Jr Field: Part Deux

So on to the rest of the semester...

Our next assignment was to do some printmaking. The question was, how to make it safe? We didn’t want to use sharp carving tools, especially with Jr High #2! My partner C found an assignment online where they used styrofoam (like the flat part of a meat tray from the grocery store) and carved into it with a pencil or orange stick. Perfect! This was one of my favorite assignments- the students understood it and really loved it. Some mess but not too bad.


After they carved their “block” (our group theme was Spring), they then used a brayer to ink up their styrofoam and stamp their paper. The students did very well and created some great stuff. It was a good assignment because it satisfied the students who love to draw and the students who like to be busy.

Next came my baby during the semester- the quilts. I taught the students about quilts and their construction. We also talked about art quilts and fiber arts in general and how art can be collaborative. Art can foster a sense of community. We had students draw their favorite Erie landmark on a white square of fabric using Crayola fabric markers. We had photos for reference if they got stuck. I assembled the squares into a wallhanging for each school. This assignment fulfilled our “service learning” aspect because we donated the wallhangings to the schools. Junior High #1 is getting a new building soon and we thought they could use some art for it.

I did a lot for this project, but that was okay. I got the markers and fabric and cut the squares in advance. I taught and explained it all. I ironed the squares to set the marker. I assembled the wallhangings. Phew! We unveiled each wallhanging at a parent night and everyone, including the ladies from CHAMPS, loved them. The students were excited to see their work and were amazed at the final result. I think we won big points from everyone because hey, this isn’t something that everyone does. I doubt many of my fellow Art Ed students sew. I think the best part was proving our teacher wrong- he showed up and totally poo poo-ed the assignment right before I was going to teach it because he didn’t think that the students would relate to the Erie landmarks. Yes, these are students who probably haven’t seen many of these landmarks, but I figured they could still have some pride for them. I haven’t been to the Space Needle or Pike Place market more than twice in my life, but I still have Seattle pride, right? And it turned out I was right. They did the assignment just fine, though Jr High #2 needed some coaching, but what else is new? When my teacher saw the final result at Parent Night, I got a fist bump from him, he was so pleased. Take that!

In reality I was inspired by church for this assignment- we did something like this in Primary years ago where each kid drew on a square and assembled it into a quilt for humanitarian aid. Currently in YW we’re working on a quilt for aid as well.

We then moved on to sculpture in the form of “Mimbre” bowls. We taught about coil building in clay and had the students make their own coil- built bowl using air dry clay. I’d never used the stuff before and I’m not really a fan- it’s so fragile. Most of the projects broke or had chips. We spent one week making the bowls and the next week painting them. My partners and I had to make extra bowls in case there were students who were absent during bowl-making but showed up the next week. And good thing- I think we used up most of our extra bowls. We let them make whatever they wanted with their leftover clay. This was one assignment that showed the differences in ability- most slopped on paint and in contrast there were a few who did amazing work.

The dragon was amazing! I was really amazed it didn’t break, especially with everyone and their dog wanting to touch it at Parent Night!

We then had an experience with each school group at the Erie Art Museum, which went about as expected. Junior High #1 was calm and behaved well, as expected. Pretty easy day being a chaperone. Junior High #2 was WILD as expected! I don’t think the museum knew what they were getting into! They were divided into two groups, but they were still too large in my opinion. I wound up chaperoning the group that had the younger kids in it- and all the rambunctious troublemakers! My Mom Nag Voice was worn out, I was such a broken record…”Don’t touch that.” “Get back in the group.” “Be quiet and listen to the lady from the museum.” “I SAID don’t touch that!” And on and on.

The lady from the museum who lead our tour did what I thought was a great thing- she had this bin of random little objects and each student got one to hold while looking at the Spring Show. The idea was that they could touch the object since they couldn’t touch the art itself. They were to find a work of art in the Spring Show that they felt related to their object in some way. I even got to participate, I had a little metal car with Bollywood images on it. Other students had a ceramic apple or a carved spoon, things like that. I need to go back and look at the Spring Show in more depth- I didn’t get to see much due to the kids!

The lesson that the people at the museum taught was about “magic” art, or art that fools your eye. We looked at various pieces that did that and discussed them. The students enjoyed it, and I thought it was a great lesson.

Each group had an artmaking session as well. We made thaumatropes, which is where you spin two images (one on each side) and they become one image. Everyone enjoyed making their own “magic” art and it was a simple but effective project. You traced and cut out two circles of cardstock, and drew your two things that would line up and become one. Then you taped/glued them on either side of a wooden skewer and as you spin it in your hands, the images become one. It was a lot of fun, though some students took awhile to catch on to the concept.

Here you can kindof see the effect- this student did a dark cloud on one side and a yellow lightning bolt on the other.

We did a few other assignments too, like comic strips and some other fun assignments this semester.

The end of the semester was spent preparing for Parent Nights, we had one at each school to show the artwork that the students had done. It was a bit crazy trying to get things set up but overall things went well. With Junior High #2, we were part of their multi-cultural night, which was fun but we were a little out of place. It was neat to see some of the students do dances from their homelands. We were asked to do a PowerPoint that showed images and artwork from countries where the students came from. It was surprising that people from all over had come to Erie- there are students from Nepal, Bhutan, Iraq, Ukraine, Russia, Somalia, Puerto Rico, Congo, Burundi and Tanzania. I think it is pretty neat to have a diverse school like that.

I thought this picture of Nepal was amazing:

I suppose I have a bias towards Nepal, we worked with some little Nepalese children who were I think the sweetest children I’ve ever met. They just exuded love and they were so happy to see us! It felt great.

Here are our art displays at the two schools:

Overall, it was a challenging, but rewarding semester. I probably had the most experience with teaching children out of our group (thank you Primary and YW!) but I learned a lot here. It was good to see that I can do this, I can teach art to kids and succeed. It was good to have the two schools as a comparison. Junior High #2 sure kept us on our toes! It was great to see the students “get it” and create great stuff. I was amazed by a few of the students who very good at art. We had a lot of great students, and some definite characters. I think we had the best assignment being at the jr highs- we saw reports about what the other groups had done and it looked like many of the high schools were really difficult. I was blessed to have two great partners, we worked very well together and each brought good stuff to the group. The teachers who helped us out were great, too.

I miss my jr high kids! Even the rambunctious ones. ;) I’m excited for student teaching in the Fall!

Jr Field

So what did I do for the majority of this semester? Jr Field! Let’s just say it was a good thing I didn’t have any studio classes this semester- I don’t know how my classmates who did survived! Basically this was my studio class this semester!

Basically, this was a class that was preparatory for student teaching. I was assigned to work with 2 partners and we taught lessons at two jr highs (inner city schools located in Erie) each week as part of an after school program named CHAMPS. Other groups were assigned to one high school, they visited their schools twice a week. Overall it was a busy, crazy semester, but it went well and I was thankful for the experience.

Junior High #1 was a class composed of mostly girls and one boy who has Downs Syndrome. We didn’t really have to adapt much of our assignments for him, he could do most stuff. Everyone was pretty much the same age and overall they were the easier, more responsible group. It was pretty much the same group each week. You could trust them with more. Overall they were more dependable. You get the picture.

Junior High #2 was the opposite, and provided a great challenge. It was much harder to teach and motivate this group. The numbers of students fluctuated wildly, there was a much wider age range (some were elementary students), more boys, bratty girls, some students were siblings and had petty fights, more students had behavioral issues. There were just a lot of factors that interacted and created CHAOS. They were great kids, but overall it was much harder to gain their attention and keep them on task. Let’s just say they were really good at making messes!

And don’t forget that we were trying to teach kids that had already been in school all day. Challenge accepted!

We were given a surprising amount of freedom when it came to planning our lessons and curriculum. We had to write lesson plans for each assignment but we were pretty free to do what we wanted. Our teacher pushed having a “service learning” aspect in our curriculum, that was really the main requirement. Since we were only at each school once a week and you never knew if students would show up the following week, we mostly did projects that could be completed in one class period. We only did one project that lasted two weeks. We had 11 weeks of teaching classes, so we selected different mediums-drawing, painting, clay, etc- and devised projects that would give them experience with a variety of mediums. We wanted to give them a range. Plus, it was the best way to try and please everyone- not everyone likes drawing. We also tried to design projects that would build their confidence and where they could be successful regardless of ability.

The first week we had two class periods, 1) spent with our crazy teacher and 2) spent with the ladies from CHAMPS. We then got our partners assigned and had only a couple days to plan what we were doing with the students! It was crazy. We were totally thrown into things.

During our first class, our unique teacher had us chew gum and make a sculpture of the gum using a toothpick! And yes, we went around the room and talked about what we’d made and how we felt about the process. It was a bit of a gross assignment, but it broke the ice!
What we basically found ourselves doing was using Junior High #1 as guinea pigs and then adapting it for Junior High #2 since we knew things would be messier and more chaotic for that group.

The first week with students was totally a get to know you week- we played a decent get to know you game (I don’t play lame ones!)and had students fill out a survey about what they liked and read it out loud as part of the game. Us teachers filled one out too, so they could hear what we were like. The session was spent also seeing what these students could do- they’re neither kids nor teens so it’s hard to know where they fall as far as abilities go. We tried a paper cutting positive/negative activity that didn’t go so hot- our scissors from the college supply closet were totally crappy and probably wouldn’t cut butter, let alone paper. We also found that it was also a hard concept for them to grasp and that we needed to break things down into smaller, simpler steps.

For week one of our official unit we started our “real” lessons by drawing- we tried to teach the students how to draw faces and learn a little about proportion. We had the students try to draw their faces and do one side more realistic and one side more creatively or abstract. They did a good job but it was probably a bit too advanced for them. It was good to see them work through frustrations. What I didn’t really expect was so many self depreciating comments from students. They were more self conscious then we thought. Some girls fixed their hair for 20 minutes before drawing themselves, despite repeated nagging from us!

It was about in here that I went from having one partner to two- K had added the class late after our partner assignments were given out. Since we were the only group with two and not three, we were glad to get another person to help with the work! It was a bit of a challenge to get her caught up to speed with what we were doing, but she turned out to be a great asset. It was just one more thing to add to the chaos.

Week two was spent doing a “Picasso Dog” assignment. After giving the students a brief background about Picasso and Cubist art, we had them follow directions blindly and create their own cubist-style dog. You have them draw an eye anywhere and then turn the paper, then draw another eye, turn, then a snout, turn, then a tail and paw and connect it somehow and color it in. It was meant to get them experimenting and not worrying so much about being “perfect” in their art. There’s no way to be perfect in this assignment! The students used markers and did a pretty good job. It was pretty funny to see their reactions to Cubism.

Week three was spent having the students explore with watercolors. Our supply closet had some wonderful watercolor sets with lots of colors. We had the students explore with color and technique and then they could go back and draw a picture over it. We also had them create two little paintings that were woven together and matted. The students did well with it and liked painting. Once again, the assignment was focused on experimenting and not being “perfect”.

The next week was spent learning a bit about Pollock and how his drip style of painting was different. We were able to show them a clip from the movie Pollock where he explains why he painted like that and it also showed how Pollock intentionally flipped and splattered his paint onto the canvas on the floor, almost like a dance. The schools wouldn’t let us use You Tube, so we couldn’t show a video of the real thing and had to improvise. We then were really brave (or stupid) and had the students make splatter paintings of their own. The kids did well and everyone really liked the assignment, but Junior High #2 went wild and caused a big mess. They got paint all over themselves and the walls and floor! We even had a splatter box to try and keep it all contained, really we tried to make it less messy. It was a nice try. The other problem was that some kids did the paint WAY too thick. Both classes we had to leave the paintings behind to dry, even though we had brought hairdryers. That was a nice try. The kids did some good work, I loved the expression in each.

This is a long post, so I’ll stop here. Stay tuned for Part 2!

The saga continues…

Update

Hi there in computer land! I am alive and well, I finished my finals and have started summer break. It's so nice staying up late, sleeping in and enjoying the sunshine. I've also been working on catching up on some crafty projects and ideas of mine, so we'll see how much I can get done on my 'someday' list!

Not much going on, which I'm not complaining about. Pretty much just gearing up for camp (I'm so thankful not to have to worry about Pioneer trek this summer!), the usual summer stuff. Hoping I get to make some fun local trips!

Can't wait for the local fairs!

Easter Season

It's been an enjoyable Easter season. I loved having Easter so late in the year- it was a long season for Cadbury eggs!

I did other fun things too.

Like dyeing eggs with my fhe group:

Raelena, Kristin, me, Andrew, Kaitlyn, Tad and Eric

I didn't get into a dye fight like some people but we had a great time!

I got put in charge of obtaining the decorating goods- we used crayons and I had found NEON dye! I taught them how to dye eggs with onion skins, they found it interesting.

Wherever I go I am the art teacher! Ha ha.

We dyed eggs as a family, always a fun tradition.

This year I discovered that if you use crayon on a warm, just boiled egg (as opposed to trying to color ones that have been in the fridge) that the crayon goes on very smoothly and solid.

I was pleased!

This one got dyed yellow:

I did a random floral design and dyed it bright aqua!

Can you tell that I love Nightmare Before Christmas?

 Couldn't resist.

My family loves dyeing eggs, it's a great artistic medium.

Years ago I did pasanky (Ukrainian) eggs, I need to take that up again.

Church on Sunday as very nice. We had 39 people (including a few kids) in attendance, which was great for our little branch! It was so nice seeing friends and everyone looked great in their festive Easter pastels. I even had two YW in attendance, it was great! The spirit was really strong at church today, which was great. Outside it was a gloomy, overcast day, but in our hearts it was sunshine.

The PA tradition seems to be us kids hiding eggs and making Mom and Dad search for them!

One good use for a cluttered house- it's easy to hide eggs...in plain sight!

Mom and Laura were bored and I came home to Easter bunnies everywhere last week!

My dad, the big kid:

After hunting eggs, we had our usual Points and Butts egg game tournament and ate eggs and some homemade corned beef hash, yum! I then settled down for an Easter nap, it was great. I got two naps this weekend, can you believe it? Dinner was yummy ham and cheesy potatoes, always a fave. Anyhow, it was a really nice weekend and nice to spend time with my family. It was a nice opportunity to remember our Savior and what He did for us.

He is not here, for He is risen.

Sunday Will Come

I thought I was already thankful for the blessings of Heavenly Father and His plan for us. I thought I was already thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us.

I was wrong.

Nothing has been happening to me personally, but in a very short span of time there has been a lot of heartache in the lives of those around me.

My friend's father died.
My friend will have a stillborn baby.
My friend's 7 year old son died very suddenly.

On top of all this, there are many who are very sick or needing surgery, including my jr field partner.

Don't even get me started on all the natural disasters that have happened lately. It's heartbreaking.

It's become rather overwhelming, especially when I can't be there to help.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Gavin's funeral, he was 7 years old. Tomorrow would have been his 8th birthday. I didn't know him very well but I went to his funeral because I am friends with his mother and wanted to support the family in this hard time. His family says that it was just his time to go- he suddenly got sick and had cardiac arrest and then was brain dead and had to be taken off of life support. All totally out of the blue.

His funeral was the best and most touching that I've attended. Our stake president spoke very sweetly about the plan of salvation and eternal families. His father (a bishop) gave the eulogy and Gavin was just an amazing kid. He accomplished so much in his short time. He loved learning and going to school. He was an old soul in a young body. He had an amazing testimony. He was so looking forward to being baptized. Instead, he was buried in his baptismal clothes. So many touching and humorous stories.

The Primary children, including his two older brothers, sang "My Life Is A Gift". So sweet and touching. Another tender moment was watching Gavin's little cousin pat the coffin on the way up to the stand to sing.

Gavin was taken to the grave site in an antique firetruck, driven by a friend in the stake. He once got to ride that firetruck in a parade. I thought it was a sweet way to go. They also printed his testimony and put it in Books of Mormon to give out at the funeral to those who are not as familiar with our faith. It was nice to see that a lot were taken. A lot of people from his school came to the funeral, which was very sweet.

Gavin's tragedy gives several people the gift of life through organ donation. It's really a miracle that he could donate because he had cardiac arrest but when they tested his heart it showed no signs of damage. It went to a little girl who was going to die within a week if she did not receive a heart.

They say the only real tragedy is not death, but sin- it's hard for us to understand why Gavin was taken so young but we can rejoice that he was and is clean and perfect, and being a little child, he is without sin. He has been taken home to God.

Gavin did serve a mission- he touched many lives while on this earth and even in death he helped strengthen testimonies and share the gospel. I know that my testimony has been strengthened by attending his sweet funeral. I would not have been surprised if there were angels there in attendance. Gavin, thank you for being a force for good on this earth.

"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.


But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.


No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come."

-Joseph B. Wirthlin




I know that Jesus suffered for our sins so that we can through Him turn our hearts and repent of our sins and return to live with Heavenly Father. I know that Jesus willingly gave up His life and was resurrected so that we too can have the glorious gift of resurrection. His sacrifice makes it possible for us to live together forever as families and I am so thankful for the gift of our Savior and the peace that He brings. Someday Gavin and his family will be reunited in the eternities. Someday I will be reunited with the loved ones that I have lost. I am so thankful for temples and eternal families.

I am so very excited for Easter this year- while I do love chocolate, I am very excited to remember and celebrate what Jesus did for us. We celebrate Christmas because there was an Easter. Gavin's birthday falls on Good Friday this year, and I don't think that is a coincidence.

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter.

WV Conf: Take Me Home, Country Roads

I spent last weekend down in West Virginia for yet another YSA conference. It is starting to get hard to keep them all straight! This year WV opted to hold their conference at Jackson's Mill, a camp with some history. It's part of the WVU campus.

Truth in Advertising!

After months and months of sounding like a broken record  promoting this conference to the other YSAs in our group, it was finally time to go. I had a full car going down- my friend Kaitlyn sat up front with me and we had two guys from our fhe group in the backseat. If I wasn't driving, none of them would have had a way to WV! The trip down took about 5 hours, it took longer because of the rain and traffic and pitstops needed.

But we got there just in time for....stupid Get to Know You Games! Why, they're my favorite! {Sarcasm Sign}

I was forced to play, they had several teams rotate through activities. I am proud to admit that I did well during Musical Chairs- I lost out when four tried to become three. Out of a group of 14! We all have hidden talents. Oh, and I faked needing to do something with my phone so I could escape church-themed charades. How would you portray "Fishers of Men"? I don't know either and didn't want to try.

Once again, Get to Know You Games don't really let you get to know people. Although they let you see who's cool under pressure.

 Some poor girl dumped a ton of water on herself and all over the stage and floor during apple bobbing:

Running around with a kite attached to your hat- how sexy!

Is it now clear why I hate GTKYG? At least they weren't SFGTKYG.

No, I didn't participate in either activity. Though gosh, they looked fun. {Sarcasm Sign}

The real fun that night was the bon fire. Our speaker told the story of his first date with his wife- a bad date story that puts most bad date stories to rest! What an amazing woman to see past all that. It was fun to hang out with my friends and joke around. No photos of the bonfire- kindof hard to take pics in the dark.

Saturday was an early breakfast (7:30 am!) and then classes. First was a class where you covered a small military size Book of Mormon with fabric and doodads using irons and Wonder Under. It even has a magnetic closure. Pretty sweet.

Yup, mine's the aqua one!

Then it was finger-poking fun at woodcarving!
Here's what ours was supposed to look like:

Mine is *not* that far along. At all.

After lunch was Geocaching. I'd never done it before so it was fun to learn how to input coordinates and find stuff. My guy partner (not pictured) was less than desirable but I survived.

Then we got to watch an educational lecture from a raptor bird sanctuary/rescue place. They rehabilitate hurt birds of prey and use the ones that can't go back into the wild in their demos. It was an interesting show, it was neat to see the birds.

We saw a screech owl, "Owlice"

 A broadwing hawk named "Neo"

 ...and a tame red tail hawk named Annie that was probably stolen from the wild and tamed (illegal!).

This bird can really poop. Let me tell ya.

Later came free time and we walked down to the General Store. Saw a Civil War camp reenactment and people in period dress.

Reenactment with guns:

Fed the big koi fish in the pond:

After dinner, there was a speaker, the Mission President of the WV mission. He spoke about the theme and how there is really only one road to God and it's up to us if we're near or far. (Are you thinking about Grover at this point? I was!) It was a good talk and uplifting.

And since we were in WV, you gotta square dance. It's the law. I got roped into square dancing which was fine but I was so mad that I got tricked into having to be partners with a girl. And we were the only same sex couple in the entire room of 6 groups. They needed one more couple to complete a group and had run out of willing boys. At any rate, it was mortifying. And fed several complexes of mine. Probably other people didn't care that it was us girls, but I was mad that I was tricked/forced into it, mad that no guy wanted to be my partner in the first place and just mad. I have not been that mad in some time. Definitely the low point of the conference. Our group kept messing up too on account of our partnership- the guys kept trying to dance with me and would forget that I was "the boy". Or I'd forget that I was not supposed to do the girl part. I was so glad to be done with that! Other people looked like they were having fun, it was fun to watch my friends dance. Some groups did very well.

Then came the real dance, I was glad to groove my anger away. It actually was a pretty good dance and I did get asked to dance once. I did run away from some undesirable men, though. It was too dark to take a pic during the dance but I wanted to show off my new shirt so here you go:

We slept very well that night.

Breakfast again at 7:30 am and then Sacrament meeting. There were some really wonderful testimonies borne.

Sunday best:

Kaitlyn, Mitch and myself

The campgrounds were lovely. Spring has come to WV and it was great to have warm temps (could have done without the humidity), green grass and blooms in the trees. The cabins were really sweet looking and nice inside. Because it is Jackson's Mill, there are millstones everywhere.

Even in stone foundations:

The mess hall was a really cute building:

Our cabin, Marion:

Entryway of our cabin, note the two millstones above the fireplace:

 West Virginia rocks!

Some lows during the conference, but overall a fun weekend!

It was nice to get away and take a break.

Even though this conference served as a big reminder that I am not "young" anymore!

Sigh...

Random

Hmm...what have I been up to these days?

I am glad to report that I have been fine since my kidney stone.

Been keeping busy with school.

And really busy with church stuff.

Last weekend was great, I loved Conference. So uplifting.

The weekend before that was so FULL of church stuff that I was hardly home!

Singles dinner, RS luncheon, YW broadcast, Branch Council mtg, Church and YSA testmony meeting all in two and a half days!

Yikes!

No single guys came to the Single Adult dinner...just six gals including me and also a bunch of married leaders.

Anybody wondering why I'm still single?

Hmmm...in other news...

Dad cleaned out his coat pockets:

We keep getting dustings of snow:

The Jr High kids are doing great with the projects we do with them:

And Laura got another puppy to raise to be a guide dog a couple days ago:

Randy is very flexible! Let's hope he'll be a good puppy. Grant had the nickname "Tasmanian Devil" for a reason.

We don't have babies at the Chaney house. We have puppies!

I did get to be a mom for 30 min this weekend during conference- held a 6 mo old baby so his mommy could use the potty and get their stuff together. He spit up on me too, I got the whole mommy experience! And it was funny how many compliments I got when I was holding the baby in one arm and using the rug sweeper in the other! I can multitask. Sometimes.

His mommy said "Will you take the baby for me?" and I said "I will take any baby I can get!"

And yay I got my student teaching packet turned in! Gotta love paperwork. And paying for clearances. And taking Praxis exams. And gotta love it when your advisor forgot to sign a paper and you have to track him down or pay a $100 late fee!

My semester is over with in about a month!

I hope I have a fun summer!

That is, if Spring ever comes!