Schedules and inspiration

At our meeting this week we hashed out the schedule to get our projects started. I'll be coming in on Mondays and Tuesdays all day, and fit in 4 classes a day. Morning classes will be 1 hour and 25 minutes (this gives 5 mintes between classes) and afternoon classes will be 1 hour. Later in the season, perhaps we can switch up the 3rd and 4th grades to give Miss Yancey and Miss DiDonato's classes some more time. It was decided that 2nd grade would only have an hour to better match 2nd grade attention spans. The upcoming schedule of events has been posted in the sidebar at right for each grade.

 2nd grade will be working on balance and inverse addition/subtraction number facts. To start off we'll be taking inspiration from Alexander Calder's mobiles to create our own group kinetic sculpture. Later we will doa  printmaking project to explore positive and negative space and pattern and repetition.

3rd grade will be exploring money and value math skills. We will look at the features of coin design and create our own coin stamps to create value/repetition compositions. We'll calculate the resulting value of our prints and make borders to represent change back from a specified value. We'll also discuss the value of art compared to rarity and hold a mock art auction.

4th grade will be learning about rivers and the interaction of water and landforms. We will explore concentric lines to represent the path of least resistance in making river embroideries like the zen garden above. We will then work in groups to make larger erosion sculptures to show how water carves away land.

 5th grade will be exploring light, shadows, and elapsed time. We will begin with shadow paintings to show how colors interact and how the sun moves across the sky. We will then create sunprints with light sensitive cloth to represent our understanding of time.