Grade Level: 2nd graders

Teacher Name: Ms. Pineda

Artist Name: Ms. Shenequa

Big Idea: Textile Me is an art piece that can communicate and express a students personal experience.

Inquiry Question: How can 2nd graders create a digital textile that best communicates their personal experiences?

—1—

How did your team conceive your project? How was inquiry introduced to students and how did you integrate the inquiry process into your project?

The students learned the basics of color, line, and shape. Once they got those three basics down Ms. Shenequa and Ms. Pineda taught them about their feelings when looking at color, line, and shape which then formed into learning patterns. Once the students were able to create language around their feelings they were then able to tell their stories about what they wanted to share using the basics. Every week Ms. Shenequa and Ms. Pineda came prepared to break things down with the students starting with the making their own color wheels, watching video about color and emotions, leaning about different shapes, and learning about how to create a pattern. All of these activities were done on paper where the students drew and color in the patterns. Ms. Shenequa in the last 2-3 visits transitioned the students onto pixel art on the computer where they took all the skills and exercises they learned on paper onto the "digital sketch pad".

—2—

From the initial proposal, to the midyear report, to the project conclusion, how did your team’s project change over the course of the school year? What motivated each change?

For the most part the project stayed on course with the exception of the student's wanting to do their own thing as far as what they felt their textile should look. So some of the patterns are not traditional patterns where you repeat a shape, line, or color, but more of what they felt and wanted their "pattern" to look. So some students created different spaces or paintings or snapshots of moments shared with family using line, shape, and color which turned out to be better than what Ms. Shenequa and Ms. Pineda originally planned for the students to do.

—3—

How did the project end? Considering the goals you set for yourselves in your proposal, did you achieve what your team sought out to do?

The project ended with the students final digital design printed on a 21" X 18" Fat Quarter Swatch cotton fabric for them to take home. The students wanted enough fabric for them to make something with their design such as a pillow, garment piece, or just put up on the wall. Ms. Shenequa and Ms. Pineda planned on the students creating a pattern that they can repeat traditionally such as the examples above that they were practicing on paper. However, the students were so excited and ran with the idea and created beautiful designs that exceeded the initial idea.

—4—

Choose 1 standard that you worked on and discuss how the standard intersected with a part of your project.

Literacy Standard - Speaking and Listening 2.5

Add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings

Literacy Standard - Writing 2.8

Throughout the project we wanted the students to be able to express themselves through their digital projects. We wanted them to recall events from their lives and create an image that expressed those events from their lives. We started with helping them understand color and the feelings that the students have when looking at those colors. Once the students created their pieces we wanted them to focus on what feelings they wanted others to have when looking at their designs. The students were able to speak what they were trying to convey through their design.

Once they spoke what they were trying to convey, the next step was to put it into writing. We wanted then to explain their color choices and shape choices they used that would help them express what they wanted their designs to say.

—5—

What did you learn about your students and how they learned? What did you learn about the way you teach?

Ms. Shenequa learned that the students enjoyed practicing the steps of learning how to create a pattern and watching videos learning about shape and color. They had difficulty writing a story about their pattern, but tried to put words to how they were feeling when creating their pattern. When it was time to transition into the digital world the students were frustrated and couldn't or didn't want to create their patterns the same way they practiced on paper. In that moment Ms. Shenequa and Ms. Pineda learned to let their imagination run wild and not to put any restrictions on their creativity because it was like it was building up over the weeks and they just wanted to let it out in Pixel Art (the digital software used to create their patterns). Once they had permission to do what feels right to them, the designs/patterns they came up with was unbelievable. Ms. Shenequa learned in that moment that they were listening and participating the whole time leading up to the final project they just didn't want to do it the traditional way. That's okay!

Ms. Pineda learned that her students miss having a full art component embedded into their school year. The happiness and the excitement the students had on the days they worked with Ms. Shenequa brought so much happiness to them. The experiences she brought to my students were so valuable. Guiding them to better understand color, patterns, and analyzing their pieces of work will be so useful as artists and students in the future. Being remote there were many challenges that as artist and teacher we had to overcome. Ms. Shenequa and her patience was amazing. Then when the project went digital, wow did the students excitement multiply. Learning to be artists digitally was so rewarding for them. Their creativity really shined through. So much that we did have to just let the kids loose! We did not want to restrict their creativity and feel their end results were so spectacular.