Week 5- Lesson Planning and the Impact of Subject Knowledge

What are some resources you can turn to for support in lesson planning ideas? People, places, websites...

One of the hardest things is to create a lesson plan that is "enthralling" for most students. I know I have a great lesson plan when everyone has their eyes on me, and there are "ooos", and "ahhhs"! Knowing the subject well plays a large roll in making the lesson interesting to students. For example, the lesson I am currently teaching revolves around a Japanese painting and printing style called Ukiyo-e. The lesson was created with the intent to expose students to Japan, and styles of artwork that they might not see often. I took a class called Asian Art and Culture where I learned about many artistic periods in Japan. I think this knowledge helped me create an interesting lesson plan because I was interested in the subject. I acknowledge that knowing the content helps you teach it well, but the source of the selection for content, often comes from the teachers interests. Being excited and interested in the content is a positive step towards getting students excited and motivated about the assignment. Excitement is contagious! This is why I feel it is important to pick projects that I am personally excited about. I can invest my time into something new that I am passionate about, and the students will benefit from something that they might not have seen or experienced in the art classroom before.

Some really good sources that I have used besides my classes are:
http://www.incredibleart.org This site has complete lesson plans that include national standards. It is also divided by medium and grade level, making it very easy to navigate.

Believe it or not the image sharing website Pinterest has also been extremely useful. It is mostly examples of student work, however, there are also some tutorials and collections of projects from art teachers that are viewable for browsing.

We are learning about Ukiyo-e style art from Japan, and also about origami. Today I presented some facts about Japan, and also showed some examples of art work by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. An example of his work can be seen here:

Students are using pencil to draw their own Ukiyo-e style scene. Ukiyo-e translates into "pictures of the floating world". These scenes usually depicted beautiful moments of impermanence. The students are using black india ink to go over thier pencil lines, and then watercolors to paint the scenes. Eventually we will create origami out of the paper. We will be folding the paper into samurai hats. They will look like this: