Each week, before the children learn about the artists, I ask the children what do they know and what do they want to learn about the artist. This is a great way for me to assess what the children have been learning during the Art and Artist unit and what I should make sure I cover during the week. This week, when I told the children that we will be learning about Edgar Degas so we need to make a chart to find out what do they know and what do they want to learn, a child piped up, "You mean we get to make a T-chart?" Teachers who use graphic organizers to help their students learn, could truly understand the joy I had when I heard that little voice filled with excitement. The class came up with the following T- chart for Edgar Degas:
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| Initial T chart created on Tuesday |
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By Thursday, the children had been finding out the answers to their questions as I read them books about Edgar Degas and through the slide show I made of The Clark's Degas collection. They were pretty excited when their T-chart was:
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| Thursday's revised T chart |
Today there was a flurry of creative pictures as the children created various ballerinas. Before I left school, I hung up a sample of their ballerinas on the bulletin board. They made ballerinas with pastels since Degas used pastels. As a nod to his sculpture Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, the children drew ballerinas and added real tutu! They also experimented with creating dancers who looked like they were moving. The children are so excited about this unit that even the boys were happily drawing dancers in tutus!
