The Landscape of Independent Thinking

My second grade students are just wrapping up two weeks worth of landscape projects.  The focus of this project was originally to review the concepts learned in first grade with more emphasis on depth, detail, and composition.  As many projects do, it began to take on new meaning as work began.  What began as a simple lesson in drafting a landscape composition became a lesson in independent problem solving.

 As first graders, these students were asked to create a farm landscape similar to the style of Grant Wood.  They used water color and tempera paint.  This year, we reviewed the concepts so that everyone was working toward the same end goal, but the nature of their landscape and the art materials used was totally up to the students.  After several weeks learning and reviewing basic skills and procedures this was a great test to see if that time was truly spent wisely.  It is always tough to find the right balance of review and new knowledge during those first weeks of the school year.  In the end,   I was blown away by the results as were my students.  The energy in the art room while students were busily making their OWN artistic choices was markedly different than it is during  more teacher-driven lessons.  (Often unavoidable when teaching basic skills and procedures.)

 It was even more rewarding to see their faces brighten when I really played up the fact that they were not simply creating another project in art class.  They were also practicing an invaluable life-lesson in being independent, creative thinkers, finding and solving problems on their own.  This was accomplished with some adult coaching, but very little.  In our increasingly hurried world, it seems very easy to brush over the opportunities for coaching children through challenges are becoming few and far between.  In the rush from home to school, to daycare, to soccer, etc., etc. it is not always easy to stop and work through challenges that may come up; however, what may take an extra 5 minutes in the moment saves hours and hours of future of challenges.  Did allowing students to use many different materials at once make for a bit more planning and preparation on my part?  Yes, but it was worth every moment.