Pre- and Post-test results

The vertical axis shows the number of possible correct points on each assessment. The horizontal axis shows how many students answered each quantity of correct points. Blue bars represent the scores on our pre-test, and as expected are in the low range of correct answers. Green Bars represent scores on our post-test, and show that on each test students improved. The least amount of improvement was on the art elements vocabulary, which may in part be from there being a greater number of possible answers to select from than the other tests, and that we focused on that particular vocabulary much earlier in the residency. The most remarkable improvement was in the science vocabulary (mostly the parts of the river).

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!

Cindy's Response

The lesson Marie had prepared focused in the Elements and Principles of Design, using an interactive website to enhance it. Marie's description of the sequence of events correlates exactly to my notes; I can add a few more details she left out. Marie accessed students prior knowledge at the beginning of the lesson as she explained the major 'theme' we would be exploring. She explained that she would be with the class until January, and had the students count the months from Sept. to Jan.; to give them a general idea of the length of time we would be working together.

She mentioned we would be studying 'rivers' and asked the children what they knew (accessing prior knowledge). The students mentioned that they had recently learned that there is a big river close to Philadelphia (the Delaware) and another smaller river that feeds into it (the Schuykill). They knew that Wm. Penn liked this location and decided to build a city there.

She then asked who lived in this area when Wm. Penn made this decision, and the students mentioned that 'the Lenape Indians' were there at the time.

She mentioned that not only would she be working on art lessons with them, but also on Literacy lessons, asking them if they could tell her what "literacy" means. The students answered "reading and writing".

She then explained that she would like to know what they already knew about the elements of art. She explained how they would fill in a word from the word bank on the test that fit each definition. As she slowly explained each word and definition, it became apparent that the words and definitions were above their level of understanding. We then put the pre-test on the overhead and went over each definition, explaining the definition in third grade terminology. She waited at the end of each definition to make sure each student had chosen a word that they felt might fit the best.

When this pre-assessment was complete, she handed out their journals and colored pencils. She projected the website on the board. The website demonstrated the technique of making lines with the words, "thick, thin, straight, curved, broken,wavy"and the students in turn drew in their journals a sample of each. Noticing that some were also labeling their lines, she suggested that all do the same, saying,"like we make diagrams in science".

The next section of the website illustrated the difference between 'organic' and 'geometric'. Marie followed the same procedure here, with the students listening and viewing first, then drawing a sample and labeling it.

The website provided 2 samples of artwork that contained these elements, and Marie pointed out elemnets and verbally quizzed them on what kind of line/shape the artist used. Since they had already done their own samples, they excelled at this and seemed quite fluent in identification of the taught elements. At this point, it was time for lunch dismissal.

Day 1!!! Art pre-test and Elements and Principles of Design

Cindy wrote notes too and we will be using this blog to aid in the debriefing process. As we had limited time after the first session, I decided to jot down my own view of what I did, when, why so that the memories would be fresh and ready for our postponed debriefing. On Fridays we will have more time for debriefing in person....

I came in, put my things down, and Cindy was mentioning her "behavior board". I had asked her about her classroom management for behavior/consequences the night before, and it seemed this morning was the first time since the beginning of the year she thought she might need it. So she pulled it out and explained the sticks-in-your-pocket system if students were misbehaving.

I introduced myself and and talked about how we'll be learning art and some other subjects at the same time together. I asked the kids "What other subjects do you learn in school?" (literacy, math, science, social studies, reading, etc. were answered). I also explained I'd see them twice a week until January and asked them to figure out how long that would be (4 months).

In order to learn what they already know I explained we'd be taking a pre-test. We don't have to already know any of the words. This is more of a "fun" test. Passed out the 2 sided art and fiber art pretest. read the vocabulary words in the word box together and asked them to fill in the boxes next to each definition, and guess if they don't know it. We quickly realized that many of the children were having serious difficulty reading the definitions. (The E&P defs were a bit too complicated/didn't use familiar vocab) Cindy quickly copied the test onto a transparency and set up the overhead projector. With the test shown on the board, we read the words again, and read each definition out loud, allowing time for answers to be written, rephrasing some of the definitions.

When test was complete, I said I had a "present" for the students, and they got excited. I pulled out the sketchbooks and said I was waiting for a table that looked "ready" to be the first recipients. I asked the students to write their name on the top front cover, and allowed them to choose crayon, marker, or colored pencil to do so. I readied the colored pencils I'd brought for distribution while Cindy set up the computer and digital projector.

I asked the students to open up to the first page of their sketchbook and select a pencil. I explained we'd be watching some animations of the "Elements and Principles of Design" and that they should watch each clip quietly. I explained that elements were what we use to make art and principles were how we used the elements, and that they might already know some of the words from art class.
We watched the "Line" clip on artist's toolbox twice. I pointed out a thick line and asked them to draw a thick line in their sketchbook. I said thick lines could be as thick as my finger or even as thick as my arm. Some students labeled their thick line, and so we suggested everybody label their lines as it would be like making a diagram in science class. Cindy wrote each vocab word on the board for their labels. We did the same process for "Thin", "Straight", "Curved" (and pointed out that many letters have curved line- a, c, j the students answered), and "Wavy" (I had the kids do a "Wave" like in a baseball stadium before they drew their line). As kids drew I held up some of their examples and described them "Amadea has a SHORT, THICK, BLUE line", "Emily has a LONG, THIN, RED line"
We watched the "Shape" clip and learned the difference between geometric and organic shapes. I asked the students what geometric shapes they knew (circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, octagons they answered). I said geometric shapes usually  had straight lines and edges, except for the circle. I asked the students to draw some geometric shapes on their pages, and if they only drew a circle to include some straight edge shapes too. We looked at the organic shapes and said organic means natural or from nature, like clouds, leaves, trees, animals, or our bodies, and that organic shapes often have curved and wavy lines, not all sharp and straight lines.
At the end I asked the students to return the colored pencils and stack up their sketchbooks. Lunchtime preparation business took over and I said goodbye as the kids left.

I'm pleased with the attention of the group and with how easily Cindy and I fall into a rhythm with each other. I need to ignore the "12:00" as the endtime and think more "11:50" as the end of class. I had hoped to get through a few more clips, but Line and shape were my big ones to accomplish today. The pre-test was too difficult and took longer than expected. There's a big difference between 3rd graders in September and third graders in May!