Week 9: Art

Today’s tutorial was spent listening to our fellow classmates share their experience of an art lesson from their professional experience. I was astounded when somebody mentioned that their school only offered art in Semester 1 and thus did not have the experience to watch or teach an art lesson. Another student stated that their class did art of Friday afternoons because half the class would be out at PSSA. I was both shocked and appalled to hear such accounts; it appears that art is very much a neglected subject in some classrooms, where its value is not highly regarded in comparison to other subjects.

I completed my professional experience at Curl Curl North Public School with a Stage 3 (year 5) class. This school places a strong emphasis upon the arts, and thus I had a wonderfully positive experience of art. Art was deeply appreciated by the students in the classroom, and my cooperating teacher ensured that an art lesson was delivered at least once per week. In my second week of professional experience, I was provided with the opportunity to teach an art lesson, and had the freedom to teach whatever I pleased. I decided to teach the students about Van Gogh and his beautiful (& well-known) ‘Sunflower’ works. Below is a practice artwork of what I planned to teach the students, as well as the lesson plan, and a reflection upon how it went.

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

- Art -

LESSON AIM: Students will become acquainted with artist Vincent Van Gogh and create expressionistic sunflowers using a combination of techniques (drawing, tracing with oil pastels and wash-over with watercolours).

SYLLABUS OUTCOMES:

- Investigates subject matter in an attempt to represent likenesses of things in the world. [VAS3.1]

- Acknowledges that audiences respond in different ways to artworks and that there are different opinions about the value of artworks. [VAS3.3]

- Uses an integrated range of skills, strategies and knowledge to read, view and comprehend a wide range of texts in different media and technologies [EN3-3A]

LESSON OUTLINE:

RESOURCES	- Fresh Sunflowers! - “Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent Van Gogh” by Laurence Anholt - IWB/ Van Gogh Sunflowers PowerPoint - Amy’s step-by-step examples - 30 x white art paper (A4) - Pencils - Oil Pastels - Water colour paints - Paint brushes - Newspaper/art smocks - Don McLean's song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)
Introduction 20 min	1)     Settle class on floor - Introduce lesson via PowerPoint: ·       Vincent Van Gogh, an Impressionist painter, painted in the 1880s in Europe. ·       Today, his works are very well known; he used unusual colours to paint portraits, flowers, and landscapes Key Questions to ASK: ·       Are his works bright or dull? (Why?) ·       What catches your attention in his individual works? (e.g. large shapes, textual effects) 2)     *READ “Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent Van Gogh” ·       ASK: From reading that story, what do we now know about Vincent Van Gogh?
Body 40 min	SUNFLOWER Art - (have Van Gogh’s Sunflower’s enlarged on IWB; bring out fresh sunflowers) - September means the beginning of spring.. Springtime is the time when flowers blossom. So today we are going to do the art of Van Gogh’s Sunflower’s! - List the materials: paper, pencils, oil pastels and water colours (& paint brushes!) Instructions: (ask a student to read from IWB) 1) Write name on the back of paper. 2) Rough sketch with a pencil. Big vase (just below the bottom half of the page, line through the middle), combination of different shapes of flowers. 3) Go over it with oil pastels. Use a variety of colours. Press hard. Don't colour in! 4) Go over with watercolour paints. Like a wash over. Use plenty of water. * Post stage-by-stage examples after each instruction - Remind students that Van Gogh signed his works on the vase, so students are to do the same with their own name. (This is the last thing that they do) - WARNING: don't go back on steps. E.g. don't start watercolour, but then decide to do some more oil pastel work... nono! - Ask students to repeat the instructions back (hands up) - Send students back to seats one table at a time. - If students are on-task, play Don McLean's song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM)
Conclusion 10 min	- Clean up/pack away (use ‘mystery lucky spots’ to encourage cleaning) Reflection (if time permits) - What is the importance of art? (-> how is it a way of expressing oneself?)

 ASSESSMENT:

- Final product: Students create a work of art that resembles a bunch of flowers in a vase.

Reflection:

Today I taught my first art lesson, and I was so excited! I opened the lesson by introducing Van Gogh, and asked students what they knew about him already (and they appeared to know a fair bit… I was blown away! Shows that some teachers from earlier grades have taught Van Gogh, which is great!). Before reading the picture book, I asked students to predict the story by viewing the front cover. It is a nice, engaging story, so students listened very well. After the reading, we reflected and discussed what we learnt about Vincent Van Gogh from the story. We then examined some other works of Van Gogh, and discussed what some of the qualities were (e.g. expression, texture, etc). This was followed by a detailed explanation of the art activity. I had the steps on another slide (on IWB) as well as pre-organized demonstrations of each stage. This was to show students what was expected of them. Students quietly returned to their chairs table by table.

Throughout the lesson, I walked around the desks to give tips to students, but mainly to encourage them to work faster, as we were short for time. Unfortunately, students only had 30min to complete the Van Gogh activity – not long at all! As students worked well, I played ‘Starry, Starry Night’ in the background, a song about Van Gogh. I thought this added a nice tone to the lesson. Overall, I was very impressed by what the students achieved in such a limited time frame; every student was done by 3pm.

All students followed the standard clean-up procedure, and wow, they were efficient at it! Within five minutes the room was spotless! Although I had a plan of having ‘mystery lucky spots’ to encourage cleaning, this was not necessary. As a conclusion to the lesson, students were brought back to the floor and we discussed the reflection question together.

The next morning, I stuck the students’ paintings on the windows (it looks quite nice with the light shining behind it!)