Mr. Rosko’s Lesson Summary;
As a high school Art teacher, in a department who’s emphasis has become media literacy and communication, I’m always looking for real world meaningful experiences that allow our art students to use their skills in a way that communicates or creates a positive experience for the viewer.
I had agreed to be a “Secret Reader” in my oldest daughters Greene School District first grade classroom, but we wanted to kind of take the experience up a notch and make it educationally significant for both her class as well as at least one of mine.
The text selected was “The Color Monster”, a book that discusses how emotions can be messy, and how do we deal with those messy big emotions.
High school students from CF read the book, and we examined the illustrations and discussed the technique the author (who was also the illustrator) used to create the unique imagery we see in the book.
The whole point of the “Bad Art” class was to introduce students to a series of techniques and crafts that are often considered “kitsch” or “childish” or “low brow” – all of which make a valid piece of art seem less sophisticated (a philosophy which I disagree with, there is rarely such a thing as bad art).
We used a technique to paint our envelope monsters (painting with marbles) to create a texture similar to what the author used in her book illustrations, and then decorated the painted envelopes to create monsters that expressed our favorite (or least favorite emotions).
We then put a little note in each envelope for a first grader, that explained what HS students did to help deal with their “big emotions”.
On May 12th, I took the box of monsters to Greene Primary School, where I read “The Color Monster” to my daughters first grade class, and we discussed the artwork, the story, emotions, the fact that big kids have big emotions they struggle to deal with sometimes too, and ways to help work on handling those emotions.
Greene students then created their own envelope monsters.
Students from Greene then each got an envelope monster with their name on it, and we enjoyed the envelopes, read the notes together.
On their way out however, the first graders were very concerned that the CF kids no longer had their monsters, so they now plan to create envelope monsters for my students in return.
Miss Rosko’s Lesson Summary;
Hi my name is Miss Rosko, I am a 1st grade teacher here at Greene Primary. My first grade class has been doing a secret reader all year long. A special secret person come into our rooms on Fridays and reads a story to the class and help them with a craft to match the story. For this final secret reader, I partnered up with my dad Keith Rosko who is the high school art teacher at Chenango Forks. Our class has been talking a lot about big emotions and what to do when you’re having these big emotions. My dad Keith Rosko came in and read the book The Color Monsters to the kids. This books talks about ways to sort your emotions when you’re having them. After reading the book the kids will be creating their very own color monsters out of envelopes! To make this extra special my dad had his 11th and 12th grade art students also create color monsters to give to my first graders!!! So, after the kiddos make their own color monsters, they will each get their own personally made by a high school student color monster.
Inside each of the high school made color monsters is a strategy for ways to help you deal with big emotions. For example, one high-schooler made a cookie monster color monster and the note inside says "when I get upset, I like to eat cookies to help me feel better. You should try this next time you are upset!” The students were so excited to create their own color monsters and even more excited to receive their specially made color monster from a high school friend. The students read the notes inside and were so excited to try their new strategies! I was very excited to be able to collaborate with my dad on this super fun activity for the kiddos and I was glad to see how wonderfully it went!
