worksheet that goes with this assessment here.  For this assessment, students will be asked to cut out various shapes (simple to advanced) and to glue them onto construction paper.  I plan to assess their scissor skills and their gluing skills.  I am a little unsure as to if this particular assessment can be done by the other teacher as I am assessing their scissor and gluing skills here and most of the cutting rubric in particular will need to be filled out from observations...

1st Grade

For my 1st grade assessment, I will have student split their paper into 6 sections.  They will receive 6 minutes to draw each item as I call it out to the best of their ability.  Those include a fuzzy dog, a rainbow, a flower, a tree, their family, and anything they want.  The following rubric is what I created for that assessment:

2nd Grade

My 2nd grade assessment will be treated partly as a type of test and partly as a drawing.  (To deal with students with IEPs, I will probably read the scavenger hunt part out loud.)  We start to get into critiques and talking about art in 2nd grade, so their assessment will reflect that.  They will receive three paintings (Picasso's Crying Woman, American Gothic, and the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait).  For the last part of the assessment, they will receive the remainder of the first period to start and one other complete class to finish half of Vittore Carpaccio's painting called Two Venetian Ladies on a Balcony.  Here is the grading rubric for this assessment:

3rd Grade

In 3rd grade, we will focus on depth and landscapes, so their assessment will be for landscapes.  For the pre-assessment, I will read them the story of Little Red Riding Hood without showing them any of the pictures.  They will then have two class periods to draw what they think the path looked like to grandmothers house from the story.  At the end  of the year, they will do the same thing, but I will read them the story of Hanzel and Gretel.  I will look for details in their drawing that they remembered from the story, as well as the characteristics of a good landscape.  Here is that rubric:

4th Grade

In 4th grade, they will start to do more drawings from real life and learn some basic shading techniques so their assessment will be to draw a still life and shade it in black and white.  Here is that rubric:

5th Grade

In 5th grade we will focus on color theory so they will receive a color theory test in worksheet form where they have to color in the color wheel using colored pencil and answer a series of questions by coloring.  I haven't decided if I will give them one or two days for this...I'm leaning towards one day unless they have an IEP for longer.  Here is that worksheet (I plan to score it out of 100):

6th Grade

Sixth graders will also receive a test.  The first part of the test will consist of the students seeing seven different slides.  The second part will consist of 11 vocabulary words that they must define and tell me which culture they come from (Porcelain, capital, altar, cartouche, pictograph, Dreamtime, hieroglyphics, candy skull, animal spirit, Ionic order, nomad).  I am thinking that I will split this test into two days, part 1 and part 2.  Below is what the 1st page of that test looks like:

Name:  _____________________________    Date:  _______________

Class:  ______________________________

Be sure to read ALL the directions carefully in each section carefully.  Answer each question to the best of your ability.  You may not ask another student for help.

     A.   

Prehistoric                Egyptian                    Greek             Asian Aboriginal                 Mexican                    Native American

 For the first section, you will see seven slides.  Each slide will remain on the board for three minutes.  For each slide, you must tell me what culture it comes from and 1-2 sentences explaining why that artwork represents that culture (5 pts. each)

1.    Culture:  _________________________________

Facts:  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________