Tar Beach

Tar Beach is a wonderful book written and illustrated by story quilt artist Faith Ringgold. In the story, Cassie Louise Lighfoot, a poor girl growing up in the city, dreams she can fly and that she owns everything she flies over. I read this book with my third grade classes, and then we created cityscapes of our own. First, the students created a skyline that they cut out of paper to use as a stencil. We used the stencils as a mask while using chalk to create glowing lights. The second class time, we used crayola color sticks (one of my favorite art supplies!) to create windows, streets, bridges, moons, etc. in our cities. The last step of our project was to write a short story about where the students would fly to if they could close their eyes and fly anywhere in the world. I love writing about art because it helps me learn so much about my students and what is really important to them!

     

Here is our writing form:

Classrom Report Cards

When you teach 400+ kids over the course of one week, it presents a few challenges. Keeping track of everyone's name can be tricky, let alone tracking progress and staying on top of behavior concerns. I rely on getting to know each of my 23 classroom teachers' individual rules and behavior system. But over the course of the day, I often forget who needs to pull a ticket, owe a card, color a smiley face, earn a sticker, etc. This year, I developed an "Art Report Card" for each class. There is a space for reflection for the class, which helps remind me to add some closure to my lessons, there is a space for measuring whole-group success, and there are separate boxes to report successes and places where there may be room for improvement. The report is generic enough to be used K-5, but provides the classroom teacher with feedback that lets them see behavior trends for individual students and their class as a whole. It helps me see trends as well. If I am writing down "This class had trouble lining up in a hallway ready line" over and over, I know that I need to spend some time reviewing my expectations for line-up time. I'm hoping that this form will help keep me and my students on track this year!