End of the Year Thoughts

Today was the last day of school. I'm so glad that it is over now. I spent the day party hopping, with visiting the 2nd grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade classes as they celebrated this special day. I enjoyed bagels, cupcakes, and juice while signing yearbooks and saying goodbye. Especially to the 6th graders, who are leaving for the middle school. The promotion ceremony this morning brought tears to everyone's eyes, especially when the little boy with Down's Syndrome was given over $1,000 in donations for the companion dog his family is wanting to purchase for him. There are such generous families here who are absolutely amazing!

This year has had its ups and downs for me. The ups were full of watching extraordinary teachers do their thing and watching kids learn and accomplish amazing tasks. One 6th grade class that I spend time in has increased their math scores significantly and every one of them can write a 5-paragraph essay.  That class of kids will be so ready for their 7th grade year and it is unfortunate that their teacher will be moving on to another school next year. I hope she knows how much she'll be missed and how much our kids benefited with her there.

The downs were watching some mediocre teaching going on which failed to motivate and inspire kids to learn. I worry about those kids next year and hope that they will be able to make up for lost skills.  I also witnessed staff who just didn't seem to care, who seemed depressed, and who weren't supportive of students. That really disappointed me this year. The worst thing to happen during this last month of school was to hear about the budget cuts that had to be made due to the financial crisis. Classes are being combined, which meant teachers had to change grades (some against their wishes), and now class sizes will be larger. Some  Instructional Assistants were not rehired for next year so will have to find other positions.

My position next year will change as a result of a couple of issues: the budget crunch has less available for IA's and one of my son's will be in the 5th and 6th grade resource room. Because of the budget issue, I have only been offered a position in the afternoons instead of mornings, still part time. Because of my son's grade, I'll have to move down to the lower grades to work. I'm not sure how I feel about these changes and have told my boss that I'll be thinking about it and will get back to her.

So summer vacation has now begun! The plans this summer include a lot of camping, visiting with friends, swimming at the pool, and hiking the trails. I look forward to next weekend, when I'll get to have a "Sister's Only" visit where we'll do things that we don't get to do with our families in tow. Another highlight of my summer will be when my parents come to visit and camp with us. It'll be a great summer and I know it will be far too short!

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Neat

Just Another Day

Today the 6th grade class went to music as their "special" class. Since they just had a performance last week, they are beginning a new grading period. This next project is to arrange or compose a piece of music using Garage Band. Now I've seen people using the program and have heard finished songs, but this is the first time I've actually used it myself. I spent the morning helping my two special needs kids find tracks that they like and combine them into the beginning of a song. My boy with Downs Syndrome likes upbeat Latin tracks and lots of drum beats.  My girl likes soft rhythms and soothing guitar sounds. I can't wait to continue helping them with their projects next week. This is a great project for all the kids. They were all so occupied during the whole class period.

In math today the 5th graders had a special team from the school district come in to teach a lesson. They do this about once a grading period and it is always a great day. They had the kids engaged in probability and outcome problems. I always enjoy it when these two come in to teach because they always get the kids excited about learning math. They do different activities and games, use examples from real life, allow for group interaction, and do no book work. It is a nice change from the normal math day and makes me miss being in charge of the classroom since I used to love to do lessons like this.

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Neat

New Year's Motto and Expressionism

"Chance favors only the prepared mind."

Louis Pasteur, French scientist and inventor of the process of pasteurization, can be credited with the above quote, but I'm going to adopt it for my motto for the New Year.

We've started the unit on Expressionism in Art class and since I know nothing of it, I'm going to prepare myself so that I can have an intelligent conversation with the Art teacher (or anyone else who comes up with the subject in the future). What our teacher reminded us today was that Impressionism is the painting of light, Cubism is the painting of what you know, and Surrealism is the painting of what you imagine (previous post here). Expressionism is art created in order to make a statement or to evoke emotions that developed during the early 1900's (during the time of World War 1). 

Mr. J gave many examples, such as the German Expressionist painting on the top right, "The Scream" by Edvard Munsch, which started the movement. The painting was done to reflect the horrors of war. Other types of Expressionism include Abstract, Fauvism, Dadaism, Minimalism, and Gestalt (shapes, geometric). 

Of all the kinds of Expressionism, I think that Abstract Expressionism is the most interpretive. Each different person can see a different image and feel something different as well. It is also the kind of Expressionism that a chimpanzee paints (previous post here). One famous Abstract Expressionist painter is Jackson Pollock, who painted this piece on the left called "No. 5."  To me, it looks like it was painted by dripping and drizzling paints over a canvas.  Guess what? It was! Is that talent or what?

Another form of Expressionism that I found interesting is the form of Minimalism. Maybe it is the simplicity of paintings that aren't all "cluttered up" with chaos. If you know me, you know I don't do too well with chaos, whether it be crowded places, loud parties, or Los Angeles traffic. Visual chaos is too much as well. The minimalist painter tends to paint the solid black squares on a canvass or a vertical stripe from the top of a canvas to the bottom and will call it art.  But there are good pieces out there like the one here on the above right, "Composition No. 10," by Piet Mondrian.

So now I go prepared and am confident that I can carry on a conversation about Expressionistic art.  For at least two minutes, anyway.

One other thing, I've gotten a reading assignment from the 6th grade teacher. Next week, she'll introduce the novel, "Tangerine" by Edward Bloor to her 6th grade Language Arts class. Since "chance favors only the prepared mind," I've got to read it this weekend so that I can work with the students in the weeks to come on their question and vocabulary packets. It looks pretty good. 

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Neat

Surrealism

I've learned a lot from the art teacher at the elementary school that I work for (Previous Post). Recently, I've learned that impressionists paint light and that cubists paint what they know. Now, he is teaching us (the 6th grade class and me) that surrealists paint what they imagine.  The prefix, "sur", means to be above, so surrealism is "above reality".  

He began the lesson by saying that we experience life through the senses. Reality is what we experience through sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. But how do you know that something is absolutely for certain real? How do you know you aren't dreaming? Senses can be deceived. If you close one eye and point your finger at an object across the room, and then open your eye, the object moves. Sight has deceived you.  It is not "real".

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."  I exist because I can do the thinking and ask the questions.  I exist because I can use my energy to create something, like art.  And Freud's work with dream analysis and the hidden unconscious led surrealist artists to revolutionize the art of the time by painting from their imaginations instead of just what they saw or knew.

So what if you rose above reality and created art through your imagination or dreams? You'd have shapes shifting from something that is real into another form that is surreal.

One great surrealist painter is Salvador Dali, who painted this well-known piece of art called "The Persistence of Memory." Of course, I didn't know what the title of the painting was, nor who painted it until my art teacher taught me, but I did know of the painting.

One of our art teacher's favorite sayings is, "Talking about art is like dancing about architecture." He told us that he had talked long enough and now it was time for everyone to "DO IT."  Create our own surrealist art.  And not just "produce" art because any animal can produce art (such as Bill the Chimp, RIP).  But humans can "create" art and when we use our imaginations, pretty awesome works occur.

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Neat

Cubism in Art

As I mentioned in this Previous Post, part of my job at the elementary school involves working with two special needs 6th grade students while they attend their "specials" classes.  I enjoy attending all three:  Music, PE, and Art, but have learned the most from the Art class.  That's probably because I play clarinet, can sing, and can read music so what we do in Music class isn't all that new for me. And in PE I get to be a cheerleader for the kids while watching my special ones have a lot of fun, which doesn't require any amount of technical knowledge.  But Art is one of those subjects that I always kind of viewed as someone who appreciates the work but who never really got into it much.  I can say, "Hey, I like that painting." or "Well, that's one that looks like a chimpanzee painted it."  (Believe me, I know about chimp art:  there was an old chimp named Bill that painted lovely works of art that were sold by the northern California zoo he lived in--$60 bucks a pop!--see photo on above right).  

At the beginning of the school year the 6th graders learned about Impressionism and were taught how to make their own Impressionistic art by using their fingertips dipped in paint and dabbing them on paper, making "dots" that when viewed from a distance looked like a wonderful Impressionist painting.  This one here on the left was painted by the master himself, Claude Monet, and is called "Soleil Levant", or "Sunrise".

The next theme in Art has been Cubism, which I never had heard of until now but have seen works by artists known to the genre such as Picasso and Braque.  In this unit, our Art teacher has taught us that Cubism involves angles and lines to define an abstract scene and that the color scheme is "monochromatic" or in one color.  For example, this painting by Picasso is in shades of brown.  It is titled, "Le Guitariste" which I can probably safely assume has something to do with a guitarist.

Now the kids aren't painting sophisticated works such as guitarists, but I've been watching some great paintings of turtles, fish, and bowls of fruit develop.  Since my two students weren't able to draw their own cubic art, their art teacher asked me to help.  So I asked each one what they'd like to paint.  My girl wanted a bunny and my boy wanted a gorilla.  I think I drew pretty good cubic representations of those two animals and we're in process of painting them now.  I've never seen such a pretty red gorilla, or a perfect green bunny before!

I can't wait until Friday to see how they all finish up!  

I now leave you with one last cubist painting by Braque:  "Woman With a Guitar"  I believe that this may have been a "copycat" on Picasso's theme since Picasso painted his guitarist in 1910 and Braque painted his in 1913 in roughly the same color scheme.  What do you think?

(credit for master's works goes to Wikipedia--I love Wikipedia!)

A Bit About 6th Graders

One thing I really enjoy about my job working as an instructional assistant in the 5th and 6th grades is the kids' humor.  I laugh and have a good time each day because the kids are so great.  Today two fun things happened.  

The first was in PE.  For the first part of my day (45 minutes) I get to follow two 6th grade special education kids that need a little extra help.  One has Down's Syndrome and the other is Mentally Retarded.  These first 45 minutes are when they go to "Specials" like Music, Computers,  Art, PE, and Library.  Thursday is PE day and always a lot of fun.  Not only do I get to work with my special kids, but I get to watch the other members of the class be accepting, gentle, and kind to the two with special needs.  Anyway, today was Physical Fitness Test day where the kids had to run between two lines back and forth to a set time that got faster and faster every set of 10 lengths.  The PE teacher asked me to help our two special kids by running with them.  So here I am, in between my kiddos sprinting along the lengths to each side, being silly and goofy, while laughing  and hollering, "Let's go....faster!" and such as we went.  I sure got my exercise with them!

Then in 6th grade Language Arts I get to wander around the whole class while keeping alert to two kids with learning disabilities who might need extra help.  Today they were doing something called "Teen Biz" which is a reading comprehension program where kids go onto a website, read emails, read articles and respond to questions, and can email responses back.  One other part of the website is the ability to email classmates just for fun and their teacher encourages this activity for when they're done with their article.  So today the kids were emailing riddles back and forth to each other.  Here are a few:

  How many 3-cent stamps are in a dozen?

You throw away the outside and eat the inside, and eat the outside and throw away the inside.  What is it?

What is green when you buy it, red when you eat it, and black when you throw it away?

I know the answer to the first two but still haven't gotten the third one.  So let me know when you do!