Art Express is a program at Northern Illinois University offered to children who wish to explore the visual arts. The class meets for half of the university's semester on Saturdays for two hours. I had the opportunity to co-teach a group of six students who were between the ages of four and five. The theme for our class revolved around the board game titled Numeracy Legends and the Rainbow Unicorn. This is an educational game as it introduces graph theory to young children in a fun and welcoming way. The goal of the game is to be the first player to collect five ingredients so that rainbow unicorn can make cupcakes. Children must strategize in order to find the quickest route to move their character on the board game to collect the ingredients. Not only were students challenged in find the best route, students also learned the value of taking turns and playing fairly with one another. The game supported the art project that the students created throughout the class. Students made their very own recipe book that got attached to a cardboard box which became the display box for the three-dimensional cupcake that students sculpted out of clay and then painted.
Classroom Setup and Gameplay
Real life Application: Finding the "Best Route"
Recipe Books
Working with Clay
Clay Projects
Painting:
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Floor Drawing
To begin each class, we instructed students to find a place to sit around a large sheet of paper on the floor. Students would draw whatever they desired on this large sheet of paper as a warm up. This gave students the opportunity to enter the art realm as well as allowed us, as instructors, to take attendance before starting up any lessons. Each week we saw students grow creatively and artistically on their floor drawings. At the beginning of Art Express, students would imitate each other's drawings. Towards the end of class, students were taking a lot more risks with their drawings.
Brain Break |