We are so ready for spring, and excited to be making decorations for the Music Festival. This month in art class we are transforming sacks into farm animals. This brown bag magic began with the nursery rhyme mouse who ran up the clock, and the cat who said "Fiddle-I-fee."
The preliminary part of the project required each student to be gentle opening a paper sack, but rough crumpling newspapers to fill the paper sack. Being able to alternate back and forth, behaving appropriately in different situations is a life skill. We can't hold a new baby the same way we kick a ball. We don't cheer and stomp at the symphony the way we do at basketball games. Kneading and forming a lump of clay into a ball is rougher than forming that clay into a delicate teacup.
We walk in the classroom.
We run on the playground.
"Origami brain" is a perfect name for what I hope my little students will gain from art class. If they don't, I just hope my own brain comes away with a fortune teller or good luck crane.
- Able to move from two dimensions to three.
- Able to fold and crease.
- Able to visualize the process of folding and cutting a shape, as we all finally learn to cut Valentine hearts and snowflakes.
- Willing to try several arrangements of shapes, and then decide on a composition.
- Gain openness to ambivalence. In art class the right answer does not always exist. Follow directions and routines, but think for yourself, be creative, solve problems.
- Able to control impulses, keep fingers out of the paint, let colors exist side-by-side unmuddied, and respect the space and creations of others.
"Fiddle-I-fee" is a traditional cumulative song. Cumulative picture books help children develop memory and predictive skills.
© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder
1 comment:
Glad to see origami brain as a good influence on the youth of today!
Hoping for spring here, too, but, instead, it snowed.
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