Camouflage Tiger Inspired by Rousseau

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Starting Class on the Right Foot with Middle School Artists

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Someday I want to see a scan of the pre-teen brain during a class transition.  Want to bet it lights up like fireworks?  But whatever is going on in there, my bouncy kids need help to focus their bodies and minds after all the super exciting things that happen in the 3-minute walk from their classroom to my STEAM art room. I learned a new procedure for starting class in a PD last year and tried it super quick... darn if it didn't work better than anything I've done so far (like everything plus the kitchen sink).  Here are the ABCs of the procedure step by step.  (This sequence was created based on the work of Hyde and Charles, Sequoia Union High School District. 2016.) A)  S cout for Respectful Behaviors.  Invite 2 reliable students into the room to tally respectful behaviors they see as the class enters. They're the kids who can stand on the line with their arms down, their bodies calm, and their voices off modeling appropriate line behaviors and this gives me a chanc
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How One Young Artist Found his Way (Or, The Trouble with TAB)

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This is about the transition of one young man from a "devoted goof-off" to an expressive artist through the power of the studio habits of mind.    Over the course of a year, this young artist learned to express complex and powerful ideas and emotions using art materials.  The goal is to show how kids learn through TAB exploration. The trouble with TAB is that it's a long road to results because the skills students develop are complex and subtle.  TAB teaches a way of thinking.  This boy's accomplishment represents a two-year journey. If you compare it to acquiring math skills, people already "know" the sequence for that development from year to year... (not that the existing sequence is all that useful for many kids) and without a sense for developmental stages for creative problem-solving administrators and parents tend to judge artwork from project to project.
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Pumping-up Middle School Critique

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After 12 weeks of open studio and materials exploration, I could feel that my middle school elective students were ready for more directed instruction. To achieve this, I decided to use one class per week to provide time for either direct instruction or critique. I started with critique as a pre-assessment of their ability to give and receive appropriate criticism. For this activity, students created a personal mini-museum using a black tri-fold board with one or more of their works for critique. The look and feel of the room really changed with the tri-folds on the tables; they gave each student a sense of their own space. Students were given sticky notes and instructed to walk our class gallery to leave comments on at least four works. In a whole-class discussion, we reviewed the TAG critique method from AOE (Hare. 2016). TAG stands for: Student artboards turn the classroom into  a mini-museum (1) Tell something you like (2) Ask a question (3) Give a suggestion
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