Collaborative Circus in Space
In this project, students will collaboratively make a creature/alien that they hired for a circus in space. This will help the students discover teamwork and collaboration in the sense that they must incorporate at least one idea from each students sketchbook drawing. This is relevant to this age group because they are at a stage where they are less accepting of others ideas’ therefore they will learn the value in collaborating.
Essential Understanding
Artists and designers collaborate with others in the creation of their work.
Learning Targets
Using a prompt, students will be able to collaboratively create an alien/creature.
Using their artwork students will be able to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Using art materials, students will be able to create an alien/creature that incorporates color and detail.
Key Concepts:
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Students will ideate individually through their sketchbook prompt.
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Students will take their individual ideas and combine them with their classmates ideas, respectfully collaborating with each other.
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Students will create a story as a way of reflecting on their collaborative efforts.
Skills:
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Ideation
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Collaboration
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Imagination
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Reflection
Documentation for this lesson can be found here:
The lesson plan can be found here:
Blog reflection entries can be found here
Final Lesson Reflection
What worked well for this art experience? Why?
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Providing the students with a “hook” of pretending they were a circus ringmaster in charge of hiring an alien creature for the circus engaged the students from the start. I have observed that when children draw monsters or creatures, they worry less that it looks perfect and they just go for it. My peer teaching group was surprised how well the students collaborated on this project and we only had to intervene to help a few groups problem solve. All of the groups were eager to share the story of their creature and all groups finished on time.
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What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why?
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When teaching the first group of students we had successful collaboration as an objective. Once we taught the lesson, we realized that grading students on collaboration was not useful. If a group left a student out should they then get marked down on the project because they could not figure out how to collaborate. Working in groups is a skill that many adults find challenging and at the elementary school level, we need to focus on teaching students how to work in groups without being punitive in the grading process so they have time to practice.
What would you do differently? Why?
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I would still do this same lesson, but over more than one class period to give students more time to work on the stories for their creatures. Overall the lesson went well, but I felt that kt was rushed at the end and for my objective goals the story is the most important part and I would like to give students time to talk as a class about each of the alien creatures’ stories. I also need to find a way to control the usage of materials. We brought in numerous pipe cleaners and poof balls and the students used most of them in just four classes. I am learning to only put small amounts of art materials out at a time and to say no when asked to have more. It is hard to say no, but I need to ration certain art supplies or we will have nothing left by the end of the term.