ARTNOTES @ CHS: September 2019

Welcome, AND Welcome Back, to the Art Room at CHS!

We are off to a great start this year with a focus on Celebrating the Earth! As the year goes along you will hear more about this School-Wide Theme and this year's Collaborative Project. The first few weeks of art are all about getting re-connected with our creative side and the joy we share in art making!

As in the past, the focus in art class is on experimenting, observing, wondering, expressing personal and collective "voice", and on developing each student's visual expressive skills. All of the students at CHS in Primary through Third Grade come to the Art Room once a week in half groups. This small group design gives us the opportunity to really engage in art experiences and projects that are designed to introduce young artists to a variety of art materials and techniques, integrate student's learning with their classroom social studies curriculum, as well as give them an opportunity to develop their skills.

In addition to having fun, the time students spend engaged in art making provides them with opportunities to practice valuable "Studio Habits of Mind". These particular ways of thinking have been researched by educators through Harvard's Project Zero, and have been identified to include: Engaging & Persisting, Envisioning, Expressing, Observing, Reflecting, Stretching & Exploring, Developing Craft, and Understanding the Art World (Collaborating is part of this).

In the welcoming art activity (pictured above), the students had an opportunity to exercise many of these "Studio Habits of Mind". They made marks with markers on absorbant paper, and then used pipettes to drop water on each dot of color. The students were prompted to ask themselves the question, "What would happen if I...?" each time they tried a new paper. They were engaged! They persisted and they observed what happened each time. They collaborated, and reflected at the end of the activity:

They discovered the different ways the marker color reacted to the water when it was in dots, as opposed to lines.
They wondered why the color travelled in one direction instead of another when they dropped the water on it.
They moved their papers in space to see what effects they could create.

There was a lot of good thinking and experimenting going on. One student said, "This reminds me of science class." Yes, indeed, science and art both share exploration and experimenting, as well as wondering.

This summer I was thinking a lot about art at CHS. I attended 2 intensive professional development courses and there was a common thread I found in them. That thread was this: The importance of good questions for deeper thinking and wondering. It is my goal this year to encourage the students to also ask themselves meaningful questions when they are making their art. I would like to create a culture of questioning in the art room. You can help too, by asking them open ended questions and by inviting conversation about their observations and their art work. Here are a few good ways to start: