Observation: International Dot Day Lesson

I arrived at art class towards the end of the 3rd grade art class. It was immediately clear that the class was celebrating International Dot day a few days early. The fifth grade class that I saw right after was celebrating the same thing and did the same activities, but brought it to a higher level than even their teacher, expected.

This was only the third day of art class for these students since they go to art once a week, so not only did the students design their dots, they also made their sketchbooks for the class. The teacher went around with a large, probably 50 year old stapler to staple the books together once the pages were organized properly. She mentioned to me that she would like to get a new stapler for her class, but it was low on her list of priorities and the teachers' budgets all got cut in half because not everyone was using all the money allotted to them, even though she used every last penny every year.

I noticed how the room was set up as soon as I walked in. There were two rows of three tables each. Each table had 4 chairs for the students to sit at, and they all had the same supplies on them for the activity. Each of the supply containers were the same color as the name of each table (Red table had a red supply container, Blue table had a blue one, and so on). The tables were set up so that the students could work independently and didn't have to ask for supplies. This allowed her to walk around freely and monitor and or help the students.

In both classes, there were dot day videos and songs that were played on the projector screen to give students some background information about dot day. The video down below is the first one that was shown and it was already set up and prepared for when the fifth graders got to class- a staggering ten minutes late I might add. However, they knew exactly what they were going to do that day in class when they saw the screen, suggesting that they've done this activity once before.

This video details the idea of the dot and shows that anyone can be an artist, even if they "can't draw". This was shown in the beginning of the lesson after she told the students what they were doing and that their dots that they make today will be hung up on a bulletin board in the school. The video was rather cute, but some of the boys in the fifth grade class thought that they were a little too old for the video, as I heard someone exclaim softly, "this is stupid". He still went on and did the project anyways.

Once the video was done, she gave her instruction and had the students wait until she was done before asking questions. She was asked many questions about the size of the dots to be mad, and if multiple, smaller dots could be made. She encouraged their creativity, and made sure to set appropriate boundaries. She had the red table help her pass out the paper for the dots and the sketchbooks, and had them working on both projects at once, most likely because they were late coming to class.

In her instructions, She did short little demonstrations of how to trace a circle using the empty yogurt containers on the tables, and she showed both what to do and what not to do when putting their book pages together. One boy was unsure oh how to construct it, so she gave him her example to examine, and he was able to figure it out from there.

One of the highlights of the class was when Mrs. Johnson was called over by a boy who wanted to start over on his dot because he didn't like how he cut it out and said it was uneven. She responded with, "Can a dot be uneven?" He thought so, and she told him to try and fix it with cutting away more, and if he still didn't like it, she would let him start with a new piece of paper. He then decided he liked his dot and kept working. He probably felt a need to be perfect, and she assured him that it didn't have to be perfect circle.

Both activities got done in a short amount of time and the students were in charge of putting everything away and cleaning their stations. This was a required, end of the class routine and once their table was clear and they were sitting quietly, the students at that table were allowed to line up at the door.

I thought that the class went smoothly, but I think it felt like a whirlwind for everyone since it started late.