Art Talk Man-made vs. Natural items in the world around you By: Lori Li and Rikki Brown

What is man-made in this picture? What is natural? Turn and Talk!

Lets Create a Collage!

Look at this little collage I created of our school! What is a Collage? Its a way of making art where you cut separate pictures out of magazines or newspapers and put them together to create a new picture. Look at this little collage I created of our school!

There are all sorts of ways you can make Collages! You can cut out pictures and glue them together You can create one on a computer You can even paint or decorate your collage like the picture below

What YOU Are Going To Do At home, I want you to cut out 5 pictures from a magazine or newspaper that are of something man-made, and also cut out 5 pictures of things that are natural. Which picture is natural? Which picture is man-made? How do you know?

Here is a collage that I found on the internet Here is a collage that I found on the internet. Can you tell me some man-made things in this photo? How about some natural things?

Guidelines for your pictures Please make sure you have at least 5 pictures cut out of man-made things and 5 pictures cut out of natural things. You can bring in extra if you want to.

We will be placing all the photos of man made things in one container and all the photos of natural things in another. You will select 5 from each container to create your collage

When you have finished your collage I will give you a worksheet When you have finished your collage I will give you a worksheet. I want you to list the things that are man made on one side of the worksheet and the things that are natural on the other side. You also need to give me a brief description of why the item is natural or man made. For example: a t-shirt: It is man-made because it does not grow out of the ground.

Lesson Plan Self-reflection and Evaluation   What went well in this lesson? Why? I felt like this was the best lesson I have taught thus far in field this semester. The reason why I think this is because the students were so excited to do this and they were engaged the entire time. I think when you have these two elements, it makes the whole experience more meaningful and they will remember this lesson and what it taught them (difference between man-made and natural objects.) What problems did I experience? Why? One problem that I did encounter was that one student who has trouble making friends was very uncomfortable sharing a box of images with his partner. When his partner took an image of a car, the student lost it and was extremely upset that he didn't get the car. I think in the beginning of the lesson I should have said something to the students about not complaining about what images they get or something like that. Was it “student centered”? Should it have been? It was definitely student centered because I didn't spend a whole lot of time telling them what to do, the students had the freedom to choose for themselves what kind of collage they wanted to make. What could I have done differently? The next time I do this lesson I will mention ahead of time that the students should not throw fits about them not getting a certain image and that everyone needs to share. What did I learn from this experience that will help me in the future? I learned that if you just give the students basic structure and leave the rest open, you can get work from them that is unique and shows the creativity of the student. I was so pleased with how different all of the collages were and I think its because of how my art talk was structured. Preparation and research - Was I well prepared? - What could I have done differently? I feel as though I was well prepared. I had all of the images cut out and divided amongst boxes and my materials were prepped and at hand, so I didn't have to waste time during the lesson doing that. The goal of the lesson was for the students to be able to tell me what was man-made vs natural in their collage and all of the students were able to do that. Written plan – Was I organized? Did the written format work? Is there a better form? I was definitely organized. My final version of the lesson plan was very thorough and I referred to it throughout teaching this lesson to make sure that every objective I wanted to hit was met. I think having such a thorough lesson plan helped me accomplish my goals for the students. Presentation – Were the students involved? Was I clear in my presentation? How was the pacing? The students loved the presentation. I did it on my computer and I think that was really exciting for them because they've never been taught that way. They loved the images in my art talk and were engaged in the presentation through turn and talk and class discussion. The pacing was good because I wanted the students to spend more time creating rather than listen to me talk. Assessment – Does my method of assessment measure what I want? How did the class do? What should I change for next time? My method of assessment did measure what I wanted. The students had a worksheet that they had to fill out and list what was man-made in their collage and what was natural. All of the students did an amazing job. If I could change anything, I would allot time for the students to share their work with one another.