This is a working list for my theme plans for the new school year.
PORTRAITS: We will do portraits again… This is one of my annual themes. While I am still working on the details and the funding, I hope We will get the opportunity to go see a Kehende Wiley (http://seattleartmuseum.org/Exhibitions/Details?EventId=29707) show with First Semester classes and a Chuck Close show in Second Semester’s classes. (http://www.schack.org/exhibits/chuck-close/) So all grade levels will do portriats near this trip. 8th graders always do self-portraits, becuase it is our state assessment; 7th graders do teacher portraits. I am not sure if I will have 6th graders do anything with portraits, it might depend on the group and how they are responding.
PTA REFLECTIONS: We always do a theme based on this. I am excited about this year’s theme, “Let your imagination fly.” I think it has a lot of potential, if I can guide kids away from the more basic interpretations.
Our school wide theme this year is kindness so I know I will want to work that in to something during the year. But it will probably be something small. Although I like the idea of a theme someone shared on the Facebook TAB group that was “Pay it Forward: How can your art help others?” So these might work together. It is less concrete, so might be for my more advance classes.
I also am leaning towards Machines, Fairy Tale Remix, and Creepy Cute as other possibilities.
The Toy Production Unit was fun last year, but took up a lot of time. My classes are going to be scheduled differently this year so I will only have the 18 week semester before getting a new group of kids. The toy unit ended up spreading over 2 semesters, but I had the same kids all year somit worked out.
The Studio Choice Challenge was also a huge hit and I am thinking of doing that earlier in the semester so that they can do a lot of structured exploration. But it won’t get me as much WOW (show) work unless I make that part of the requirements.
I have 3 different “mandatory” shows throughout the year that I have to have work for. Luckily theme and mediums are mostly open ended. So I just need to time things right, last year I didn’t have enough for the shows and it looked bad. My district didn’t post my artist statements with the art and so it wasn’t understood. But that is a whole different post.
