Spec Ed Art Activity: Coloured mosaic on black paper.

I found a bucketful of little cardboard mosaic squares in my art room supplies and heaps of black A3 paper.  Popping the items on the tables, each student got their own squares and glue stick, we were ready to go.  After they settled I told them they were able to make any picture they wished using the mosaic coloured squares. 

Art/craft activities like this are great IMO because they allow students to have ownership over their work through the creative and often unstructured nature of the picture to be completed.  Design/picture choice, the colours they use and so on.  It's also a very hands-on class and allowing some freedom is often engaging those that struggle against the rules and boundaries if I had set a theme.  

While completing this art piece, lots of skills were being used.

• eye/hand co-ordination
• fine motor skills - pinch technique
• spatial awareness in the placement and orientation of mosaic coloured squares
• colour choice/selection
• using the glue stick as the "drawing medium"
• not using too much glue
• understanding that some of the squares were different colours on each side

I could go on but you get the idea.

Here are some of the pictures/artwork students completed from this group.

As you can see it's a fairly simple thing to set up and do but the variety of patterns and pictures that emerge are wonderful and unique.  Some are quite structured, some quite unstructured and some are a mix of the two.  Some just did interesting patterns and some drew pictures.  Although they share a similarity of medium, each student could make something unique that they found visually pleasing, allowing them a sense of pride in their work no matter what the result.
 

There's an interesting story attached to this lesson too!

For one of the boys in this group it was their first time to the new art room (not an uncommon occurrence because it was a brand new school at the start of the week).  Being a new space, most students enjoy going for a wander and have a look around and being in special development it's usually best to let them explore new surroundings.  This boy followed the rest of the group on their exploration, sat at the table as instructed and got started on their art work with the rest of the group.  He is non-verbal but communicates through facial expressions.  The ES staff member came to me straight away, a little frazzled and said this non-verbal student's attention span is short and  he would need to be redirected to another activity.  The alternative was that he would search the room for anything plastic and proceed to put holes in the item.  He enjoys the sensory input of this activity and will seek out plastic is his attention is not held by the activities he is offered.

I asked what would keep him engaged or what he liked.  The ES staff member seemed surprised by the question.  Took a second to respond with an answer.  He likes to paint using dots.  Rightio, so I pulled out some paint from the last class and started adding different items for him to dot with.  The ES staff member looked on, surprised at my actions.  I set up another station where he was able to sit on his own and explore these items without disrupting the rest of the class (who were all settled and enjoying their art activity of making mosaic squares pictures).

With only 1/3 of the lesson over, as predicted, this student got up from his chair and started to explore the room again, looking for something plastic.  Taking him gently by the arm, the ES staff member guided him to the paint station, setting him up with an art smock and offered him a seat.  He looked over the table in front of him and the biggest smile came over his face!  He sat and started exploring the items, and starting to dot.

In the background, I was still running around trying to find one more item.  But for the life of me, I couldn't find it anywhere.  I was looking for a clothes peg to use as a handle on a pompom for a makeshift dotting tool, an idea I got from here: 

Flower Pom Pom painting - kids craft.

Giving up on the peg, I remembered I had some small bull clips that would do the same job.  I handed the bull clips and a couple of pompoms balls to the ES.  She had the bull clip attached and had jumped in to show the student how to use it.

She then stopped and asked me about where I got all my ideas from.  Essentially I had just been researching art activities all weekend, building up a mental file of off the cuff activities in case I needed them. Being in Spec Dev it's always handy to have backup ideas in case what you are doing isn't working for one or more of the students. Some of the students just won't engage with something you choose no matter how good everyone else thinks it is.

In the end this boy ended up with the pompoms, a cotton bud and a stick of chalk.  I gave him black paper like the rest of the students and a range of colours and he was encouraged to experiment.  It was interesting watching him work his way through the colours to find out what worked well, and didn't work so well, on black paper.

 

Resourcefulness is a very positive trait for a CRT in Special Development.  No matter what you plan or what plan is left for you, there's always that chance that one of the students just won't be engaged by it and wander off to engage in some challenging behaviour instead.  A positive handle on engagement techniques and a bank of ideas to be used at a moment's notice is a very handy thing to have.  The picture above shows that the student was re-engaged with learning and moved on to create some work he could be proud of.

It allows you to differentiate the current activity based on student needs or even put something different but also productive into place quickly when required, keeping all of your students engaged and learning even if it doesn't precisely line up with what you've planned. 

Regards

Mel.