The First Few Days With Grade 6

I have only been teaching Grade 6 for two years. I have approached both years completly different. In my first year, I had two classes, all year long. We had so much time together. All of the projects were done in portfolios, so students were given 3-4 projects centered around a theme, and could work on any of the projects during the class. All the projects would then be due on one date. This year, we organized the Grade 6 classes differently. This year, I have 3 classes, who rotate through Art, Music and Foods. So, I am able to see the students twice throughout the year, but not necessarily twice in a row. This year, I have basically divided up the two sessions in Art into 2D, providing one assignment at a time (drawing, watercolor, collage, etc.) and 3D (mixed media, sculpture, clay, etc.) I am not quite sure which way I prefer, and maybe it depends on the timing and organization.

I really do love the Grade 6 students in the Art room. They are young enough that they don't question their creativity and ideas, yet old enough to create some really amazing artwork. They are excited, and enjoy being in school. They try almost everything I throw at them without worry or complaint, and are quite positive and open when having class discussions. They are ready and willing to learn, which is so beautiful. It is a really interesting age. They of course have their challenges, as any grade does, but overall, I really enjoy teaching this age.

Anyways, I was looking through my pictures and found a few gems from the first few days with my Grade 6 classes that I thought I would share with the world. The first few pictures were from our very first day of school. The Grade 6 students rotated into the art room for about 45 minutes each, and I needed something that was exciting, yet doable for the first time in the art room. I decided to do a large collaborative mural that would have a number of different sections to provide a number of different media and a variety of experiences at different levels of difficulty.

This was an old school sign that was found behind a bookcase! Perfect shape and size for a collaborative mural! I drew out squiggly sections before hand and planned out a a variety of media to use in each section. This was after day 1.

Zentangling on the left, and layered tissue paper with matte medium on the right.

Layered tissue paper on the left and yarn designs on the right.

Magazine roll ups! This station was quite hilarious, because the kids started to battle over who could make the largest, longest roll up. The really long ones unfortunately fell off...

I had anticipated that a lot more of the mural would be finished after day 1, so we turned it into the "I'm Finished" mural! So now, I have the stations in large ziplock bags, so when a student finishes an assignment early, I ask them which section on the mural they would like to work on, grab them the baggie, and they get to work! This way, there is never a student with nothing to do.

I am a little nervous that we are not going to have enough time to finish it. I am going to try and have a day every now and then that we can dedicate to the mural in hopes to get in finished. I guess it wouldn't be the end of the world to continue it next year in Grade 7, but my worry would be that they would get bored of it if it took that long. So the goal will remain to get it done this year. I'll keep you posted!

 The next few pictures that I found were from a few days into Grade 6 Art. I began the year, with short, in class activities that got them playing around with lines, colors and textures. The goals of the activities were not as much to teach specific skills, but more to get them experimenting and playing, not worrying about finished pieces. Secondly, they were to get them comfortable creating spontaneous art together, looking at each others art, and feeling safe in the art room to be creative and make mistakes.

This particular activity was called Abstract Continuous Line Exploration. This how I approaced it.

1. Students were to grab 3 contrasting colors (any media, colored pencils, crayons, markers, etc). Here we discussed contrast, and why certain colors contrasted with others. 
2. I told them that when I said go, they were to choose a first color, and begin to fill their page with one, continuous line. Their pencil was to stay on the paper, and they were to play around with shapes and using the entire space. 
3. I gave them about 30 seconds, and gave verbal encouragement and advice as they drew. 
4. Next, they were to choose a different color, and do another continuous line over their first. They could follow their previous marks, or cross over them. I gave them 20 seconds for this one. 
5. They now took their 3rd color, and did one more continuous line with only about 15 seconds. 
6. They now had to search for shapes that the three lines created and color them in. They could use any colors, patterns, and could choose any shapes, large and small. 
7. We then got up and took at look at each others. 
8. Then they got three more colors in a different media. We followed the same directions, except, before adding the next line, they passed their sketchbook to the person to the right. After the final 3rd line, they returned the sketchbook back to the original artist and then completed the final step of finding and coloring in the shapes.

This activity was really fun. It provided some good discussion points on artistic terminology such as abstract, collaborative, continuous lines, contrasting colors, organic versus geometrical lines, etc. It also had them create some extremely spontaneous, and then forced them to work from someone elses spontaneity! It also led us to a number of different in class activities such as continuous line observational drawings, and then blind contour drawing! It would make a really good sub plan as well!