September 26, 2013

TO HOLIDAY..OR NOT TO HOLIDAY?!?!


I love this sign!!!!!!!  Saw it in Target the other day...made me laugh!!!!!
I've shared before on my blog how I do not do holidays in my classroom.  We have a large number of JW students (they do not celebrate holidays...not even birthdays)....and I don't want to make them feel excluded.   So I focus on seasons!  Everyone can do seasons...plus it lasts longer!  A fall picture can go all the way till the end of Thanksgiving.  Who wants to see a Halloween picture in Nov?!?!  

HOW DO YOU HANDLE HOLIDAY ART(OR NOT HANDLE HOLIDAY ART)?!?!

9 comments:

  1. We do seasonal art as well, no holidays. I usually offer an observational drawing lesson on a day when students are finishing up one activity at different paces, for example some classes are making contour drawing still lifes from a big box of artificial pumpkins, gourds, pinecones and leaves I have collected. I would love to do Day of the Dead lessons but that one can be easily misunderstood so I shy away from it in the elementary classroom, just to save myself the headache.

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  2. There's a town wide ban on holidays in general - no subject area can cover them at all. It's just part of the separation of church and state bit. Seasonal is the way to go - provided you can find a way to fit it into the required concept/artist for that particular marking period in the grade that concept is required for. Like right now, 1st marking period is Space for 3rd grade so we're doing pumpkin patch landscapes with one point perspective as well as including size changes for foreground, middle ground, and background. 5th grade's first unit is movement so you have to reach a bit harder to find something autumn related to do. Sometimes you can get away with "autumn leaves blowing in the wind" as movement and sometimes your supervisor tells you to get back to something "more formal" under the concept. C'est la vie!

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  3. When I started teaching, I didn't do any holiday art because I was worried about kids who celebrated Hanukkah instead of Christmas. But, I later found out that we don't have any students at our small rural school that don't celebrate Christian holidays. So, I do Christmas things. Some projects are more like a snowy landscape, and the students can choose to put ornaments on the evergreen trees. I have done a few Christmas ornament projects, which I told the kids if they didn't have a Christmas tree (some families can't afford one), to hang it in the window, or give it as a gift. For Halloween, I'm a little more careful....I do a lot of pumpkins, but none with faces! Everyone loves pumpkin pie in the fall, but only some families celebrate Halloween to its fullest.

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  4. No holidays for me, too. I follow the seasons somewhat but really don't make a huge focus even on that. I also think it helps students to realize we are doing art for the sake of art and not to create something to honor a holiday.

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  5. No holidays for me either. Even though I teach in a private school and could totally teach holiday inspired projects and lessons, I rather have students focus on the art. I don't want art to take a backseat to a holiday or celebration, especially when they will be creating something in their homeroom class anyway. I still acknowledge the event and we have fun talking about it along with what we are working on.

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  6. What a great approach. It reinforces unity rather than separation from each other. At the same time I imagine it encourages respect for our differences. No one is more important because of beliefs.

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  7. Hi Mr. E!

    I'm also on the "seasonal" track. My state doesn't have any Art GLE's that relate to holidays (although Music does). Sometimes I do a holiday lesson on the week of the holiday but give kids the option to not make it holiday-ish. (For example, we made a cat with a santa hat but I let kids make a baseball hat if they wanted.) I just want to be respectful of my JW and Islamic students. I try not to single anyone out so I model both options and let the students choose. So far, haven't had any parent or student complaints.

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  8. As a secondary art teacher, I typically don't participate in any holiday art, except, in my still life set ups. I usually have around 8-10 still life options for my Introduction to Art Students. I bring in a ton of items, metal ware, holiday items, primitives, antiques, fake cakes, and have my students choose what they want to set up. It usually takes them about a week. We discuss what makes a still life successful and why the subjects they choose are important. This year they have a still life that is a kind of primitive haunted house theme crossed with Edgar Allen Poe. There are three paper mache houses, fake candy corn, a raven, and mini pumpkins. There is also a bakery shop still life, harvest scene with gourds and leaves,3 sports related still lives, primitive children's toys, a tea party, a "writer's block" and the traditional farmhouse set with crocks, Wagner ware, glass jars and eggs. Since I don't set them, and I allow the students to also bring in items to personalize the still life, I don't feel it is infringing or impeding anyone's beliefs or values, and they have plenty to choose from.

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  9. Although I prefer to keep my projects season in their theme, I have from time to time ventured into the holiday area. However, I stay away from any Christmas projects. I work with students emotional and behavioral issues at an alternative school in the north east and this year I did have students put faces on cut paper pumpkins. For the younger grades looking at holiday traditions is part of the standards taught at those grades and I approached it as such and we looked at how old Halloween is. I also had them look at their faces in mirrors and explore how our faces look when we are mad, sad, happy, and silly and we put one of those emotions on their cut paper pumpkins. I also had a chance to look at folding and cutting skills.. At the moment our small school had students who celebrate many of the holidays in the USA. I plan to look at what kinds of foods they eat at Thanksgiving and what the Pilgrims ate for their thanksgiving so it has a history basis.

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