As an interest based learning teacher, I usually start out with something most children have some experience and interest in until I get to know them better. Color is something they always enjoy exploring! I set out paint at the easel and asked, what can you wonder and discover about color here? As they explore, I constantly model for them the growth mindset, language and vocabulary often used in an inquiry based classroom: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? What do you notice? What did you discover? Did you learn something new? Did this change your thinking? These are questions I want them to ask themselves as they explore new things this year! I set up experiences for them to explore colors. They quickly on their own started focusing mostly on different shades of colors. Here are some pictures showing the invitations to explore and the children exploring and discovering things about color. They were also noticing shades of colors of objects in our room! When they discovered them, they would share what they noticed with the class. They noticed we could mix colors to make different shades of colors and that adding white made lighter shades and black or darker colors mixed in made darker shades. I wondered out loud if it was possible to create 100 different shades of colors? We looked at a book called Pantone Coors that you see in many of these pictures that showed there were lots of shades! The kids took it as a challenge and a project was born! We wanted to see if we could create 100 different shades! We did one color each day. We did it! Not only did we make 100 different shades, we made 120 different shades of colors! They were so excited to beat their goal and create that many colors! They also discovered that black was black but we could make different whites! I told them that I wanted to display their colors to show people what what they learned. We debated how to display them. Group them by colors separately? Group them by light or dark? Like a rainbow? I thought they would prefer that one but they surprised me. They agreed on a circle with all of the color together. I couldn’t fit the browns and grays/white/black in so those were separate. The kids helped label and write out some of the things we did and noticed for our display to document our learning. Here is the finished display! This was a fun way to get started with how we will learn in our classroom! As they learn more about letters/sounds and writing they will be recording their own observations of what they see, think, wonder and discover! As the year goes on, you will notice them using their writing and reading skills more and more in natural, authentic ways! This is one of our big goals! Now that we have finished, I have started to notice some common interests to start our next inquiry and take all of our learning further! Stay tuned! Here are some other things that have been going on in our classroom! Learning to identify letters and sounds. We start the year learning one letter a day through our Journeys curriculum and how to write the capital letter properly using our Handwriting without tears curriculum. Here are some of the experiences set out for them during this time. The kids have learned how to partner read with letter books contains predictable text. They are learning letters, letter sounds, and the first three reading strategies: 1) Use your pointer finger to touch each word. 2) Look at the picture. It is a clue to figure out harder words. 3) Look at the first letter and say it’s sound when trying to figure out a word you don’t know. They are also learning to help each other and encourage each other as they read together. Here they try to create the letter by putting the lines down in the order they should make them when writing. Here, if they can name the letter and/sound, they are allowed to use it to build a castle. Of course they can ask friends for help if they don’t know it! More ways to practice proper formation of letters and develop fine motor skills to help with writing. Pebble crayons to encourage their pincher grip, texture to feel themselves making the letter on both the the grid and the chalkboard (both provide resistance. A whiteboard does not so does not work as well. We learned about Mat Man to help us with drawing people. We draw his parts and then add details to turn him into somebody. We keep writing at a minimum for now so that we don’t continue the bad writing habits they have developed. We focus on creating stories through pictures and telling oral stories. We read these books to help us. It helped us realize if we don’t know how to draw something, we can draw it “ish!” Dog-ish, violin-ish, etc. it gives them the freedom to try and helps those perfectionists not throw away every drawing they don't feel is perfect. We also read Beautiful Oops and Oomph! These taught us to work through mistakes and to add the destabilization a picture needs to tell a story in itself! These books really helped them learn to tell stories through pictures. Good Dog Carl is a good example of a story told through pictures. A lot of literacy learning has been happening and it’s only just beginning!
Ever wondered what the difference is between these student-centred methods of inquiry learning? Read on to find out what makes them different.
Plaster Masks – Grade 6 research task on a famous artist Grade 6 students were given the difficult task of choosing any artist they wanted, studying their style, content and history and using…
Welcome to the world of arts and expression with this is 4-6 week transdisciplinary unit study with the theme of How We Express Ourselves. Using the idea of how the arts influence and affect our emotions, response and actions, we inquire into the central idea through an integrated curriculum of interactive, inquiry-based activities and learning experiences. With over 160 pages of hands on activities and lessons, this is a complete unit of inquiry, aligned with the IB PYP and aimed for 3rd to 5th grades. UK & USA spelling included. The lessons are suggestions as to how you could use the materials and resources created. There are three resources within this one complete unit, all within a zip file. You'll find the unit of inquiry, a reader's theatre drama script activity and a separate maths presentation with printable activities too. Central idea:Arts have the power to influence thinking and behaviour. Lines of inquiry: •How people respond to artistic form. • Different forms of art affect others •Different creative and artistic techniques Learning includes: •Reading skills and strategies: close reading, inferring, summarising •ATL Skills: Drama Reader’s Theatre with props •Poetry: text analysis, response and writing poems. •Writing: Descriptive writing skills and poetry •Maths: Geometry: lines, 2D shape, tessellation. •Visual arts and crafts, photography and much more •ATL Skills: •Research skills •Collaborative group work •Thinking Skills: critical thinking and problem solving, art analysis •Drama: interactive readers’ theatre script to create your own props/music •Summative assessment If you enjoy this unit, you will also love my other complete units of inquiry. Stop by and browse around my store. Ancient Civilisations-Inventors Extraordinaire Money: An Inquiry Revolutions Across Time Exploring Explorers Rocks & Minerals An Inquiry The Earth's Structure & Landforms You can also keep in touch via my blog PYPteachingtools.com Find me @pypteaching Enjoy! Susan Powers PYPteachingtools.com
This is a brief overview of our Grade 6 unit of inquiry.
The Art Inquiry Cycle was something I created for my classroom because I wanted my students to see a visual of the creative cycle. I wanted them to see how we as artists and IB students work through the inquiry cycle or creative process. "Reflect" is in the middle to show that through each stage of...
Click on image to enlarge...lean back...imagine the art on YOUR wall* *Low Resolution Images are used online. Colors may vary according to your monitor settings. Title: "The Tube Train" Artist: Cyril Power Fine Giclée Print This print delivers a vivid image with maximum color accuracy and exceptional resolution. The standard for museums and galleries around the world. (Please be aware that some older images are naturally not of the same sharpness as one would expect from a modern image.) Paper Size: 11"x17" Untrimmed Archival Quality Suitable for Framing If you have special area of interest or subject matter that you do not see listed, please send an inquiry. I am pleased to search my inventory for you.
Inquiry learning emphasizes exploration and the process of discovery. Research focuses on the establishment of facts and making conclusions.
Group shot with seven folios and map of the universe portfolio closed as a cover and container for the seven folios Group shot with seven folios and map portfolio open; shows legend at bottom Three open folios: Time, Light and Science with transparencies lifted to show layering Two open folios: Time and Gravity with transparencies … Continue reading Casey Gardner, “Matter, Antimatter, and So Forth” →
What if you were able to teach all of your subject areas, and all you needed to do was pre-make ONE, maybe two slides?
In the context of art education, Surrealist games can be a useful tool to disinhibit students and unlock their creativity.More so, they are a valuable component of any open-ended art exploration and a wonderful addition to project-based curriculums.
"The bridge will only take you halfway there, to those mysterious lands you long to see. Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fair, and moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share the twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only
In our Driving Questions for Arts-Based Inquiry series, we’ve been developing frameworks for inquiry based learning and project based learning.
As an interest based learning teacher, I usually start out with something most children have some experience and interest in until I get to know them better. Color is something they always enjoy exploring! I set out paint at the easel and asked, what can you wonder and discover about color here? As they explore, I constantly model for them the growth mindset, language and vocabulary often used in an inquiry based classroom: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? What do you notice? What did you discover? Did you learn something new? Did this change your thinking? These are questions I want them to ask themselves as they explore new things this year! I set up experiences for them to explore colors. They quickly on their own started focusing mostly on different shades of colors. Here are some pictures showing the invitations to explore and the children exploring and discovering things about color. They were also noticing shades of colors of objects in our room! When they discovered them, they would share what they noticed with the class. They noticed we could mix colors to make different shades of colors and that adding white made lighter shades and black or darker colors mixed in made darker shades. I wondered out loud if it was possible to create 100 different shades of colors? We looked at a book called Pantone Coors that you see in many of these pictures that showed there were lots of shades! The kids took it as a challenge and a project was born! We wanted to see if we could create 100 different shades! We did one color each day. We did it! Not only did we make 100 different shades, we made 120 different shades of colors! They were so excited to beat their goal and create that many colors! They also discovered that black was black but we could make different whites! I told them that I wanted to display their colors to show people what what they learned. We debated how to display them. Group them by colors separately? Group them by light or dark? Like a rainbow? I thought they would prefer that one but they surprised me. They agreed on a circle with all of the color together. I couldn’t fit the browns and grays/white/black in so those were separate. The kids helped label and write out some of the things we did and noticed for our display to document our learning. Here is the finished display! This was a fun way to get started with how we will learn in our classroom! As they learn more about letters/sounds and writing they will be recording their own observations of what they see, think, wonder and discover! As the year goes on, you will notice them using their writing and reading skills more and more in natural, authentic ways! This is one of our big goals! Now that we have finished, I have started to notice some common interests to start our next inquiry and take all of our learning further! Stay tuned! Here are some other things that have been going on in our classroom! Learning to identify letters and sounds. We start the year learning one letter a day through our Journeys curriculum and how to write the capital letter properly using our Handwriting without tears curriculum. Here are some of the experiences set out for them during this time. The kids have learned how to partner read with letter books contains predictable text. They are learning letters, letter sounds, and the first three reading strategies: 1) Use your pointer finger to touch each word. 2) Look at the picture. It is a clue to figure out harder words. 3) Look at the first letter and say it’s sound when trying to figure out a word you don’t know. They are also learning to help each other and encourage each other as they read together. Here they try to create the letter by putting the lines down in the order they should make them when writing. Here, if they can name the letter and/sound, they are allowed to use it to build a castle. Of course they can ask friends for help if they don’t know it! More ways to practice proper formation of letters and develop fine motor skills to help with writing. Pebble crayons to encourage their pincher grip, texture to feel themselves making the letter on both the the grid and the chalkboard (both provide resistance. A whiteboard does not so does not work as well. We learned about Mat Man to help us with drawing people. We draw his parts and then add details to turn him into somebody. We keep writing at a minimum for now so that we don’t continue the bad writing habits they have developed. We focus on creating stories through pictures and telling oral stories. We read these books to help us. It helped us realize if we don’t know how to draw something, we can draw it “ish!” Dog-ish, violin-ish, etc. it gives them the freedom to try and helps those perfectionists not throw away every drawing they don't feel is perfect. We also read Beautiful Oops and Oomph! These taught us to work through mistakes and to add the destabilization a picture needs to tell a story in itself! These books really helped them learn to tell stories through pictures. Good Dog Carl is a good example of a story told through pictures. A lot of literacy learning has been happening and it’s only just beginning!
Art Sprouts is the art teacher resource for fun art education resources, including lesson plans, children activities, art history essays, and project-based
“Internet socialization is far closer to a 19th century mode of intimacy than to a dystopian future of tragically disconnected robot prostitutes. There’s a Jane Austen-ish quality to online social …
Mixed media (Paint, thread, gesso, vintage papers, press-on type) on wood, 12 x 12 inches.
“The children experiencing the transformation of the caterpillars to butterflies was magical. I can’t help but relate this experience to the uniqueness of teaching kindergarten and bein…
Exploring famous artists for kids. There are famous artist inspired art projects for kids of all ages. Art ideas for toddlers, preschoolers upwards ar
Las emociones se revuelven en el convulso ambiente en el que nos vemos inmersos hasta el punto de que, a veces, no sabemos cómo equilibrar el mundo externo, con el interno.
The biggest question, when I'm planning an IB PYP unit of inquiry is, at what level is my class in terms of experience and initiative when it comes to inquiry? In other words, which level of student inquiry will I be planning around - structured...
This is a zipped folder that includes: Unit plan, written in the MYP unit format. It is in an editable Word document, so you can tweak as you'd like. Rubric for all strands of all four MYP Arts criterion, with task specific clarifications for each strand. Student checklist of assignments to keep them on track This plan is written in the MYP format, but is easily adaptable for any inquiry-based art classroom. This unit invites students to investigate into how street artists use public spaces to bring awareness to global issues. Students create their own piece of art, bringing awareness to a problem on campus or in the community.
Chicago-based illustrator Diana Sudyka paints folk-inspired works that feature her subjects in the great outdoors. Her elegant images are partially
The Creative Learning Loop teaches artistic thinking by fostering student inquiry and providing experience through clear criteria, peer feedback, and opportunities for revision.
This post is part 1 in my inquiry series. To learn more about inquiry click through to see my many other posts about inquiry. If you are new to my blog,
For the past two weeks we have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly in our kindergarten classroom. It all started when our delivery of caterpillars arrived. My students were immediately d
