Before I began anything, I met with the founder (and also head teacher) for my summer internship program, to discuss what roles I should take on for my internship position. We both agreed that I would be making the entire curriculum for both summer sessions. These sessions comprised of 5 artworks created during the 5 days (M-F) per session. Each day we would study an artist and create a piece inspired by said artist. Since my head teacher believes that the art historical component is just as important as the art-making promise (and I couldn't agree more) in a lesson, we made sure that each lesson plan featured about 10 minutes of teaching about the artist we would be studying. Granted, these kids are between the ages of 3 (...yikes!) - 10 years old so, we didn't necessarily expect them to already have an art historical background. But, we did understand that our clientele of mostly West Lake parents would greatly appreciate some educational component in each class session. In addition, the selection of artists/artworks was completely up to me. This was exciting, yet.. restricting, at times. For instance, since session I is a camp on Master Artists and their great art works, I was restricted to "most well-known artists" that just so happened to be Masters. I immediately thought of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Titian, etc. but then...wait: naked people. So, censorship was something to consider. Another restriction was that the parents and kids signed up for these summer camps hoping to recreate copies of Master Artworks that they could easily recognize and might be familiar with already. So, the obvious artworks that came to mind were Claude Monet's "Lily Pads" series, and Edvard Munch's "The Scream," both of which are in the curriculum. This was also another thing to think about.
I started my investigation process like any other human being would: google search. In order to select well recognized artworks and artists, I had to first uncover who/what they were. I googled "master artists, master artworks, well-recognized art" and I came up with these 5 (white & male) artists......(shocking):
Winslow Homer ("The Fog Warning", Gustav Klimt ("Tree of Life"), Henri Matisse ("Girl in the Purple Robe"), Claude Monet ("Lily Pads"), and Edvard Munch ("The Scream").
Once I had my artists down, I started to research lesson plans who used these artists as inspiration for their art projects. Surprisingly, I used pinterest, a site that I don't normally go on, but one that I am familiar with as the plethora of girls I used to go to high school with have uploaded their pinterest boards onto facebook to show off their wedding inspirations. I was actually surprised at the variety of lesson plans available that matched up with my artists and the different techniques that I wanted each of my students to explore. Of course, I had to alter many of the lesson plans I found as some did not match my age group or I found them too crafty. I wanted my lesson plans to be as straight-forward as possible, but not dumbed-down for my smart kiddos.
The lesson plans I created took between 1 - 2 hours to format and research as they included a slideshow of artworks for each artist as well as a short artist bio. I figured, before we began the art project, the students needed to be familiar with the artist, the artwork we would be recreating, and a tidbit of information related to art history and vocabulary. The only trouble I had was that the slideshows and bios felt very academic and too much like school. After all, this is a summer camp so the kids should be having fun! But on the other hand, it would be helpful for the kids to match up the artworks with their respective artists. Not to mention, the parents might appreciate the educational aspects of these art projects.
The weekend before camp, I met with the two other art teachers who would be helping me during the camp sessions. Despite my initial hesitation, everyone felt that the artist bios and slideshows would be a great way for students to investigate the artist. Plus, it might be fun to look at art! It was also helpful for all three of us to get together and talk about the lesson plans and to make a schedule for the day. We all had no idea if we would be able to stick to this proposed schedule and we didn't know exactly how long each art lesson would take, so we all hoped for the best. Here's the schedule for the day:
8:30 Arrival
9:00-9:30 Craft Project
9:30 Bathroom
9:40 – 10:10 Playground (Tag, Duck Duck, Yellow Light, Red Rover)
10:10 Snack Time
10:25-11:25 Art Lesson
11:25 Bathroom
11:35 Playground
11:50 – 12:15 Lunch/Mo
12:15 Three Dimensional Bamboo Project
12:35 Clean Up
12:50 Review
So to wrap up, if this preparation process has taught me anything, it's that every art teacher needs to have some sort of organizational system and schedule (for her/himself) in order to get everything planned out in a timely manner. I wish I had sent over my lesson plans to the head teacher earlier than usual, but because my dad was in the hospital two weeks before classes began, I was a bit behind. Regardless, I was creating to-do lists left and right in addition to working two other summer jobs and planning out a thesis proposal. I also found it helpful to always communicate with my teachers, especially the head teacher, during this process. Even though it was scary and forced me to dive into curriculum head first, I had the responsibility of creating all of the lesson plans and to figure out how we would reach out to students. It was essentially up to me to create the entire curriculum so it was important that everyone was in the loop. Overall, I had complete freedom (within reason, of course) but I still wanted everyone else's input. In addition, it was important for everyone to know what I was doing instead of being kept in the dark. In the preparation process for effective art teaching, I have to kick out the scattered-brain artist out of own head for a while and force myself to be the organized teacher!
9:00-9:30 Craft Project
9:30 Bathroom
9:40 – 10:10 Playground (Tag, Duck Duck, Yellow Light, Red Rover)
10:10 Snack Time
10:25-11:25 Art Lesson
11:25 Bathroom
11:35 Playground
11:50 – 12:15 Lunch/Mo
12:15 Three Dimensional Bamboo Project
12:35 Clean Up
12:50 Review
So to wrap up, if this preparation process has taught me anything, it's that every art teacher needs to have some sort of organizational system and schedule (for her/himself) in order to get everything planned out in a timely manner. I wish I had sent over my lesson plans to the head teacher earlier than usual, but because my dad was in the hospital two weeks before classes began, I was a bit behind. Regardless, I was creating to-do lists left and right in addition to working two other summer jobs and planning out a thesis proposal. I also found it helpful to always communicate with my teachers, especially the head teacher, during this process. Even though it was scary and forced me to dive into curriculum head first, I had the responsibility of creating all of the lesson plans and to figure out how we would reach out to students. It was essentially up to me to create the entire curriculum so it was important that everyone was in the loop. Overall, I had complete freedom (within reason, of course) but I still wanted everyone else's input. In addition, it was important for everyone to know what I was doing instead of being kept in the dark. In the preparation process for effective art teaching, I have to kick out the scattered-brain artist out of own head for a while and force myself to be the organized teacher!
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