art news

Journal assignment:
Record your happiest moment of the day.

Today Caleb, a first grader with serious ants in his pants, walked into my room and asked me if we were working on positive/negative space again today... I almost fell down from the shock... I said yes, and when the class got themselves settled I demonstrated how we would continue cutting and pasting to complete our project. When I held my sample up, Caleb, who has to sit right in front of me, piped up, Oh, that is where the positive space is and that is where the negative is, as he pointed out the correct areas.

The class worked like beavers, most of them getting things cut and pasted the way I had shown them. Then we went around the room showing the work and identifying the positive and negative parts of the picture. Some of them got it, but many had to be prompted to answer correctly.

When their teacher arrived to pick them up, I asked Caleb to tell her what we had done. He held up his picture and while pointing showed her the negative and positive areas.

Makes me smile just to think about it... and challenged, too as I now see I need to be pretty creative to keep a step ahead of Caleb.