Katie Andreeva - Jar of Flowers

This project was based on the artist Katia Andreeva, she is a watercolor painter known for her abstracted flower paintings. We learned that Katia was born in russia and she is currently living in Minneapolis, where her art is hanging in the russian art museum there. For this project the students were being inspired by her water color flowers. The students learned about making 3D shapes when making the jars. The project looked like students cut out different types of jars on of construction paper and glued them on the water color paper. Once the jar was glued on the students painted all sorts of different abstracted flowers coming out of the jar.

I thought Mak did a really good job managing the classroom for her lesson. One on her classroom management tools that really stuck out to me was that she did her demonstrating at a separate table, this worked really well. I can see myself incorporating this into my own future lessons, especially with smaller classes. I noticed that this really helped the students from being distracted at their spot and students seemed more involved with the introduction and demonstration. I felt that that the first objective for this lesson was students can create a 3D shape on paper. she made sure that this objective was met by showing them how to create the 3D cylinder and having lots of examples of jars on the work table. The second objective for this lesson was students can created abstracted flowers based on Katia flower paintings. The thing I believe really stuck out in Mak’s teaching of this lesson was her use of questioning. Mak was asking her students all different questions about the lesson all the way up until the end when we were taking a group photo. This kept the student engaged and they kept thinking about what there were learning.

One of the things I noticed Mak did really well was when Mia was interrupting during the demonstration, Mak was able to redirect Mia and keep the focus of the classes. The biggest thing I believe she needs to improve on was the length of her lesson. This wasn’t a big enough project to fill a hour and 45 minute class. The last 20 minutes or so all the students had done two or three paintings and they were getting antsy and unfocused. Other than that I believe Mak did a really good lesson and it was probably the best lesson so far. The more I teach and work with the students on saturdays the more I realize how much I love working with students. On the flip side the more I teach the more I realize how much work it really is and how much I have to stay passionate about what I am teaching.