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Instruction and Management 

Introduction To Unit 

This unit of study is designed to create a baseline art experience for first grade students. The lessons within take into account that, this may be the first time that student's are using specific art materials. The students will explore techniques and characteristics of various mediums. The students will spend time making and sharing discoveries they make while using new mediums. Even though each lesson will end with the students having a completed work of art, my hope is that my student's will also walk away having learned crucial decision and problem solving skills that will help them throughout their lives. 
 

Methods for Integrating Literacy, Numeracy, Technology, and other Components

In each of our lessons we incorporated numeracy by having our students take time to plan out their ideas before starting a new project. Planning is a valuable life skill that is applicable throughout student's lives. Literacy was integrated into our lessons by having students regularly participate in group discussions about their artworks. Our students also were often read stories as an introduction to a new project. Our students also used technology when using plexiglass to create prints for an emotion book! 
 

Classroom Management Strategies related to Instruction

Within Julie's class, multiple classroom management strategies were already in place when we arrived. In order to keep the classroom management somewhat consistent we utilized some of her strategies. One strategy we copied was to get students attention. When an announcement had to be made and we wanted to whole classes attention we would put our finger on our nose and walk around the room quietly whispering,"If you can hear me put your finger on your nose." This strategy was an effective way of having the students settle down and self manage. Often students would see their classmates who weren't paying attention and would tell them to put their finger on their noses.  Another strategy we often used was to tell the students, "No materials will be handed out until all eyes and ears are on me and nobody is speaking." This often worked well at the beginning of a lesson after we did a demonstration. 
For almost every lesson we also used the students sketchbooks to create assigned seats. By having students sit where their sketchbook was seemed to be a good alternative to telling specific students they cannot sit together. Using assigned seats had a major positive impact on the classes overall behavior during projects. 
In order to ensure students used the tools safely we always did a demonstration on how to properly handle the tools and then asked the students to demonstrate the proper use for us. 
 
During group discussions we would have students sit in a large circle instead of a group. By having them sit in a circle we were able to keep our eye on each student to ensure they were demonstrating proper listening skills. 
 
During our dream house lesson we made use of stations for students to rotate through in order to use multiple different types of mediums. The stations were an effective management strategy because they allowed the students to get up and move around in a productive manner. This also helped the students to regain focus when they switched mediums/stations which kept the students engaged. Having the students fully engaged has a huge impact on classroom behavior. 
By creating engaging lesson plans that introduced new materials and concepts. By creating engaging lesson plans we were able to minimize disruptive behavior because each student was fully engaged in what they were working on. 

Lesson One: "What's In The Box?"

Lesson Plan 1
In this lesson, students created a 3d box that told a story about a time they lost a tooth. To introduce the lesson we read the book, “The Night Before the Tooth Fairy,” by Natasha Wing. After reading, students brainstormed in their sketchbooks and drew out a time when they lost their tooth. Then the students used watercolors and 2d techniques to paint the background of their boxes. The students then used model magic and hand building techniques to create 3d objects to illustrate their story. Finally the students participated in a gallery walk. We asked students if they saw anything they really liked and why they liked it, they also reflected upon how their classmates portrayed their own personal stories by having a group discussion. 

Lesson Two: "Ahoy, Come Aboard My Ship!"

Lesson Plan 2
In this lesson, students created a two dimensional composition with three dimensional elements through the use of shapes and patterns. The lesson started out by the students listening to a story called, “How I Became A Pirate” by Melinda Long. After listening to the story the students were introduced to the following artists artwork, “Tugboat on the Seine, Chatou" (1906) by Maurice de Vlaminck 1906, “Boating” by Brian Simonos, 2017 and “Orange Bouy” by George Anderson.Then we had a group discussion about the elements of design the artists used such as  shapes and colors. After our discussion students  invented a story about where they will travel on their pirate ship and what they will encounter on the way. Then using Using acrylic paint, students applied painting techniques to paint a background and then created pirate ships by using cut up paper shapes and patterns. After the student's completed their project as a class we did a gallery walk of all the students artwork, at each table the teachers proposed questions about the artwork and the students talked about the work. The questions we asked were the following:

Where do you think this artists pirate ship is headed? How do you know that?

What colors to you see? Are the colors repeated? Where?

What shapes do you see? Are there any patterns?

Lesson Three: "Dream House"

Documentation
Lesson 3:
https://sauster5.wixsite.com/polaris/lesson-3
Lesson Plan 3
In this lesson students will became architects and designed their own dream home. Student’s learned how artists draw inspiration from their culture to influence the shapes and space in their artwork. The lesson started off by students being shown illustrations from the book, “If You Lived Here: Houses of the World,” by Giles Laroche. We then had a discussion about how/why each culture/place has different types of houses. Next students formulated ideas about what they want their dream house to look like. Then using acrylic paint, pastels, watercolor paints students applied painting/drawing techniques to decorate their buildings. Once all the students are done we set up all the buildings to stand next to each other to create our own city. Afterwards we had a group discussion about the power of collaboration and how the meaning of their house changed when it was viewed alongside other artworks. 

Lesson Four: "Emotion Book"

In this lesson students explored how artists draw inspiration from memories and emotions by letting them influence the colors, shapes and patterns used in their artwork. The lesson started off by the students viewing a video clip from Inside Out. Then we had a discussion about how different emotions were portrayed in the video. Next students were introduced to a printmaking technique called mono prints. The students used mono printing to create pages for their very own emotion book. Within their book they illustrated memories of a time when they felt a specific emotion. Once all the students completed their books we split the class into two groups each group led by one teacher. Then we had each student pick one

page of their book to show to the group and the group took turns

guessing the emotion the student illustrated. 

Lesson Plan 4
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