Exemplars and thinking back

Wow! So.. um.. where did that year go? I have been on summer vacation for one week after completing my second year of (almost) full time art teaching. It's a good time for reflection.
As I tidied and packed up my room that last week I pulled out all the exemplars that had been piling up in a drawer over the year, sorted them out by grade level and took a pic (with my blurry cell phone camera sadly). These show only the 2D work we did- all 3D work went home with kids and I don't have room for saving my 3D exemplars... Most of these are unfinished, as I rarely display a completed exemplar- usually only works in progress because I like to use them as prompts to see if the kids remember what the objectives are. Like, "Mine's not done yet is it? What should I do to it?" And I think the kids are more creative when they see something a little open-ended or see multiple possibilities.

Kinder

 I cannot believe how many projects we did in Kinder this year!! Almost twice as many as any other grade level. I like to keep things short and sweet with the little ones because they have such a short attention span. The kids' favorite ones were painting rainbows, drawing fireworks, and making "wild things". The teachers' faves were their self-portraits in the snow and their cherry blossom trees and origami butterflies. My favorite was pattern Elmer elephants and Wild things. I never want to do bleeding tissue paper watercolor effects ever again.

First

 My first graders were also prolific (despite their constant chatter and my doubts that they ever listened to directions....). The kids' favorites were the scarab beetle sculpture and puppet theatres. The schoolwide favorites were the family portraits and Australian animals. My favorites were the "Dot" paintings and the bug jars (although they seriously freaked out our receptionist who had to stare at a display of them across from her desk for a few weeks- and I had numerous requests to switch out to something else!!). The city collage was a flop, because their scissor and glue skills were not yet developed enough for it.

2nd

 My second graders are another chatty group, and we did not get quite as much done as I'd like, but there were some good things. The kids LOVE the Oaxacan wood carvings(not shown) and predator/prey drawings, and so did I. We started and ended the year well, but the middle part was sluggish. The value landscape was a total flop and the self-portrait reading a book was just too long. Part of the problem was all our snow days.... but I'll be revamping a lot of things in my second grade for next year.

Third grade

 I loved, loved, loved my third grade classes this year. I always see them first thing in the morning, when they are fresh and eager to start their day. I had a very creative bunch who worked very hard to do well. I think all our projects were pretty good, but the kids absolutely loved sewing and making clay coil pots(not shown). Although I loved their food oil pastels with mosaic border, the mosaics took too long. The school loved seeing their Gyotaku fish prints.

4th

 Oh 4th and 5th graders. What a disappointment.. I have a lot of work to do to figure out how to get you all more productive. Maybe we should just have silent art.... The 4th graders seemed most engaged with their impressionist landscapes and US maps/states project. I really liked their figure motion drawings and metal toolings. I did not like rotating 4 classes through papier mache projects over 3 months. I have so little space for storing sculpture. I think that papier mache gargoyle project has to go!

5th

And 5th grade. Is it me? Is it you? We never even got to make ANY sculpture this year. Definitely revamping the 4th and 5th grade curriculum. Maybe you all need to work smaller too. This might not be a fair representation though, there's at least 2 projects missing from the above photo, but still. I've got my work cut out for me.
 I'll do another reflection post with kids' art later on. But laying out exemplars was a great way to get the big picture of what each grade accomplished. Having these pictures will also help me as I plan next year and decide what to keep or toss or modify to make sure my kids are getting a quality art experience. Year 3 will be even better, I'm sure.
Is reflection part of your end-of-the-year ritual?