As a lover of art and an artist, I wanted to do this particular lesson for a long time: an action painting unit. Due to curriculum requirements of Grade One, I fused my desire and the primary colours into a classroom project. Action painting is is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist. One of the most famous painter is Jackson Pollock who is considered as the pioneer of abstract expressionism. We learned about him briefly but the main focus was the primary colours and its association with objects and emotions. The students had to work on their individual piece and the class one. It was a dizzying process with lots of classroom management on my part - which was exhausting. However when I observed that they were having fun and following what we learned the last class, it was worth it.
The real life lesson I learned was that if you are going to do a large art project such as this ... you need to consult your custodians before executing your lesson. I learned this the hard way as I was scrubbing the floor after school. I am excited to learn about other dynamics within the school ... hopefully not the hard way.