Valentine's Day with the Middle Schoolers

The students watched a movie about art involving paper, and more specifically origami. The movie covered everything from how paper is made to contemporary artists that practice origami today. It was obviously an inspiration to the students, as there were many "ooh's" and "aah's" throughout the movie. The title was Between the Folds. Some of the artists' works were inspired by animals and realism. Others were inspired my geometric pattern or moving parts. The main thing I learned from observing the students and this movie is that, THEY LOVE FOLDING PAPER. There is something about turning a flat piece of paper, which is readily available in any school, into something extraordinary and three-dimensional. It is a definite must to include origami into my own lesson planning as a teacher, as most students are enthusiastic on the subject.

As the movie was playing, pieces of paper were passed out to keep their hands busy and interested in the subject at hand. Some of the students practiced folding and imitating the movie, while others were content sitting and watching. It is interesting to see how different learning styles of students are apparent, simply by observing them.

As the students were watching and folding, the teacher and I discussed grading. She showed me positive and negative space projects in which the students had completed before I began attending. This is a challenging project for some students, since positive and negative space is an abstract concept and tricky for some of the less experienced students. It was apparent that the students learned from the project, however. She went on to show me her rubric, which is universal for her projects, with little adjustments here and there. She also produces teacher comment sheets that apply to strengths and weaknesses, so she doesn't have to come up with original statements for every single rubric. She simply picks the relevant statements from her list and writes them on the rubric. Organization is obviously important to her, and is one of her strengths. Everything was organized in charts and lists. I appreciated seeing examples of this and hope to utilize the information and structure of her grading system in my own classroom.

When the movie was over, the students had to take their clay containers out of the bags and put them on a shelf for firing. The teacher holds them accountable for turning their projects in correctly and on time, in the right place.