Art+Outside+the+Classroom

__November 18, 2010__ One of my second-grade classes had finished our spider project, but had shown an ongoing interest in the subject (okay, it was the class which had brought me the dead hornet). We have covered the idea of habitat several times over the years, so I took a work session to examine spider habitats a little more closely. They were most familiar with spiders who live in webs, so I gave examples of the webs that they would most likely encounter around their school and homes. One quick tried-but-true mini-sketchbook making session later, we were out around campus, misting the webs we found and tallying up orb webs, cobwebs, etc. I was a little surprised at their level of excitement over this spiderish scavenger hunt -- each new web discovered drew cheers and the cry of "Looklooklook!"

__November 12, 2010__ I am on a rotating schedule of morning duty at KES. I am usually stationed outside for bus duty, monitoring student traffic between our three main campus buildings. In between bus arrivals and influxes of herds of waffle-hungry students at a time, I am occasionally blessed with random moments of quiet where I can think ahead into my day and do some mental planning.

One of these rare moments of mini-reverie was popped suddenly one morning when two of my second-grade students came skidding up to me like Thing One and Thing Two, heralding their coming with the dreaded cry, "Mr. Wright, Mr. Wright! Please! You've got to come quick!"

I glanced through the windows of the cafeteria and saw no syrup-induced melees, and a check of the sidewalks revealed no one laying injured on the ground. Curious, I trailed along behind TO and TT as they preceded me towards the main building. They came to another screeching stop (students moving in urgency, I have learned, only have two modes, full tilt boogie and screeching stop) by one of the aluminum support beams of the overhead awning that shelters our sidewalks. They began to bounce around excitedly, pointing at something on the beam just above my head.

As I expected, it was a spider. Since starting the spider section of my invertebrate unit, some of my more enthusiastic junior biologists have been bringing in all manner of creepy-crawlies, most of them deceased. Just two days previously, I had been gifted with the corpse of a European hornet. We had a lot of fun debunking some of the more stubborn myths about hornets and counted the rings on its abdomen to determine whether it was a girl or boy.

The spider pointed out to me on the awning support (who was being very still, incidentally, and clearly wanted no part of the fun going on down on the ground) was a female [|green lynx spider], and a beauty at that.

"Catch it!" TO urged.

"Yeah, and let's look at it when we come to art today!" added TT.

I improvised a spider-carrier (origami cups have many uses, it seems) and bagged the unhappy-looking little green arachnid. "Juliette" was our guest until the next day, when I turned her loose outside on the green leaves of a dogwood tree, where she might be better hidden from predators, the elements, and second-graders.

__November 10, 2010__ As part of my push to integrate my curriculum with the school's science curriculum, I use a multi-project arc on invertebrates with my second-graders. During the month of October we were examining spiders, finishing with a cut-paper collaged spider (emphasis on symmetry, balance, pattern, depth through overlapping, with added study of vertebrates vs. invertebrates, insects vs. arachnids, animal habitats, and the safe way of observing wild animals).

The most fun part of the project for me was our "guests" who turned up for class each week. Our custodians do an amazingly thorough job cleaning our school each day, but unless you work in a school in Antarctica, there's going to be spiders roaming the hallways each afternoon after the hundreds of quick-to-stomp feet have left for the day. I constantly come across many kinds of the harmless little guys each morning when I show up for work and have adopted a catch-and-release system for giving the students a little direct observation time with our eight-legged friends.

Around mid-month, the custodian who manages my hall pointed out a Carolinean wolf spider (the largest species in North America) scuttling around in the lobby. Perfect. "Andy" stayed with us for a few days, giving loads of thrills and chills being released into the wild. It's one thing to talk to the students about symmetrical animal markings and anatomical oddities like pedilaps or four pairs of eyes, but to have them be able to see it up close (through the safety of a powerful magniying glass and through a triple-rubber-banded sheet of clear plastic, of course) is something really great to watch. More later, including the appearance of "Juliette", and my second-graders' Spider Walk.