River Model Prep

To prepare the students for our river model project and incorporate some reading practice, Cindy found a great 2-page story about 3 kids making a relief map model out of dough. A lot of art vocabulary was used, like modeling and representation, and Cindy defined dough in a very tactile way that should have them sparked for working with the model magic on Friday! Cindy and the guided reading specialist pulled aside particular kids for guided reading groups to help them through the story while I kept an eye on class progress, answered any vocab questions, and redirected some of them to where to find the answers for the comprehension questions at the end. It was interesting to see how so many of them gloss over or write simple/easy answers, but when prodded or questioned to think about the "why" then they are able to provide a more in-depth answer. There's a lot of copying going on, even artistically, and I wonder right now if it's just a strategy that helps the below-level students keep up and how much to allow it.
While we waited for students to finish the reading we passed out sketchbooks and gave kids time to color some of the sketches they had done on our trips. It was nice to revisit the experience that way. Some of the kids debated about what they saw when/where.

With everyone ready, I asked the kids what the reading was about (making a model out of clay). I asked them if they remembered seeing any other models when we were on our trips (the swing bridge at the canals, the Delaware river map at Penn's Landing, and the pollution watershed model at Riverbend). I told them we would be making our own river models and so we needed to brainstorm what important things should be on the model. With "Parts of a River" written on the board the kids helped fill in the spidergram (water, land, tributaries, mountains, source, mouth, animals, plants, roads, houses, bridges, boats, buildings, urban, suburban, rural).

When we got to the last 3 words about community types a student hopped up and brought me a chart they had made with Cindy showing urban, suburban, and rural in concentric rings with pictograms of what one might see in each spot and how crowded or spread out they'd be (I love seeing how much drawing Cindy uses in her lessons- is this a new thing? Even in the math lesson I saw at the end she asked the kids which way it was easiest to solve the problem-- and stressed drawing a picture). This gave us a quick review and opportunity to talk about communities we've seen and experienced, and compare the kids' more suburban life with my city life.

 With that I told the students that we'd be making our own river models that share all the physical river features (and we circled source, mouth, land, river, tributary, and meander) but that they'd be able to choose whether their model showed a rural, suburban or urban area. I passed out the mdf boards we'll be using as a base for the children to trace in their sketchbooks and make a plan. I asked them what we call that plan an artist makes before they start a project (Sketch!).
The kids had plenty of time to draw a design for their river model, which I hope will make the creation of it on Friday an easier process. It allowed for some problem-solving and checking of student understanding.
I think we're ready to make some models!

Day 12, finishing up Rivers of the World

On Wednesday when I came in, Cindy was having the kids review the "6-pack" for the Amazon river to transform the important points into sentence form. We hadn't done our 6-packs (the people, houses, plants, animals, problems, and uses) for the Nile, Volga, and Yangtze the other day in hopes to get lots of stitching done. So after they had completed the Amazon facts, we picture-walked through a book on the Nile River, with Cindy reading out loud, the students taking notes to add to a new 6-pack, and me writing down main points on a large sheet of paper to mirror the Amazon one they'd completed. This set us up perfectly for a Venn diagram organizer for a compare/contrast writing. I believe this was the first time they'd been introduced to the compare/contrast format and concept. With diagram handouts in the kids hands and a larger Venn diagram poster on the board I elicited what was the same about the Nile and Amazon to put in the overlapping section, and then what was special and different for each of the rivers to put in the left and right sides of the diagram. The children naturally made comparison statements like "The Nile is longer than the Amazon", and I pointed out that we use sentences like that a lot when making comparisons, especially using words such as less/more and -er endings. It would be great to continue this idea with some images, and perhaps we can spend a few moments tomorrow on comparing their maps to reinforce the idea of compare/contrast. Images are great for this kind of activity, and compare/contrast is an essential form for writing about art and aesthetics. With the Venn diagrams complete, Cindy collected them for use in their next writing assignment.

We brought up the overhead transparency of our Rivers of the World map to review which rivers have been studied and stitched so far (Mississippi, Amazon, Nile, Volga, and Yangtze), we counted out how many that was (5) and compared that to how many continents there are (7). I asked them which continent we hadn't done yet (Australia) and also asked why we weren't going to stitch any rivers in Antarctica (nobody lives there and it's too cold there for rivers to flow). We passed out the Atlases and had them find Australia and its major river (the Murray-Darling). I compared it to the Amazon river because both have their sources up in the mountains, and I compared it to the Nile river because both start as 2 separate rivers that join and have one mouth. We discovered a new word for a body of water-- the Murray-Darling's mouth is in the Great Australian Bight (a shallow, curved bay). As always I asked them to find the source of the river as their starting point for stitching and the mouth as the end point for stitching the river. I'm hoping this process of starting and ending in stitching will reinforce the idea of the beginning and end of the river and direction a  river flows.

Students quickly finished their stitching and as we had plenty of time, I brought out my fabric markers. I told them this was their chance to make their map their own and unique. I mentioned some options such as coloring in the continents like the map on the classroom wall, labeling the continents and the rivers, adding details to each continent and river based on the information they had learned from our six-pack exercises, etc. The children were VERY enthusiastic about coloring these in and were quite inventive in the details they added. Some added compass rose and cardinal directions, some created a color-coded map key, some wanted to add the equator, some drew animals and fish in the land and water. They had a clear idea about what should be on a map!

Now my challenge is making a final decision about how to make these more "finished" pieces in terms of the edges. I could either mount them on boards and tape the edges at the back, or I could be more labor intensive and add a backing fabric and seam the edges........

Amazon River

Today we were back in the classroom. It was a little weird having all those trips to skip back to our previous subject matter. Our goal was to cover the Amazon river of South America in our Rivers of the World exploration. We started off looking at the atlas to locate South America and its rivers. The students quickly found the Amazon. I asked them to find the equator, which was also a little blue line, but didn't meander. We also pointed out the equator on the globe to show how it went all the way around the world. I explained how it was always hot near the equator and Cindy reminded the students of previous discussions about climate and seasons.
We then gathered the students and I read a book on "Rainforests", highlighting the Amazon region. Reading the book brought up many of the people, plants, animals, problems, and uses of the Amazon River. Cindy created a word splash for our vocabulary as I read and we explained. Cindy then did a picture walk on 2 books about the Amazon specifically as the students took notes on the people, houses, plants, animals, problems, and uses. I don't know if it was because of the content presented or because the kids were more familiar with the note-taking process, but our chart for the Amazon seems much more full than the one for the Mississippi. Throughout the lesson Cindy and I made comparisons between what we were introducing to what the students had already learned in class and on the fieldtrips.
To complete our Amazon lesson we passed out the students' world map embroideries. I reminded them of how to move the hoop and reviewed the tool vocabulary. I traced the path of the river on the overhead transparency and reviewed source and mouth vocabulary. We quickly passed out the materials and helped the students thread and knot to be ready to stitch.
Once again we went overtime, and the art portion was very rushed. I'm wondering how it might work to do the atlas portion, then stitch the river, then do the book activities and chart. I wanted the students to add imagery based on the 6 chart points for rivers, but there hasn't been time. Perhaps as a culminating activity instead, students can work on the continent/river they found most interesting to add detail to the map when we're finished stitching. Cindy noted that last year I had the students do a practice/free embroidery before they worked on their final projects. I didn't do it this time because of how pressed for time we are. I think the stitching was better on the first day. They really need another review of technique.
Today was a bit difficult because the kids had a half day and there was a lot of nervous energy and noise. Hopefully on Friday we'll be more on task.

Field trip! Urban Delaware River

This morning we had our second field trip. We visited the Coast Guard Base on Columbus Blvd to experience the fire department's fireboats. Tide was almost out, so we had to walk down a steep ramp to the floating dock. Two ships were tied up at the dock- a brand new pumping boat and a 60-year old workhorse which we were told helps the Coast Guard chop up ice floes in Winter. We boarded the pump boat and the groups went up one by one into the wheelhouse to hear the pilot speak. I kept an eye on deck, so Cindy will have to elaborate. While the groups waited their turn I tried to engage the kids in thinking about what they saw along the river and how it was different from our previous ship. The children were very excited to see ducks, seagulls, and a very small school of fish in the water.
After the talk the pilot asked the engineer to start up the pumps. The boat has three spray nozzles: one on the bow of the boat which swivels left and right, one at the stern which swiveled up and down and left and right, and one very large one on top of the wheelhouse that shot the water nearly straight up. The students had great fun taking turns controlling the direction of the spraying water, pretending to put out fires. It was even more impressive when all three nozzles were going at full force!
After that great adventure, the pilot took us on a tour of the rest of the pier. We looked at a buoy boat which checks on and places red and green buoys in the river to direct the boat traffic. We also saw various police boats. Some were very small and fast, others had removable sides for aiding in rescue and to allow divers to ease into water. We saw a Pilot boat which takes a pilot out to a ship to steer a foreign ship up the river. On the opposite bank of the river we viewed huge container crane elevators that lift container boxes onto ships. We saw a stack of orange shipping containers, and even saw one drive by on the bed of a truck. This helped explain how goods are brought from other countries, like toys and food, in big containers and then set onto trains and trucks to carry throughout the country. The Pilot also explained that it's the Coast Guard's job to protect us and to inspect the goods and people that come into our port cities on boats.

Saying goodbye to our pilot, the kids hopped back on the bus to make a short trip to the Great Plaza at Penn's Landing. We ate lunch at the riverside- a challenge with all the hungry seagulls about! There's a very detailed engrave scale model of the Delaware River along the promenade, so after lunch we lined the kids up for a follow-the-leader down the river. Before we started I asked if they remembered in which state was the river's source (New York!), and then as we go down the river what state is on our right (PA!), and on our left (NJ!) and where is the mouth of the river (Atlantic Ocean!). Walking down the river we noted all the tributaries and major cities along the path. We had enough free time to allow for some sketching. I helped one boy do a grid enlargement of the river engraving he wanted to draw so much. I drew out a grid on his page after asking him to count how many tiles there were. Then we looked at each tile and found the lines to match up with the squares on the page. Other students drew the Ben Franklin bridge, and others noted the many birds about.

We took one last stroll down to a Steamboat docked at the landing, then returned to the bus and back to school. There's so much new information to think about! I'm eager to get back into the classroom so we can process these ideas with our art projects and writing. One more Field trip to go on Friday!

Field Trip!!

This morning we all got onto a big yellow school bus with our students and some parent chaperons for our trip up to see a rural section of the Delaware River. We had the kids bring along their sketchbooks and reminded them to be aware of people, houses, plants, animals, uses, and problems of the river throughout the day. I told them they might want to sketch something they noticed from those categories as we might want to use that information later on in our project.
I was surprised that we took mainly back roads and no major highways on the ride up to Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County. This route offered numerous opportunities for the children to observe rural community and land features, and they were eager to sketch on the way up. "HORSES!!!!!" was a common cry. Students noted corn-stubble fields, barns and fences, mountains, ponds, geese, deer, small creeks which grew into larger streams as we neared the river, the Delaware Canal, and of course the Delaware River! Mrs. O'Donnell passed out a tourist map of the Bucks County area to the kids mid-trip, and students searched for the boat we would ride on. As they examined the maps I asked them how many bridges they could find, where the canal was and how it looked different from the river (it was thin and straight not wide and curvy), where the compass rose was on the map, etc. Some students were inspired to sketch the map or the boat as they imagined it would be afterwards. This was the first time I'd ever been on a field trip as a student or a chaperon where I felt the journey itself was part of the educational experience!

When we arrived in Upper Black Eddy, we were greeted by Captain Dee of the Bucks County Riverboat Company. We boarded "The River Otter", a flat bottom pontoon boat which we were told could navigate the river even in 2 foot shallows! Before we launched, Captain Dee asked if we had noticed all the mud on the ramp and dock, and explained that just a week ago the river level was a good 6 feet higher due to massive rain. He also showed us what the highest flood level had been in recent years and told us that people who live near the river often have their houses flooded. Some of the houses must even be rebuilt on stilts to avoid the floods.

We motored upriver under a truss bridge that had been built in 1843 and saw lots of logs piled up against its stone supports- further evidence of the recent heavy flooding. Along the way Captain Dee helped the kids brainstorm some of the river animal life. In particular he explained the contrasting spawning habits of the American Shad and the American Eel. The former lives in the ocean and swims up the river to spawn, and the latter lives in the river but migrates all the way to Bermuda and the Sargasso sea to spawn. The kids spotted Turkey vultures circling the New Jersey bluffs and a Great blue Heron at the water's edge. It surprised us all when the Heron took flight and swooped past the boat! Dead fish and turtles were some other notable wildlife. I was impressed by the breadth of Captain Dee's repertoire of information. I wondered if Mrs. O'Donnell had asked him to cover certain topics, as it all seemed wonderfully relevant to our goals.

After our boat ride we hopped back on the bus, crossed to NJ over the truss bridge we'd ridden under, and headed downriver to Bull's Island Recreation area. We stopped for a quick picnic lunch, then took a walk over the pedestrian-only suspension bridge which connects NJ and PA at Bull's Island. The kids enjoyed standing in "2 places at once" between the states, and experiencing the vibrations of the suspension bridge.

We then headed back to the Visitor center lawn for a presentation by a state park historian (I missed her name!). The historian shared maps and pictures of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and explained that it was built in 1830 by workers with shovels and wheelbarrows to connect trade between Philadelphia and New York City. She told us how the boats were towed up the canal by mules on the towpath. She revealed a working model of a canal lock and explained how the parts worked to lift and lower canal boats like an elevator for going up hills. She also showed us a model of a swing bridge with an A-frame which would allow boats to pass when the bridgekeeper heard their horns blow. I'm not sure how much the kids retained from her talk... there were a lot of bathroom trips, worries about the numerous bugs (daddy long legs and stick bugs!), end-of-trip distraction and tiredness, and the kids were too spread out on the lawn for the historian to really actively engage.

On the bus ride home we encouraged more sketching. I pulled out my own sketchbook and started drawing kids, much to their delight. I was transported back to my school days when my classmates would ask me to draw them and I found my niche as the class "artist".

It was along and exciting trip. What better way for students to learn about rivers than to experience them first hand? I believe this will provide rich background for our further explorations. Back in the classroom I pulled aside pairs of students for quick video interviews about what we've learned so far.

I have to compile the video footage I've shot so far and add it to the post.

Rivers of the World/North America

There was so much to squeeze in today!!!!! We started off with the science and social studies pre-tests. Based on watching them work, they seemed to have a better handle on the vocabulary for science and social studies than they did for the art pretest. I have to mark  them and see.

Once the pretest was finished I reviewed the continents we had learned last time. No hesitations, nobody told me states or country or city names, just rattled off the continent names! I asked them what continent we live on (response: North America). Then I asked if they knew what countries were in North America. This was a little harder. They seem to be unclear about the difference between a city, a state, a country, and a continent. These boundaries are so abstract. But finally we got the right response (United States of America, Canada, Mexico).
Cindy and I tag-teamed today. I was a bit unclear about how we were going to use the book resources to step through the people/animals/uses/problems, etc. Cindy led the rivers word splash brainstorm to see what the kids could come up with- and they did successfully generate all the topics we had hoped they would. They got a little carried away with ocean life and really wanted to show off their newfound geology science knowledge, so Cindy reined it in a little.

River word splash brainstorming

 Then I read a short book titled "Living Near a River" by A. Fowler. This book generated a lot of new vocabulary for the kids, and each page sparked a short related description as Cindy and I bounced ideas back and forth

lots of new vocabulary today!!!!

 Cindy then took over leading the kids through a river find in their atlases. There were opportunities to use some of our arts elements vocabulary about lines..thin...curved...colors, as they tried to find things on the map. Then Cindy did a picture walk through a book about the Mississippi river and the kids listened and observed for information regarding people, animals, plants, houses, uses, and problems to write notes for the post-it page of categories. We lacked time today, but I'd like the kids to use some of that information to add imagery to their world maps.

Mississippi people, animals, houses, uses, problems notes

People:Indians, cowboys, fisherman, pioneers....

 People and animals were the most popular note-taking topics. Obviously those are areas that interest this age group a great deal.

animals: beaver, buffalo, crocodiles (um-alligators?), armadillo

 There was very little time left, but my ultimate goal for the day was to get the kids to start stitching their world maps. I had them look at their paper version first to find North America, locate the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, and trace the path of the river between the 2. Then I asked them to find the same points on their fabric version. Cindy kindly printed out a transparency for me to project, and I marked and stressed vocabulary source, meander, and mouth. I passed around an example of my own embroidery for them to see and feel what the stitches should look like.

stitched Mississippi

 We quickly handed out supplies and I instructed the  kids how to mount their fabric in the embroidery hoop. I'm calling our needle magnets a "dock" this time instead of a parking spot. And we compared the needle to a boat traveling down the river from the source to the mouth. I showed how to thread the needle and knot the ends and how to do a running stitch following the path they'd drawn.

a bit of a meander

I'm amazed at how quickly and smoothly the stitching went! Perhaps because Cindy has done this with me before she felt more comfortable helping the kids get started- threading and knotting, checking that they'd done it correctly. Perhaps it seemed to go so well just because we were stitching a short line. But I only saw one kid stitch around the hoop, and everybody had nice small stitches (I had stressed tiny,tiny stitches, too)

nice small stitches

I feel very confident about stitching with these kids. Now that I've seen Cindy go through the Mississippi lesson I feel better about being able to lead our other world river lessons. If we'd had enough time today, I would have liked the kids to add images to their world maps with fabric markers or more stitching to show what they understand about the people/animals/uses etc.
I had the flipcam with me, but it's so hard to remember to document when you're in the middle of teaching!

Day 5: continents and world map screenprint



world map image used in screenpint

 My perception of Friday's lesson is not as universal as previous days as I was really just working with small groups of students at a time, so hopefully Cindy can fill in what I missed.

I started with a quick review to see what the kids remembered from our previous sessions. (Responded shapes/lines, Van Gogh, one kid remembered Jean-Francois Millet correctly pronounced even!) I said we've been working on a lot of reading and writing lessons, but that we're starting to work on some more social studies ideas now. I brought in my Philly daily map screenprint on fabric to show the kids. I asked them if they could figure out where it was and what the format reminded them of (number grid!). After a few more hints they figured out that my repetition of the map represented a calendar. I explained that screenprinting is a type of printmaking for making copies of something. I compared printing to the computer printer or photocopier, but that a long time ago before machines, artists and mapmakers would use printmaking for creating lots of copies of maps.
On the board I listed several screenprinting terms: screenprint, squeegee, ink. I showed them the screen and carried it above their heads so they could see the light coming through the screen. I said the empty spots where you see light is where the ink goes through and the red stuff (screenfiller) blocks the ink from touching the paper or fabric. I also passed around a squeegee and said it had a handle and a blade. Then I demonstrated (without ink) how to pull the squeegee across the screen to make the ink go through. Then I explained the printing process we'd go through as a group: come back, put on a smock, pick a fabric, place it on the board following the taped outline, 2 people to help hold down the board and screen while one person prints, then to wash hands while I hung their print on the line to dry. I insisted that it was very important that we cooperate, move quickly to get ready and exchange smocks and print because if the ink dried out in the screen it would block up the screen like the red stuff and ruin our image.
I asked them what the image on my screen looked like (response- a map!). I asked them if they knew their continents already (North America! Asia!....) Cindy uncovered a map of the world on the bulletin board and I tried pointing to each continent to see if they could remember any more (Arizona! London!). Cindy said she was going to teach them a song later about the continents, but I'd already planned to share one and asked if she minded if I sang them my version.She said okay and I asked the kids to sing/repeat after me as I pointed to each continent. To the tune of Frere Jacques, "Europe, Asia (repeat), Af-ri-ca (repeat), North and South America (repeat), Antarctica, Australia (repeat)".  We sang that twice, and then I pulled out a paper copy of the map we'd be printing (see top of post), and said I'd like them to color in each continent a different color following the colors on the map on the board while the individual groups were back with me printing. Cindy stepped in to run the map diagram portion of the lesson and I went back to set up/start printing.


Bailey reveals her print

 Each group came through very quickly and orderly. They helped each other put on smocks and print. I let the kids pull at least one stroke towards them across the screen, and then to ensure a complete print, I pulled a second stroke back. We lifted the screen and the kids pulled out their complete print. I wrote their name on the bottom, hung it up, and moved on to the next kid to print. They all followed directions beautifully! We had no big mess!!! I was most afraid of this, since we were in a regular classroom not the art room, and I didn't want any kids to mess up their clothes. One student ,who I believe is an ELL student, lit up when he printed and asked "I do it 100 times?!!" He really enjoyed printing, and I hope through the rest of our art activities he'll be a more engaged and confident learner. Another student, who seems very resistant to working in color for some reason, found printing very exciting and as he watched everyone in his group print kept saying "It's MAGIC!!!"

As I said before, I was not totally aware of what the rest of the class was doing as I worked with each group. At one point there was some boat drawing on the board. Generally, the students seemed focused on work in their sketchbooks. So Cindy will have to fill in here.

At the end of class after I had cleaned up all the screenprinting paraphernalia, I reviewed the vocabulary we had learned about screenprinting with the kids and we sang the continents song one more time. I explained that next time we'd be learning about rivers of the world and stitching on our fabric maps.

There's no way I could have done screenprinting in this way without another teacher in the classroom. Today I really felt like an ARTIST in residence more than a TEACHING Artist in residence because I was really working individually with the kids to go through the printing process. In a way I was a little carried away, because I probably could have changed my orientation in the room so to be more aware of the entire classroom. It's too bad we couldn't have gotten through our rivers of the world series of lessons prior to the trips that are coming up. I hope the kids don't get confused. On Wednesday we need to go through the science and social studies pretests before our North American River lesson starts. We should probably have some animals, plants, people, etc worksheets ready, as I'd like the students to add a detail like that to the map in marker before we start stitching.