The Private Eye Journey

"Genius is the capacity to see ten things when the ordinary man sees one."

Ezra Pound

This week I decided to try The Private Eye with all of my classes.  This is where you take a jeweler's loupe and look closely at an object. As you are looking you ask yourself, what else does this remind me of? You also draw what you see, not what you know. Your descriptions become the bones for a poem.    It  was a very eye opening experience (no pun intended)!    It's with a great hope that I say it was an exploration that I believe may transcend a 45 minute art period.  Just giving the children time, precious time to sit and look at an object and explore the possibilities, explore the connections their minds make between their object and life...wow.

My Hand (like a battlefield)

..like holes of mines

form each day

red blood holes
 from lost soldiers.

cannons fire 

through the night

Chris, 4th grade

* The Private Eye loupes are wonderful but you could easily and successfully do this activity with a regular
magnifying glass or by simply looking.  

End of the Year Creations

All Hail The Creativity God , Elizabeth 2nd Grade

Necklace by Leslie, 2nd grade

Collage, Bryan 2nd Grade

Class Portraits Fun Style

 

I thought it would be fun for the kids to create a class portrait to remember this past year and their friends.
They could fold the paper to create various rectangular shapes or they could draw lines to place each student drawing in.  I projected their class list from the projector so the could write everyone's name on their portrait.   One class period did not provide enough time to finish but I let them take them home to finish and they were super excited. This was a lot of fun, it worked out perfectly for an end of the year project!   I did it with Kinder and First. 

Paper Cuttings Inspired by the work of Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Anderson used paper as a medium not only for writing poetry and fairy tales, but also as a means for his imaginative expressing of paper cutting.    While telling a story,  he would  hold a big pair of scissors in his hand along with a sheet of paper, at the end of the tale he would unfold the paper to reveal a fantastic work. As I read abut this, I thought about how wonderful it is to have a story read to you, your mind is free to conjure images at will.  Why not try it with my class?    I decided to read The Great Sea-Serpent and The Pine Tree.  I only read a small excerpt from each
 piece, this way,  the kids could imagine their own endings. 

                                                                                                          

http://hca.museum.odense.dk/klip/billedstart.asp?language=en

 

...The small ones swam side by side close together, as herrings and mackerel swim.  But as they were swimming their prettiest in the water and thinking of nothing, there sank with  prodigious noise, from above, right down through them, a long heavy thing that looked as if it would  never  come to an end...


from The Great Sea-Serpent by Hans Christian Andersen


 

1st Grade paper cuttings

In the woods there lived a nice little Pine Tree.  He stood where the sun and the fresh air cold get at him.  Around him grew many comrades- other pines and big firs.  But the little Pine wished so much to be a grown-up tree. 

from The Pine Tree

3rd grade paper cuttings

Styrofoam Explorations

‘If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.’
— Rachel Carson

work in progress, 2nd grade student

These explorations are yet to be finished but the 50% mark (or so?) is so dear that I had to share them.
Each student had a cardboard tray, scissors and a glue stick.  I showed them how to thread a needle. The journey was theirs for the taking.









So today was the day, we were able to finish our styrofoam explorations.  Watching the kids create these was like watching the ocean ebb and flow as there was not a set ending point, it was constant creation.    As one student said,  "I can see myself adding more to this at home and turning it into a huge sculpture."

"I started off making 2 swords but now  I don't know what it is, I've kind of lost myself  while I 'm making it."
                                                           Ian, 2nd grade student


That my friend, is flow.