January 17, 2013
Problem Solving Skills Developing...
This morning, the building rug was very busy. It began with
Xander and Trace who announced that construction was going on so everyone
should be careful around their project. The two then proceeded to construct an
awesome village looking site complete with towers, walls, and doors closing off
the entrance. When asked about their building project, the two explained that
this was Santa’s office and inside was a toy factory that had to begin working
for next year’s Christmas.
As the project grew, so did the problems that arise from any
block building project. The classroom was filling up with children who wanted
to join building, or who were playing in the surrounding areas. As with many
building projects, Xander and Trace ran into setbacks. While trying to carry a
few blocks to the site, blocks were dropped onto Santa’s office taking down a
whole corner! The two expert problem solvers, however, were not deterred and
soon the damage was repaired and their site was receiving admiration from their
fellow Cardinals. Other classmates were so impressed they wanted to join the
fun and soon Santa’s office had a line of ‘electricity’ connected to power the
office! The care and creativity these two showed was infectious and inspired
other Cardinals to make towering buildings of their own and to even help the
builders write signs warning visitors to “Do Not Touch”
We began Art with a discussion on the rug. Sam shared with us that she had been reading our blog and has noticed our growing interest in sculptures. She asked us, "What is a sculpture?" and then some very interesting ideas were shared such as, "It can be made out of plastic". Sam then extended our view by comparing a painting to a sculpture. She carefully made the connection for us that a sculpture is something you can examine on all sides (a 3-dimensional figure) whereas a painting is flat and only has a picture on one surface. She made the visual connection for us by displaying a sculpture and a painting that she had right in the Art Room. Then, we turned our attention to the Smart Board. Sam introduced a man named Mr. Imagination, a sculptor who used recycled materials and "trash" to create different objects or depictions of faces and people. Sam shared with us that he often used bottle caps and other items such as old broom heads or paintbrushes to create his pieces of art. We examined two pieces from Mr. Imagination and identified what we saw.
Then, Sam invited us to be sculptors. She provided old paintbrushes and model magic for us to work with. She explained the process of creating a face on the paintbrush, using the bristles as hair and then working with the modeling dough to create specific facial features. We happily engaged in this process and showed attention to detail as we worked and molded the dough to provide the pieces we would need.
The children will continue to work on their sculptures next art class and will have the opportunity to paint and use found objects to create their artwork. After returning from art, the children continued to engage in a discussion surrounding sculptures. We were impressed by Mr. Imagination and his ability to use recycled materials in his sculptures. The question was posed, "What if we used our trash to create sculptures?" This presented a perfect opportunity to begin a language experience chart generating ideas of trash items from our lunches that could be used in art. Some items on the list included plastic straws, bottle caps, yogurt containers and juice lids.
