Week 2: 1/12/2020 10 hours
This week, I planned and delivered two mini-lessons during Nicole’s morning session. I observed in the afternoon. I give each morning lesson twice, because the kids split up into two separate groups in the morning. It’s nice having smaller groups to work with, so that the quieter kids in each group have more time/room to warm up to sharing. It;s also easier for me to be attentive in smaller groups because I can see each of their little boxes in the google meet and their facial expressions. In larger groups, some boxes get cut out of the screen.
The mini lessons aim to answer some questions that the kids had asked me on our first day together. Our first mini lesson, on Monday, we talked about the Mona Lisa. Jessica had asked last week “Who is that lady in the painting who is kind of smiling and kind of not?” so I used that as an opportunity to introduce the kids to Art History as a subject. I tried to keep it engaging and lighthearted, explaining that the figure in the Mona Lisa, whose name was probably Lisa Giaconda, was painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. I made a google slideshow with visual aids. I used the example of a stick figure compared to a self portrait of Da Vinci. I asked them which one looked more like real life, and they said Da Vinci. I asked why and they explained that the self portrait of Da Vinci had eyes, ears, eyebrows, a mouth, and hair. The stick figures don't look like real life because our heads aren't perfect circles, our bodies aren't thin lines. I pushed this further into discussing the Renaissance’s Humanist style by pointing out the details in the hair in the self portrait, the wrinkles on Da Vinci’s face, the cracks in his lips, which make him look more real. I explained that the Mona Lisa is famous because she is mysterious. We don’t know why Da Vinci never gave the portrait to the sitter (we also talked about how cameras didn’t exist in the 1500s so people painted portraits, which took a long time and cost a lot of money), and why her smile is so strange to us. I asked what it looked like she was feeling. Some kids said happy, some angry, some sad, most of them said neutral. Chris L. said that she looked “happy on the outside but kind of sad on the inside.” I agreed. That’s one of the reasons the M.L. is such a famous painting, because we really cannot read her expression and we can easily put our own emotions into the painting.
I began the M.L. presentation with a map that I made of what was going on artistically across the globe in 1503. I asked the kids to find the Mona Lisa on the map. I wanted to imply that there was amazing art being created globally at the time of the Italian Renaissance. I know that we often only learn about European art as children. The fact that Jessica’s two questions were about Mona Lisa and Starry Night are a result of these works being taught from an early age as “what art is.” I want to challenge that notion subtly. I want to make sure to highlight global work and make global connections between works.
On Tuesday, we talked about Pokemon and a VERY brief history of Japanese anime. I got so many questions about Pokemon on my first day, which may have prompted an eye roll from Nicole since she hears about Pokemon nonstop from these 3rd graders. Honestly it made me really happy, because I love that kids still play Pokemon in 2021 :)
I used a Google slideshow again to talk a little about the history of anime in Japan and how the history led up to the creation of Pokemon in 1996. We used a map again to find Japan. It was really cool to show the kids the first animation from Japan, called Katsudo Shasin. Then we talked about anime being adapted from manga, and how Pokemon was first a video game, then a trading card game, then a TV show. We talked about how the creator of Pokemon was inspired to create Pocket Monsters (Pokemon) when he was a kid, because he would play outside collecting bugs and admiring how cool they looked. Then, to address the original question that Robsan asked, we drew a Pikachu together.
First, we observed the original drawing of Pikachu next to some shapes that I had added to the Google slide (circles, rectangles, ovals, triangles). I asked the kids which shapes they saw in Pikachu and where. We discussed, then we started to apply those observations to paper and draw Pikachu. We started with a tilted egg shape, then placed circles for Pika’s eyes and cheeks, triangles for the ears, nose, stripes and toes, ovals for the arms and feet, and rectangles for the tail. We made the mouth out of “U” lines. I referenced the drawing videos that Nicole shows the kids, but I wanted to drive home the idea that if we divide an object into simple shapes we can draw anything! They asked how to draw more Pokemon, and I said (partially because we were running low on time) that now that they knew how to see the shapes in artwork they can draw any pictures they want! I encouraged them to invent some Pokemon and use simple shapes to draw them, and show them to me next week.
I will observe again next week and hopefully do another mini lesson. Then I’ll prepare for our larger project, which will be inspired by Jack Whitten. One kid asked about acrylic pouring, which is popular on social media right now as “satisfying videos,” and I think that could be a cool connection between their interests and Jack Whitten's collage work. He made his tiles by pouring acrylic paint. Because we cannot be together in person, I might do some pouring of tiles live on video, and ask the kids which colors to use, then we can talk about the color wheel and color relationships too. It will also prepare them for the Jack Whitten lesson.