Plants of the Delaware and River words brainstorm

On Friday, I hung up the collaborative Delaware River map for the kids to copy into their sketchbooks while a few of the students finished up their leaf embroideries. Cindy helped the embroiderers while I got set up for our lesson. We brought in the laptop and projector in order to take a look at a satellite view of our watershed. The kids noticed that the satellite view was like a bird's-eye view. We located the Delaware and compared it to the fiber version to make sure we could find all our river parts (source, meander, tributary, mouth/delta).

looking at the satellite view-
the kids were excited to see the zoom in and out to see the world
and then their school close-up

 We pointed out the low land in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey where there are many farms and a lot of "green" on the satellite view. We brainstormed with the kids some of the plants and crops that grow in our area, based on the farms they've seen or visited, or fruits and vegetables they eat at home. They came up with strawberries, corn, tomatoes, blueberries, pumpkins, watermelons, and carrots. We even noted that Chester County, PA is famous for mushrooms! We saw lots of green in NJ, and I pointed out the gigantic forest of pine trees called the Pine Barrens. We looked at the mountains and talked about why there aren't many farms up in the mountains, because of colder temperatures and rough, rocky terrain, but there are lots of forests.

Emily cuts out her embroidered leaf

 Next we transitioned to cutting our leaves out to place on the collaborative Delaware River map. I asked the students to decide where they wanted to put their leaf, mark it on their drawing, and have a reason why they wanted it there. I showed the students my sample cut-out leaf, and Cindy noted it was an organic shape not a geometric shape.

Liz decides where her leaf should go on her map
 and Justin shares his leaf ready to pin up

 Cindy supervised the cutting-out while I stayed near the river model ready to pin the kids' leaves as they were finished.As students completed cutting out their leaf, they came up to me with their leaf and sketchbook to tell me where they wanted their leaf to go and why. Some chose spots in New Jersey because that's where they go in the summer. Some wanted their leaf up in the mountains with the forests. A few wanted to be in the suburbs because there are lots of trees where they live.

the giant river model before the leaves got pinned

When all the leaves went up, we moved on to brainstorming for our next project- a river poem to add to our map. Cindy helped keep us on track for what kind of words and language they'll need for writing their cinquain next week by prompting possibilities as I wrote the students' words up onto the board into a giant word splash. The children created their own version in their sketchbooks, taking notes, which finally, we had them go back and color/circle words they think they'll want to use.

Apology Poems and Embroidery!

On Wednesday we had an assembly, the Crabgrass Theater performed short poems for us using puppets. The children were very entertained and inspired! I had chosen the "Apology Poetry" activity purposely as a follow up to cash in on the inspiration of the assembly and to connect Marie's art for the day, leaf rubbings. The children did an incredible job on both the art and the poem. They really connected their feelings from the poem to what Marie had them doing, leaf rubbings. It was a perfect storm!

The leftover paper from the rubbings was so pretty, Marie suggested the kids somehow use it, so we put their final edited poem (only some spelling errors) onto the paper and hung it in the hall. The kids felt incredibly successful!
I had to give them a lesson on the format of the poem beforehand, at the beginning of the lesson. Marie and I had the kids brainstorm what people do to leaves, and had the kids pretend they were leaves being separated from the only home they ever knew, the tree. We all physically acted out this separation and it created profound empathy for the leaf. We acted out how we love the sound of a cruching leaf, and pretended to jump into a big pile of crunchy leaves. This role-playing made the poems even more touching and heartfelt!

Friday, the kids worked on embroidering their leaves. It was the perfect way to end the busy week. They needed some downtime, Marie and I floated around the room helping with threading and knotting, and the leaves came out beautifully!

Leaf stitching

On Friday the students had a chance to embroider their leaf rubbings to make one of them stand out through bright color and to add detail. I introduced a new stitch to them- satin stitch to make thick lines. Cindy and I helped the students with threading needles, tying knots, and problem-solving.

 For the most part it was a quiet and productive way to end the week.

 I believe the metaphor of stitching in this project is that embroidering is a way of adding detail to an image just like we add detail to a main idea. The stitches and colors are like the variety of vocabulary one uses to make a written piece more interesting. I think we need to make that connection more explicit.

 Craftsmanship is surprisingly high among these students in their stitching. I see mostly careful, even stitches. Only 2 students needed help couching down giant floats on the surface, whereas last year at least a 3rd of each class had trouble with the concept of even size and even space stitching. It makes me wonder how their measuring and ruler skills or their estimating skills are in Math.

 This surprises me to an extent, as their handwriting is not as careful, and I've seen them rush through other activities. Hopefully this process helps develop fine motor skills and attention span that could be transferred to other domains.

Another curious aspect of the students' work process is that so many of them feel compelled to stand up while they stitch. I don't mind if they stand, except then sometimes they start to wander and clump into social groups. I think perhaps when they sit they don't feel like they have full extension of their arm for pulling the thread through the fabric.

Apology Poems

Cindy had the children complete their "Apology to a Leaf" poems and copy them onto the iron transfers of their leaf rubbings and then mounted and hung them in the hallway!

 Some of them show off the students' new thesaurus skills for learning new vocabulary and making writing more interesting. Take a look:

 Alex: "To My Poor Leaf"- I confess for ripping you in half then breaking your spine. I was wrong because I was bored sitting on the ground at my soccer game. I'm sorry and I tried to put you back together with bandaids.

 Hailey: "Sorry to my leaf"- I am penitent for plunging into a pile of you and ripping you apart. I'm so apologetic, please forgive me. I was bored on a fall day and I saw a leaf. I picked it up and crunched you. I saw a pile of leaves and jumped in them.

 Laia: "To my leaf"- I ripped the leaf into pieces. I was wrong to rip you in pieces. I ripped you because I wanted to make an Art Project. I apologize.

 Daniella: "Sorry Leaf"- Please forgive me for pulling you off the tree. I just could not help myself. You were so pretty.

Emily: "Fall Leaves"- I am sorry I stepped on you and ripped and crunched you in my hand. I apologize. I stepped on you. I was wrong. I crunched you because it was a neat sound.

Plant life in the Delaware watershed

Today was amazing! We had a storm and a windy morning that transformed the world into a carpet of leaves, a perfect morning for our lesson on plant life in the Delaware watershed. Before coming to Comly this morning I took a stroll and selected a variety of leaves to bring in with me to share. We started class talking about the storm and the wind and asked the kids if they had noticed anything different this morning. We looked at the globe to see where we were and why we have season changes. I told them about my leaf collecting and said obviously if I picked them up this morning they must all be plants that grow near the Delaware River! With the kids in pairs we handed out a leaf to each pair and asked them if they could identify it by comparing it to drawings of labeled leaves on the overhead projector. Most of them were quite successful, and it gave us a chance to talk about some of our art elements like line and shape as well as have some compare and contrast practice.


the collaborative background cut and pinned

I had brought in the background for our collaborative piece, which is starting off as a large river model of the Delaware in felt fabric. The kids identified the source and mouth and tributary as well as the names of the states the river passes through. The model at the moment just shows land and water, and the kids correctly guessed that we needed some plants next!

I brought in green fabric and fabric pastels to do leaf rubbings for some color and texture. Cindy had lots of texture plates for the kids to use for this project. This makes our 3rd printing technique (silkscreen, stamping, and now rubbings). I showed an example and asked the class how they thought I'd gotten the leaf images on there- it was interesting to hear some of the responses (paint the leaf and press it on! Trace it! Silkscreen it!). When they were ready each table come back to select their leaves and colors. Each student printed 2 leaves using 2 colors. As they finished I quickly ironed the oils out to heatset. Ironing between paper meant there was also a resulting transfer print of the image to the paper.
While I worked with each table to do leaf rubbings Cindy had the students work on a poetry and then a reading piece on the same theme of Fall leaves. Their poetry style was to write an "apology poem" much like William Carlos Williams' poem "This is Just to Say":

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

She gave them some different ways to say "I apologize", and shared 3 elements of an apology poem, including the apology, an explanation of what happened, and a reason why. The children imagined an apology to a fallen leaf, and I'm so happy that they all had a dry fallen leaf in front of them while they did this- the result of a morning impulse inspired by a windy autumn day. I suggested to Cindy that she might want to use the iron transfer papers with their poems somehow for their final copy.

Visit My River brochures

Cindy and the kids finished up the "Visit my River" brochures and placed them on display in the hallway along with the river models. They turned out great!

Persuasive Writing/River Model Brochure

Cindy's account below of Friday is thorough. Here are some more pictures of what happened on the art side. I started off by showing the students an exemplar I'd made. I explained that for a brochure, we want it to be eyecatching as well as interesting to read. You can persuade people with words, but you can also persuade them with colors and images. I told them about each of the steps for the project and that they'd start once their final draft was ready. The students have practice with a "centers" activity format in the classroom with individual groups doing separate activities, which equipped them well with the more organic flow of work that occurred on Friday. When I arrived, most of the students had reached final draft stage of the persuasive writing for their brochures. In the back of the room I set up a station for the distribution of watercolor sets and paper for creating a colored background on 2 sides of a page for the brochure. As students were ready they came back to me, I demoed the instructions very quickly and told them what to do when they were finished. When the painting stage was complete I had students clean up the watercolor sets and set aside their page to dry while they created a drawing for the interior of the brochure. I asked students to read what they wrote and if/when a mental image came to mind in response to what they had written to create an illustration drawing from that mental image.

Bailey draws an illustration for her brochure

When their drawing was complete and their page dry, students came back to the stamping station to create a border for the interior and exterior of their brochure. In the original description to the whole class we mentioned that "border" and "frame" mean similar things. I asked them whether their river showed a rural, suburban, or urban community and whether they could find stamps that would relate to their model and writing.

Students work on stamping their borders- they loved this part!

 When stamping was complete, I had them fold the page in half, glue a picture of their river model to the front cover, and create a bold colorful title. Then they were to bring their draft to Cindy for a final edit before copying their text to the lined page with their drawing. A few students reached the very last step, which was to cut out the text and drawing to glue into the interior of the brochure.



Daniella shows off her front cover: "Visit the Swan River!"

The classroom was a hive of focused activity. It's a bit hard to wrap my head around managing 24 kids at staggered points in a process, but it worked. There was no down-time or boredom happening. And the staggered aspect meant I actually had a lot of one-on-one interactions with the students.

We'll be heading back into fiber arts next week as we begin elements of our big collaborative piece and focus more specifically on the Delaware River.