Construction Station

At the Construction Station, students find a variety of materials for creating three-dimensional sculptures: cardboard, bottle caps, marker lids, prescription bottles, yogurt containers, frozen food containers, wire, and various other found objects. These can be connected with slotted construction, L-tabs, glue, and moderate uses of tape.

Man and Bike

Figure of a man, with the bike that he can ride, created by a fourth grade student.

Paper Mask

A mask made from construction paper and colored tape.

Zane's Street Bike

A street bike made from wire. Notice the "leather" seat!

Aniq's Standing Wire Figure

Aniq created a stand for his figure of a man.

Brent's Helmet

Brent worked really hard on this helmet made for when riding a motorcycle. Notice the black speaker that goes in front of the mouth for communicating.

Kimmy's Figure

Kimmy is in kindergarten. She created this figure from pre-cut shapes.

Ramsey's Flowers

Ramsey made her drawing with white charcoal pencil on black paper, which was very effective in showing the glass vase.

Wire Sculptures

This year I was able to rescue a lot of colored wire when our building got new light fixtures. The students have enjoyed creating figures with the wire. Some of them have added a wire figure to existing cardboard constructions.

Paper Station

At the paper station there are a wide variety of materials to use: construction paper, gift wrap paper, tissue paper, animal print paper, patterned paper from several different cultures, gold and silver paper, doilies, scrap yarn, craft sticks, stickers, foam shapes, and a variety of shapes left when making cosmetic and candy boxes at a professional packaging company. These can be torn, or cut with regular scissors or scissors that make decorative edges. They can be attached with glue, staples, and colored tape. They can be attached to white paper, colored paper, paper bags, or paper plates. They can be used to create collages, masks, puppets, or paper sculptures.

The following are some creations from our paper station.

Robbie's Castle

Robbie is a 5th Grade student who has been drawing castles with battles for several years and showing improvement in skills on each one, demonstrating the value of a choice-based class in which the art room is run like a studio where the artist (student) makes their own choice of subject matter.

McKenzie and Cat's Rug Remote

McKenzie and Cat began this composition with pre-cut shapes, then used oil pastels to create shapes around it. They thought that it looked like a remote control lying on a rug.

Drawing Station

Our drawing station has many materials for use by students: pencils, pens, sharpie markers, colored pencils, crayons, glitter crayons, construction paper crayons for use on colored paper, and oil pastels. There are texture sheets for creating rubbings of a variety of textures. There are objects to draw, such as toy vehicles, dinosaurs, and fantasy creatures. There is a large photo reference file. There are many drawing books. There is a still life set-up of objects to draw such as vases, flowers, and stuffed animals.



The following pictures are ones done with drawing station materials.

National Standards for Art Education

These are the National Standards for Art Education, and the way that they are followed in a choice-based art room:

Content Standard #1: Understanding and applying media,techniques, and processes

With six to nine stations operating at a time, demonstrations of materials and techniques given at each one, and the opportunity to experiment at each one, the students become versed in more varieties of materials, techniques, and processes than in a traditional project-based art classroom setting.

Content Standard #2: Using knowledge of structures and functions

This content is covered at the cardboard construction station, where three-dimensional found-object sculpture can be created with movable parts.

Content Standard #3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas

The choice-based classroom allows the student to choose his or her subject matter and evaluate the best way to present that subject matter to his or her audience.

Content Standard #4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures

In five-minute demonstrations at the beginning of each class, multiple cultures and historical masters in art can be presented.

Content Standard #5: Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others

We discuss the importance of reflecting on one's work in order to continually improve and grow. Students in second grade through fifth grade write a statement about their artwork every time that they finish a work. Third grade through fifth grade students keep all work in a portfolio, which is used by the teacher for assessment, and by the student and teacher together twice a year. The work of master artists is viewed and discussed frequently.

Content Standard #6: Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines

With individuals, I discuss how the problem-solving done in each art work transfers to learning in their other subjects. With whole groups, we discuss how the skills used in the art room transfer to math, science, cultural learning in social studies, writing, and everyday lives.

Oklahoma P.A.S.S. objectives

These are the Priority Academic Student Skills for Art for grade three in Oklahoma. They vary slightly for grades above and below this grade level in age appropriate requirements.

Standard 1: Language of Visual Art - The student will identify visual art terms (e.g., collage, design, original, portrait, paint, subject).

These and other terms are used in five-minute demos at the beginning of each class. We have two word walls with pertinent vocabulary words and material terms, as well as color, shape, form, and texture words The use of these words is pointed out frequently.

Standard 2: Visual Art History and Culture - The student will recognize the development of visual art from an historical and cultural perspective.

Many master artists from other cultures, as well as from a historical standpoint, are presented and discussed. Since there is a five-minute demo every class period, rather than a repetition of instructions for a project, there is much more time to introduce a wide-variety of artists, history, and cultures.


Standard 3: Visual Art Expression - The student will observe, select, and utilize a variety of ideas and subject matter in creating original works of visual art.

How can a student select subject matter in a traditional classroom where projects are selected by the teacher? How can a lesson taught by a teacher be considered original works of art? In a choice-based classroom, the art room is a studio, and the student is treated as an authentic artist who makes their own selections of subject matter and materials


Standard 4: Visual Art Appreciation - The student will appreciate visual art as a vehicle of human expression.

Many prints are displayed in the classroom, as well as the work of current and previous students. Many of discussion questions asked are about these works of art, displaying the students' appreciation for and interest in these works.

Airplane

A fourth grade students sculpture of a plane constructed from found materials.

Airplane

A side view of the same sculpture.

Hope's Sack Puppet

Hope loves the paper station, and does most of her art work there. On this day she created a dog puppet. Hope is in the third grade.

Playground

A fourth grade students design of a playground. The marker lids represent people.

Johnny's Fantasy Land

Johnny is a first-grade student who loves to draw.

Hope's Stick Puppet

Hope used a variety of materials to create her stick puppet.

Mother and Child

This third grade student was inspired to make a wire family.

Wire Sculptures

Two figures created by fourth grade students.

Israel's Figure

Isreal created this figure out of wire. Later he added clothing made from colored duct tape. Israel is in the third grade.

Block Picnic

This picnic lunch was made by several fifth grade girls at our building station, creatively using wooden pre-cut shapes donated by a packaging company, as well as scrap lumber scavenged from new construction. The wooden shapes are created when the company makes cutting dies for packages.

Israel's Wire and Tape figure

After thinking about it for awhile, Israel added duct tape clothing to his wire figure.

Jazmin's Still Life

Jazmin used a bear from our still life set-up as inspiration for her drawing. She is in 2nd Grade.

Robbie's Battle

Humza's Football Game

Humza loves football, and draws games over and over. He is in 2nd grade.

Brittany's Line Composition

Notice the variety of decorative lines that Brittany used here.

Grace

Notice the thick and thin lines that Grace used in her non-objective line composition

Brittany's Non-objective

Brittany started with a variety of fine lines, then began adding color.

McKenzie & Cat's Line Composition

Notice the collage frame that these two fifth-grade girls made for thier line composition.

The girls used a variety of drawn lines with a background of collage to create their artwork.

Madison's Many Wonders

It was Madison's idea to mount these small vignettes on another sheet for this display of her skills and creativity.

Our Fourth Year of Choice

This is my fourth year to have a choice-based art room. It is satisfying to observe that students who have been with me for several years have grown in their skills, creativity, and craftsmanship. They seem to need no direction at all from me. I have many older students who automatically use a variety of media to create a mixed media art work, and many who go to the painting station to finish a cardboard sculpture. I seem to have drawing clubs in each class, in which groups of students who love to draw do so day after day with concentration, improving their drawings of their favorite subjects. I am going to introduce plaster cloth soon to the sculpture area, to see what the students can create with it or how they use it to add to existing sculptures.

I currently have a group of second grade girls working on a village. I had shown them how to fold origami houses during one of my introductions. They have each created a variety of houses, decorated the interiors and exteriors, and made cars and families to go with them. I am going to encourage them to mount these on a large sheet of roll paper for a mural.

I just posted a mural on the wall outside of my room that two fifth grade girls made. It has collaged portions, stickers, and splatter paint, and looks similar to many of the modern art creations that I have seen in museums. Jackson Pollock is one of the artists that I introduced this year, so these girls were familiar with controlled splatter painting.

One new activity this year has been wire sculpture. All of the light fixtures in the building were being replaced with more eco-friendly and economical ones the week after school was out. I was in and out of the building, and noticed all the boxes of scrap wire in red, yellow, blue, white, and brown. I asked the electricians to save them for me, and now have enough wire to last a couple of years. The students have loved sculpting with this material, and adding clothing made from the colored duct tape that I found at an overstock store.

I purchased two new sets for our building station: Dado Cubes, and Dado squares. I introduced the sets early in the year, before I opened the cardboard construction station for the younger students. I think that using these sets has helped them to understand slotted construction with cardboard. I have noticed them using slotted cardboard pieces more than they have in other years.

All in all, I continue to strongly advocate for this method of teaching. I see my students developing a wider variety of skills, and a much broader knowledge of techniques than they ever did before when I taught traditional lessons, in which every student made the same project. I am able to introduce master artists much more frequently in our daily 5 minute introductions of each class.
The questions that they ask during our introductions are about the visual displays in the art room, in which I have many prints of master art works, as well as menus for each station: drawing, paper, fiber arts, which includes weaving and stitchery, computer graphics, construction, wire sculpture, painting, and clay. I am able to switch out stations at will, adding such things as clay, printmaking, and papier mache and plaster cloth.

Many of my students tell me that this is their favorite specialties class, and I believe them when I hear them groan when it is time to clean up. How much more satisfying can teaching be?

Hand Puppets

Our third, fourth, and fifth grade students have had the option of creating hand puppet. They have been very creative in their choices of how to decorate them.

Night Light

 

Jacob made this cool abstract drawing of a car and titled it "Night Light.".

Back Yard Garden

 

Callie, Emily, and Mary, three 5th Grade Girls, created this found-object sculpture. It includes a backyard lawn area with a pool and lawnmower, a flower garden, an eating area, benches, a fence,a fishing pond,and a stroller for a baby.

2008 Spring Art Show

This is some of the art work that was on display for our annual art show, in which every student in Kindergarten through 5th grade had something on exhibit.

A ship made of blocks

A block castle

A first-grade modeling clay man.

A dragon hand puppet

A creative collaborative holiday greeting made by two girls.

A bird's-eye view of a super-fast race car.

An interesting point of view of one of Santa's elves!

One of our 5th grade students chose to create three-dimensional lettering for this sign.

Many of our students enjoy making portraits of royalty.

Kimmy was inspired by ceramic comedy and tragedy theater masks that she had seen at a friend's house.

I have been a little slow this year in updating our class blog, due to injuries and surgery that caused me to miss some school at the beginning of the year. But we are catching up quickly in our choice-based art room. We currently have a drawing station, a paper station, a weaving station, a three-dimensional construction station using found materials , and a painting station open in grades three, four, and five. 1st and 2nd grades are able to go to the drawing station, paper station, modeling clay, and painting. 2nd grade also uses the construction station. Kindergarten has choices of drawing, pre-cut paper shapes for collage, modeling clay, stamping, and blocks They have just been introduced to cutting out their own shapes for a non-objective collage.

On Fridays, all students may go to the conceptual building station, where they use creative ideas for three-dimensional constructions that are temporary. The building station has a variety of 3-D sets: k'nex, kid k'nex, legos, shapees, tinkertoys, 4 large tubs of blocks, bristle blocks, space links, jigsaw puzzles, tangram puzzles, plastic and rubber shapes for making 2-D designs, and magnetix. They may also use the graphic programs on the computers on Fridays.

Third, fourth, and fifth grade students weave with yarn. Third grade students learn finger weaving and cup-weaving. Fourth grade and fifth grade students learn straw-weaving and rectangular weaving on pasteboard looms. These are, of course, a choice to work on.

I have recently introduced bookmaking. First grade students can make their own books using yarn for binding. Second grade students are making altered books by selecting cut-up nameless art work to add details to and change to their own art, then bind with yarn. Third through fifth grade students are using old books from our library to make their own altered books. First they are painting the covers, and then will add their own artwork to the inside pages.


I plan on introducing some new stations in the next semester, which may take the place of established ones. We are also beginning to get ready for our all-school spring art show, which takes place on March 27th.