Opening the second station

After all students had had two class periods in which to use the drawing materials, I opened the collage station. This station has glue, scissors, scissors that cut decorative lines, construction paper, tissue paper, specialty papers (wallpaper, gift wrap, and bubble wrap), and shapes to trace. My husband is a packaging designer, and brings me all kinds of interesting shapes that are left over from cutting display boxes from the company where he works. The students love to trace these. I started out putting magazines at this station also, but the students didn't understand that rather than cutting out a picture of an object, they should cut out another shape, such as a diamond or a freeform shape, from within that picture. I'm going to hold onto magazines until I can do a demonstration of how I want them to use them. I am starting the younger students, 1st and 2nd graders, with construction paper and tissue paper only until they more fully understand collage.


I have been stressing hands, head, and heart with the younger students. I found this concept on the TAB-Choice website and the "art_education website." This concept is helping tremendously with getting the younger students to put that extra effort into their art work that I would like to see. St. Francis of Assissi said, "One who works with his hands is a Laborer. One who works with his hands and head is a Craftsman. One who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an Artist." John Crowe uses this as a rubric for assessment in the TAB-ChoiceKnowledgeLoom website.


I have added puppets and masks to the collage station for the younger students. We are making masks from paper plates, and puppets from small paper bags. Since this is the collage station, every detail must be made with cut paper.


I also added to the drawing station. I added white charcoal pencils and showed them how they would look on dark colors of paper.