Revised APPR Assessments Part 1: Kindergarten

I didn't really share the outcome of my post-assessments last year, mainly due to the fact that there was some confusion around them with calculations.  In the end, I "passed" and did all right, but my results weren't exactly where I wanted them to be for the post-assessment scores.  Thus, I revamped two of my assessments.  Last year, I did my SLO assessments in 5th, 2nd, 1st and Kindergarten.  My LLO was in 4th grade.  Lucky for me, I have one less to do this year!  This year, my SLO assessments are with Studio Art, Art 7, and 1st grade and I chose to use Kindergarten for my LLO so I could revamp my rubrics.

Today is our first Staff Development day and luckily, I have no place to be except in my classrooms working on my SLOs and LLO, which are technically due today!  In the next few posts, I'm going to share with you my old assessments from last year and what I plan on doing differently this year.  I'll also share with you how I am setting my goals, as I am doing something completely different this year as well.

Last year I did a cutting and gluing rubric and I had a 97% success rate at students passing, which was great, but made it seem as though the assessment wasn't quite as rigorous as it should have been.  So, this year, I changed up my plans for the Kindergarten assessment, and I've actually changed my mind twice about the pre-assessment.  Back in September I shared a post with my ideas for this year, which you can see here.  I originally gave students a shape sheet with fewer shapes and then a quiz that quizzed them on shapes, lines and basic color theory.  I was struggling to figure out how I would make sure those kinders could read their color words by the end of the year to take a "quiz" (since I would essentially have to create a test bank), and then I decided to scratch that idea, after I had already given out that assessment.

Now, I've decided to continue using the shape sheet for cutting and gluing but also the Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cow project we just did.  This way, I am still assessing their cutting and gluing skills, but also their ability to draw shapes, their use of crayons and how they color.  As I looked at all of these projects, I realized that even though I was trying to teach them how to use the shapes and how to color properly, it's going to take a while for them to improve, so I should still be able to show growth.

  

These are the two activities being used for the kindergarten pre-assessment...

And these are the two rubrics being used for the kindergarten pre-assessments...

At the end of the year, students will then be assessed on cutting & gluing, as well as their coloring and shape skills all in one project...the primary playground project!  In that project, students have to cut out their own shapes and create a playground.  It will assess their ability to cut out shapes that are discernible from one another, how well they glue the shapes down (still using the dot glue method), and how well they utilize their entire paper.  Last year I did this as a review projects for primary colors and shapes, but it'll make a great end of the year assessment, I think.  Instead of having the students do it on 9"x12" paper, I'll give them the bigger sheets like I did for their pre-assessment cows.

 

Two kindergarten examples from last year, done back in February.

And this is the revamped rubric for assessing the post-assessment.

I know these rubrics are hard to read...I'm doing this at school right now and don't have a nicer way of taking a screen shot, so you can find them on the SmARTteacher.

Kindergarten: Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cows

Sorry about the lack of posts in a few days...I've been having troubles with my internet at home and there is just no time during the day for me to write a post during school!  We're finally finishing up our first projects on the elementary side, and the first I'm going to share are going to be our "Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cows".

Let me precede this by saying that I don't usually start out with a project like this for kindergarten...meaning one where we jump right into drawing a big picture together.  I usually start with line and shape and the primary and secondary colors.  I usually incorporate a Mondrian collage at the beginning of the year too.  I like starting with those types of projects because they are easy for the students to be successful on, they are simple projects that I use to help train the students on clean-up procedures, and they tend to be one day projects instead of two day projects.

The reason I decided to start off with the shape cows this year is because of Common Core.  The first listening and learning strand the kindergartners start with is the nursery rhyme strand.  I got the idea for this drawing from the pattern shape cows I did last year with kindergarten so I combined a little bit of that lesson with a little bit of my normal shape lesson.

This project took some students two days to complete, and a few others need about 10 minutes at the beginning of next class to finish theirs.  On the first day, I passed out my shape practice worksheet.  We read the word of each shape (by identifying the first letter and the sound it makes), traced each shape three times and then drew the shape in the empty space on the right.

In the same class, I then passed out large drawing paper and we got to work drawing our cows.  I start by drawing a circle for the nose, then we had the head, triangle ears and horns, etc.  We use a rectangle for the body and legs.  Next comes the moon.  As I'm drawing this step-by-step on the board, the students have to draw each step on their own paper.  We talk about where I'm placing the cow and why (up at the top because it's jumping over the moon, which is in the sky), as well as how big I am drawing everything in comparison to the paper itself.  After the cow and moon were drawn, we did the dish and the spoon (circles and rectangles).  The last drawing step was their first introduction to the horizon line and how to use it.

On the second day, we reviewed the horizon line and then talked about having good details.  I asked them, "What else can you add to your drawing to make it interesting to look at?"  I received responses like the cat and the fiddle, a house, the sky, the grass, a tree...  Students got to work drawing some details.  Then we traced everything with Sharpie marker (which for some reason is a hard concept for some kinders to understand!) and then colored.  This is also where I introduced my craftsmanship rubric and we talked about scribble coloring versus nice coloring.

Here are some of the completed drawings! 

I must say that I was a bit surprised at the number of kinders in this group that had good control over their pencil and a little more advanced drawing skills than I expected!  A majority of the cows actually look like cows!  As I look these over and grade them, I'm actually almost thinking that I could use this project as a pre-assessment for SLO's instead of my normal cutting and gluing rubric.  I could assess the use of shapes, being able to draw shapes, and coloring craftsmanship very easily with this project.  All of these could be assessed at the end of the year with a similar drawing project and would make it like less of a test...something I will be keeping in mind on the back burner!

Something else I found out about the way I taught this (and teach other projects using the craftsmanship rubric) is that is connects with what the kinder teachers work on with coloring in class.  As I was showing their teacher these drawings, she mentioned that they do "3 start coloring" in class, where the (1) entire paper should be colored, (2) they must use neat coloring and (3) they need to try and use the true colors for objects.

No-No Board and the Colored Pencil Test

A while back I did a post comparing Prang markers to RoseArt...today's post will compare Prang colored pencils to Crayola's.

Yesterday was our first staff development day, and luckily our administration gave us quite a bit of time to work in our classrooms, which was a relief because I still have a lot to do!  Luckily, I crossed off quite a bit on my checklist (only to find that there was more stuff to do that I overlooked...go figure!), including putting away the remaining supplies in the high school room, cleaning out the last supply cabinet that I hadn't touched yet, and finishing up my No-No Board in my elementary room.

The night before, I pulled out the colored pencils to finish making the pictures for my board.  In case you haven't seen a No-No Board before, I just want to say that the idea is not mine...I found the idea over at Mr. E's blog.  Now, I've noticed there tends to be a bit of a debate whenever one of these shows up in a teachers classroom, but I think it will complement my craftsmanship rubric pretty well.  (Phyl did a post a while back about the controversial No-No Board as well...)

I concentrate in all grades on these drawing ideas ("Y" trees, using a horizon line, etc.).  Don't get me wrong, this is not here to squelch creativity, but particularly with the older students, they should be moving past these drawing cliches.  Unless a project or assignment calls for these "stereotypes" (like cartooning...it's okay to have words in your art!), I'd be more impressed if students were more creative and more mature in their depictions, which is what I aim for.  If you check out my craftsmanship rubric, you'll notice that the things on the No-No board correspond with the craftsmanship rubric descriptors.

Ok, enough of that...onto the colored pencils!

The first thing you'll be likely to notice is that the Prang pencils are thicker and more of a triangular shape...

Next are the colors.  Crayola has two greens, red-orange and a white, compared to the Prang which has a magenta, gold and silver.  I think you get a broader range of colors with the Prang, which is nice, especially with having the gold and silver...not having a white is the only drawback, especially if you like to do projects on dark paper.

Just for fun, I decided to pull out some of my own personal colored pencils, which also happen to be by Prang!  I bought these colored pencils years ago at an Office Max and I can't find them anymore, so I wanted to see how similar the Prang colored pencils were that I got in the mail.

The only colored pencil I'm missing from my personal ones is a black...I used that sucker till it was gone!  At the bottom of the page I did a quick value scale, Prang on top, Crayola on bottom.

Finally, I decided to see how the colored pencils would blend together.  Crayola -is on the left, Prang on the right.

 So, here are my findings:

Crayola
-thinner pencil & lead = easier to break
-thin pencils are harder for small hands to control
+thin pencils fit into most pencil sharpeners
-does not come with a pencil sharpener
-harder lead makes for harder blending
+comes with a white
$2.59 at Office Depot
$1.95 at Walmart (though current school sale puts them at 97 cents)

Prang
+thicker pencil and lead = sturdier
+thick pencils make it easier for younger students to hold and control
-thicker pencils that don't fit into all pencil sharpeners
+comes with a pencil sharpener in the package
+medium lead makes for easier blending
+comes with gold and silver
$1.96 at Walmart
$1.97 at Amazon.com

My Personal Prang Ticonderogas
+thin pencils with a thicker lead (fit into pencil sharpeners, less chance of breakage)
+soft lead makes for excellent blending (no streaky coloring!)

All in all, I'd say the Prang colored pencils are a pretty good deal.  Crayola is a good one to go with if you catch them on sale, but otherwise the price is comparable.  Once I go through the stock-pile of colored pencils I currently have in the next year or so, I may consider purchasing some of these Prangs for my younger elementary kids.  Now, if I could find the Prang Ticonderogas at a decent price, I'd definitely buy them for my high school students!  This year I am trying out Sarget colored pencils with them...

Primary Playgrounds: A Review in Shape and Primary Colors!

I saw this project on Pinterest (the link on Pinterest takes you to the K-8 Art blog...) so I used it and altered it to my students.  I did this for my Kindergarteners as an "in-between" filler projects between units.  Two of my three classes have done this project, and the other will be doing it this week while the other two classes catch up.

The teacher at K-8 Art described giving each table a tray of pre-cut shapes, however since I've been working on shapes since the beginning of the year, I simply gave each student a 4"x6" piece of  red, yellow and blue construction paper.  This was a great review of the primary colors, as well as shapes.  

Before beginning, I showed students the three colors and asked what they knew or remembered about them.  I'd say a good 2/3 of the class remembered they were called the primary colors, which is promising!  I then showed them the examples from the K-8 Art blog and then reviewed with students the shapes that were used to build the playgrounds.

We took one day to cut and glue (with glue sticks) the playground together, and then another day to color the background (which was another good review for craftsmanship, details and a horizon line!).  Since my pre- and post-assessment in Kindergarten for APPR deals with cutting and gluing shapes, this is an excellent review for the middle of the year!  (Disclaimer:  My rubric from the Kindergarten assessments has since changed from my original plan...too much to grade in those, and unusable since the requirement was put in place that someone else must grade your student's post-assessments.)  I actually think that I might inocorporate this next year for my pre- and post-assessment instead of the worksheet to make it more of an artistic assessment!

Craftsmanship Rubric

I know I may seem like an over-achiever (which I know I annoyingly can be sometimes!) but I figured I would post for a second time today since I probably won't have time to do any posts this weekend.  My brother is coming to visit!

Anyways, I achieved quite a few things since this morning (this is what happens when you don't make any big plans over the summer, you become a workaholic!).  First, I finally finished my Artist of the Week display items...I added the handles to the paint cans!

I rolled up silver paper to make the handles.

And I created a craftsmanship rubric to hang in my room.  I'm sure we've all seen these floating around Pinterest, such as the one here at Elementary Art Moments Blog.  I altered mine a little bit to suit my kids.  All I need to do now is write up the comments that go for each grade.  All of my rubrics are rated 0-4 in accordance with Marzano.

And, last but not least, I finished my last power point and unit packet for 6th grade!  Finally!  Here are a few snippets from my Native American packet...