Earning Gumballs: Rewarding Students for Good Choices

This is the second year that I have used the gumball rewards.  I don't start the year with this reward system because students are expected to demonstrate positive behavior without rewards.  Praise is really enough at the beginning of the year. But by mid year a little extra encouragement to make the right choices is enjoyed by the students as well as myself.  I wait until after the November art show rush and the December 3D art craziness. Beginning in January is ideal.  We start off the new year by focusing on the best behavior for the art room and making good choices.  All but kindergarten are familiar with how the gumball machines work but I review the reward plan with all of the classes.  I explain it like it is a game.  They earn points when they behave how they should and I earn points when they don't.  If they have more points than the teacher by the end of class they get a "gumball" in their machine.  After they earn 10 gumballs they will be allowed to make the art project of their choice during their next art class. I show them how this works.  I put a C and a T on the white board and explain that sometimes I will give the class a point under the C when they are making good choices.  If they are not behaving as they should the Teacher gets a tally mark under the T.  I tell them that this is one game that I want to lose and I want them to win.  If they listened quietly during all of these directions I will give them their first tally mark and tell them it's for showing good listening skills. 
Other positive behaviors that I look for are:
*Coming into the class room quietly
*A student answers a question correctly
*Many hands are raised to answer a question
*Most students are on task
*Clean up was done right away when asked (some students want to keep on working)
*A student was observed helping another classmate.
 I often stress behavior that may need work on.  For my first grade students I have already praised them for planning their bathroom breaks before art class.  "I love how only 2 students needed to go to the bathroom in class today.  I think you all deserve a tally mark." It gives students pride when they have helped the class by earning points "The red table did a great job of picking up all of the scrap papers and crayons from under their table.  Sophia will you please go give the class a tally mark?"  "If the rest of the tables can get their areas just as clean within the next 2 minutes you can earn another tally mark." 

Some the reasons I give myself points:
*Class noise level is too high
*Not all students are on task
*I had to wait for the class to get quiet during directions
*Students call out during directions instead of raising their hand
If the same student keeps losing points for the class I will talk to them personally about lowering their daily grade for whatever rule they are breaking.

All students from k-6 have been really receptive to this positive behavior reward.  After a couple classes of using the tally marks the class brainstorms what one class period art project that they would all like to earn.  I write the project on the white board while the raise their hand to contribute to the brainstorm.  They often mention clay but they would need at least 2 classes for that.  I have left some grades select cloud clay (or model magic)as their project.  I've already made up some teacher examples of projects and some classes have been interested in adding those projects on their brainstorm list.  After 6 or so ideas the class votes on what they would like to earn after 10 gumballs.  That project is then written beside their gumball.  Mainly so that I can remember what they voted on but it's nice for them to have a reminder of their prize for making good choices.  Most all of my classes will earn a free choice art project.  I try hard to catch them making good choices.

People and Their Art: Molas from the Kuna Indians of San Blas Island

     My students in 4th grade enjoyed making these Mola's inspired by the Kuna Indians.  To prepare them for this project I showed them a DVD by Peggy Flores on creating art inspired by the San Blas Island, Kuna Indians.  It helped them see the steps that would be involved in making the paper molas.  Fortunately I have an example of a fabric mola made by the Kuna Indians and we discussed how it would compare to the familiar craft of applique quilting.  The process is basically back wards from adding fabric to the top of the background piece.  After planning what animal would be the focus of their project they drew their animal onto the background paper.  They used their scissors to poke through the center and cut their animal out.  I stressed that the negative space around the animal was the part of the paper that we were keeping so they were to take care with that part of their design.  They chose from bright construction paper and glued on to the back of the top piece.  This new color filled the animal space.  They then drew a line within their animal leaving some of the color for their design.  This process continued until the came to a part where they could use an exacto knife to add more interesting details to their animal.  The scraps that were left from the cutting were used to make a design on the background of thier artwork.  

     The students really enjoyed this project and the results were great.  I've done this project ever since I started at the elementary level.  Since showing the DVD from Flores I have abtained a larger number of excellent end products.  It helps those visual learners to see where we are going with the project.  Also in the pasts I only used scissors but recently allowed the use of exacto knives.This has really helped with the finer details.  I demonstrate how to use the knives with a cutting mat underneath and stress safety.   

     I'm looking forward to displaying all these Mola's at the November 25th art show.



People and Their Art: Aborigine Art

This year's Annual Art Show will showcase "People and Their Art".  Different grades will focus on different cultures.  My 5th grade Students are looking at Australian's native people and their art.  We looked at posters of Aborigine art and watched a DVD by Peggy Flores on creating art inspired by the Aborigine's.







Student's enjoyed learning about the Aborigine's exray style art and began to plan what Australian animal they would create in this style.  After they drew a preliminary drawing they drew on colored construction paper.  Next they drew the "exray" of their animal and divided their background.  The fun part was coloring the spaces in with colored pencils and then adding marker patterns over top.  Most all students agree that the end products are very impressive.  Students are looking forward to their second Aborigine inspired artwork.  We will watch the second half of Flores DVD and then plan for our dot style dream painting.

Word Wall Teaching Tool

My Art Word Wall is one of my favorite teaching tools.  I use it to display the key words and or Artist's name relating to my art lessons.  I have one for each grade, Kindergarten through sixth grade.  When a grade level is finished with a lesson I hang the new lesson's vocabulary words.  When I first hung my word wall I just put the words but the photos with them makes them more useful and appealing especially for younger grades. This is an old photo so there are some without pictures. 
















When I am reviewing a lesson with classes students often look to the word wall to see if they can find the answers to the questions that I ask.  The pictures and words help reinforce some the elements of the lesson that I want the students to remember. 

Gustav Klimt Inspired Trees by second grade

My second grade classes enjoyed making their own Tree of Life.  To get started we looked at Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life then discussed what patterns and shapes that the students could see in Klimt's art. We first made a small tree with curling branches on an ATC (artist trading card, 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch miniture artwork)  I showed them how to start out with the trunk and work up adding branches on either side with several curled branches on the main branch.  They were then ready for thier large artwork.  They choose from a variety of bright papers.  After they drew their tree to their satasfaction they outlined it in crayola construction paper crayons.  They filled the inside of their tree with shapes and patterns.  Some shapes they borrowed from Klimt and some they created on their own.  After the tree was filled with shape and color they were ready to outline their tree in glitter.  Students were excited to take this finished project home.  Although Klimt doesn't use glitter in his tree I'm sure he would aprove.