Artifacts, Trade Fairs, and Shoe boxes...oh my!

Teaching social studies can be difficult. Social studies is filled with abstract concepts and people and events that are long gone. Sometimes our students can have a hard time identifying with these concepts because they don't see them as relateable to their lives. In our social studies class we participated in activities that can make these weird, abstract, concepts more concrete in our students lives.

One of the activities we did was to find artifacts that relate to a standard from history. The standard I chose was:

5.1.13 Identify contributions of women and minorities during the American Revolution. Examples: Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Mercy Otis Warren, Molly Pitcher, Phillis Wheatley, Deborah Sampson, James Armistead and Joseph Brant

It was awesome learning about some of the heroes of the revolutionary war period that are rarely talked about. The artifacts I chose are all things that could be printed out that the students could actually interact with or could be found using Google maps and visited by taking a virtual field trip. These are some of the artifacts I found:

Source

Source

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I also enjoyed writing the lesson for the trade fair. My lesson plan focused on this standard:

4.4.3 Explain how both parties can benefit from trade* and give examples of how people in Indiana engaged in trade in different time periods.

* trade: the voluntary exchange of goods or services

and specifically on the first part of the standard. My lesson would be focused on getting the students to understand that trade should benefit both parties involved. I would begin the lesson by tying to trade some useless item for something of importance. Hopefully this exercise will get the students thinking about why they wouldn't want to trade something of importance for something useless. I will then ask them questions to help cement the the point in their mind and then actually share with them the point of the lesson. After the students learn about trade being beneficial to both parties, the students will practice their trading skills through a trading game where each student is given different scenarios detailing who they are, what their needs are, and what they have to trade.

Lastly, we did a shoe box activity where we had to pick a social studies standard that focused on immigration or movement. The standard I chose was:

4.3.10 Identify immigration patterns and describe the impact diverse ethnic and cultural groups has had and has on Indiana.

·         E pluribus Unum (out of many, one) http://greatseal.com/mottoes/unum.html

·         Ellis Island was opened (January 1, 1892) during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison (Indiana’s only President) http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island

If I was doing this with my students I would have them focus on two questions when packing their shoe boxes:

If you had to leave your home country what five things would you bring with you that represent your culture? What things would you leave behind?

For myself I chose: music, my favorite tv show, pictures of my family, a journal of my writings, and my favorite books. All of these tell about me as a person, and most of them tell about some aspect of Black American culture.

All of these activities I would integrate into my classroom to help my students make a more authentic connection to social studies content.

A great site with lessons on trade:
http://www.globalenvision.org/forteachers/27/1229

Abstract Art

Abstract Art Source

ABSTRACT ART

For my next art project I decided to focus on abstract art. I love abstract art because it gives you the freedom to create literally whatever you want. At least that’s what I thought when I began this process. However, through my research I found that abstract art is defined as art that does not depict a person, place or thing in the natural world, even in an extremely distorted or exaggerated way.  I began the process of creating my art by first looking at multiple examples of abstract art. I saw many examples, but the ones that stood out to me the most were those that incorporated bright, bold colors, and textures. I decided to incorporate this into my painting.

Art Inspiration Source

Art Inspiration Source

Art Inspiration Source

My piece is about life. As babies, we are born as a pure clean slate. However, the moment we enter the world, its influence starts to affect us. I used the white space to represent innocence and the pink to represent us as humans. As life goes on you are presented with many different challenges in life, but you also have many triumphs. There are also days that aren’t challenging or triumphant. In my painting I used the black to represent the challenges, ombre grey to represent the just regular days, and the gold glitter to represent the happy times in your life. I also wanted to use glitter to add texture to my painting.

 I really enjoyed the process of creating this painting. One joy I found during this process was the freedom in creating this type of art. I had a backstory for my piece, but you don’t need any kind of story to do abstract art. You can just do. One negative of the process was not having the subjects in the art represent something from reality. I like for the subjects in my painting to represent reality. It was hard not to paint actual figures.

Through working with abstract art, I learned that painting doesn’t always have to have an elaborate story to represent it. It can sometimes just be and that is beautiful.

A site with great abstract art lessons:
http://www.teachkidsart.net/tag/abstract-art/

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia o’keeffe

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My first art project this semester focused on the fabulous artist Georgia O'keeffe. According to Wikipedia she was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. 

I fell in love with the works of Georgia O'keeffe, and more than that, I fell in love with the artist herself. I found a quote by her that epitomizes how I want to live my life and inspired the works I created for this project. The quote stated, "I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." 

Painting with water color has a sort of freedom to it. The colors mix and swirl with reckless abandon, but only if you want them too. Watercolor can also have structure to it. I found this to be true in a number of Gorgia's paintings. 

When conceptualizing my pieces I decided to focus on the difference in style between two of the different themes Georgia focused her work on, flowers and city scapes. I noticed in Georgia's flower paintings she featured more bright vibrant colors and free flowing lines, while in her city scapes paintings she focused on more dark colors and more structured lines. The flowers seemed more free and expressive while the city scapes seemed more dark, controlled, and restrictive. 

Georgia O'Keeffe Flower Painting

Georgia O'Keeffee City Scape Painting

I related how these painting made me feel to my own life experiences. Narrow beauty standards in the world can sometimes make you feel restricted like you have to fit into a certain mold. Life may sometimes seem dark when you feel like your not free to express yourself and be who you want to be. 

That how I felt when I felt pressured to have long hair. I felt restricted by all the beauty routines I had to go through in order to make my hair grow.

However when I decided to just do me, and be awesome at that, I felt a sense of freedom that I've never felt before! The same sense of freedom I feel when I view Gloria's flower paintings and read the inspiring quotes she blessed the world with.

I had so much fun researching Gloria and creating my art projects. I learned a lot about water color that I will one day share with my students. For example you need the correct type of paper to paint water color pictures and sometimes you need to be patient when creating, and give one layer a chance to dry before you start on the next. However, in the same breath, water color comes with a type of freedom that allows colors to take on a mind of their own and mix together to create exciting new colors!

I can't wait to tell you about my next project!

Here is a great site to help you teach water color:
http://www.incredibleart.org/files/water.htm