week of Dec 19-20

 2nd- We've added the FOREGROUND details to our weather pictures. The kids had a chance to draw in Sharpie marker first and then carefully paint in the details. Some are farther than others. I'm not sure whether to allow another painting day or take them as is for our windsock when we get back from break.

 It's very interesting to see the range of artistic development in this age group- from figure drawing styles to carefulness in painting.

 I think we'll have a little writing activity next time for the kids to describe their pictures.

 3rd grade: Ms Didonato's class began the sound lesson with drawing high and low wavy lines to match played notes on my recorder. Ms O'Donnell's class completed making their kalimbas! There's one last detail and some playing and reflection time in store for them.

 4th grade: Ms. McGinley's class continued their maps. We thought about the purpose of maps and what features might be on a map. I only asked for 6 but they came up with over 20 things that might be found on a map. The Smartboard came in handy as we looked up images of lots of different maps. The students finished sketching and began crayon coloring the details on their maps. Eventually we'll use watercolor to paint the background water and land. Ms. Yancey's class completed their collaborative sculpture and began sketching their maps after a brief map brainstorm. They're catching up quickly.

 5th: Both classes have completed their 3 form templates and cut out their felt pieces t begin stitching. When we get back we'll have a short practice stitch piece and then begin stitching their forms. They've all had a chance to brainstorm what their forms might become, but it will be easier for them to visualize once their forms are constructed.

Hoping everyone has a relaxing Winter Break! See you in 2012!

week of 12/12/11

2nd grade: We started our paintings for the collaborative windsock. We talked about BACKGROUND and HORIZON line in a landscape painting. The kids chose colors for sky and ground based off of their sketches from the previous week about weather. Some students experimented a little with color mixing to get lighter and darker colors. Next week we'll add foreground details.

 3rd grade: Ms. O'Donnell's class continued with our sound lesson and wavelength drawings. I played some songs from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" for them to notice high sounds and low sounds to add lines to their wavelength drawings. Then we showed them the kalimba and compared the real one Ms. O'Donnell had brought in with the sample I had made. We compared which one had higher and lower sounds, and which one was louder or softer. With its hollow soundboard the real kalimba was much louder, but my sample kalimba got louder when I placed it on a desk to play it. We talked a little about why instruments might have decorations before we wrapped our soundboard block of wood with our wavelength drawings.

 Ms Didonato's class concluded their notan project successfully. Here are some of their finished projects:

 4th grade: Ms McGinley's class completed their erosion sculpture. We gathered around the pieces and worked out together how to place them- It was a very thoughtful discussion. Once they were arranged I invited the kids to imagine they were explorers coming to a new land and they had to send a map back to their governor to get permission and money to build a new settlement here.

 We spent some time sketching the landforms and brainstorming what their settlement would need. They were encouraged to add roads, transportation, cities, businesses, recreation, and a key for their map.

 Above is their relief sculpture hanging in the hallway, and below are some of their map sketches. It's a good thing they are a little hard to see- they were told to "draw like a feather" so lines would be easy to erase.

Ms Yancey's class is almost finished their group sculptures and should be ready to move onto the larger layout next week.

5th grade: Ms Albert's class worked on identifying geometric forms, the shapes of their faces and bases, and laying out patterns for creating their own forms. It was much easier than the previous attempt at this lesson with the other class the week before (I needed to provide more concrete examples and better directions)- I created models out of cardboard for them to handle as they identified the forms, and we worked in puzzle teams to get through 6 forms. Since Ms. Gelfand's class seemed not to get it the week before we redid the lesson with the new adaptations, and breezed through drawing our pattern templates.

Now both 5th grades are back in sync and ready to move forward with their sculpture project. We'll be cutting out templates and felt next week! 

week of December 5-9

It has been a very exciting week! 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grades have started new projects and 4th is almost finished the last one.
2nd grade:

 We're learning about weather! Types of weather, clouds, hot and cold, thermometers etc. I brought in a whole bunch of landscape art posters by Renoir, Hicks, and some others. The kids gathered on the carpet for some looking and talking about art together.

 We tried to figure out what kind of weather there was in the picture, what time of year it was, and what clues the artist gave us to show weather. We noticed colors were big clues, foliage or the lack thereof was another big clue, and many of the pictures showed very specific kinds of clouds in the sky. We thought about what we would wear if we were in each picture (bathing suits, sweaters, hats and scarves...) and even what sounds we might hear if we were in the picture (crunch crunch of dry leaves or snow, wind whooshing through trees, birds tweeting, water splashing...)

BRR... asterisk snow falling

 After looking at art we had a chance to sketch our own weather picture. The kids were encouraged to draw any kind of weather they wished, but to give clues about the temperature or time of year with lots of details.


Its a thunderstorm/hurricane over a whirlpool in the sea. The kayak is getting sucked in!

The sketches will help us get ideas for our weather fabric paintings which will become a collaborative windsock later on.

check out the umbrella and wind marks. Still want to play in the park?



a tornado chaser!



a very destructive tornado!

I think these kids could use a lesson on space in landscape pictures before we move on too far. I think they are just about ready for some space in art.

and finally a cheery rainbow after a storm.



3rd grade: Sorry, no pics. Ms. O'Donnell's class started our sound lesson. We noticed our voiceboxes vibrate when we talk. We stopped for a few moments to listen to the school and notice all the sounds going on around us- writing our notes in our sketchbooks. We talked a little about how all those sounds we heard were from things MOVING. To demonstrate sound waves, we circled up and did the wave- very slowly for low sounds and very quickly for high sounds. We then practiced drawing fast and slow wavy lines in our sketchbooks before moving to a large piece of white paper. The kids drew lines to match sounds I played on a recorder (shout out to Ms. Diberardinis the music teacher for letting me have a recorder on the spur of the moment!!!) (and apologies to Ms Didonato in the room next door)

Ms DiDonato's class is catching up on the color families notan project. The kids got to sketch their practice lines and got through the first steps of gluing the colored paper together. We'll finish up next week!

4th grade:

 As I came in on Tuesday morning, Ms McGinley had the kids start a reflection on how our sculpture models were showing erosion. After walking around the room and reading some responses it became obvious that they hadn't really made the connection yet. (Assessment really helps!) So we reviewed again what erosion was and how carving the layers of paper down was kind of like how wind, air, plants, and ice carve the earth away. Then we jumped right back into construction in teams.

 Ms. McGinley's class managed to complete all of their sculptures- next week I'll get them mounted on the blue background to show the river meandering around their mountains. The shapes are really cool. The kids worked together so well on this. Ms. Yancey's class is almost done as well- just need one more week to finish up I think. The working atmosphere has been a little loose for this project, but I thank the teachers for letting this unstructuredness happen and for jumping in to help with the hot-gluing. It's a credit to the 4th grade teachers' classroom management that the kids aren't getting into mischief during this process. Not to worry- we're getting back into some more structured activities Very soon!

5th grade: Again, sorry no pics! Ms Albert's class went through the geometric shapes-forms brainstorm and then worked in teams to look at and analyze sculpture posters. They did a great job working on this little cooperative learning activity. Some kids even read all of the extra info on the back of the posters and were able to give some awesome extra information. With Ms. Gelfand's class we tried to figure out the shapes and numbers of all the facets of the geometric forms we learned about the week before. This proved a bit difficult- pre-winter-break-itis? or bad explanations on my part? I think perhaps this groups needs more concrete applications to make sense of the abstract ideas.So a handout or a manipulative would have been a better approach. I also tried to get them to create a pattern for one of their forms based off of a 3 inch square template. But again- I think my directions were too confusing. It's a big class, so the opportunity for distraction is high and the chance to capture everyone's undivided attention is small. I need to come up with a different approach for this process. Ms Albert's class will benefit from my learning curve next week, and perhaps we'll just start over with the template idea next week.

Brainstorming for 3rd grade sound project

The 3rd grade will be learning about sound next and mentioned a desire to create a kalimba- otherwise known as a thumb piano. I had to do some research, but I finally figured out a way to get it done with some help from the internet. Many videos show how to craft more grown-up style kalimbas, but this video from Activity TV was very helpful. Here's my version:

I have to get materials, but it will involve a drawing as a first step to respond to high and low sounds and wavy lines. The Kalimba I made used some scrap wood for a block, thinner lattice for a bridge, bobby pin prongs straightened out, a bead, quick-dry tacky glue, and some paint. for mine I used tools like a miter box and saw, pliers, hammer, and clamps, but with some pre-cutting and adaptations I think I can cut down on necessary tools to make it more kid-friendly.
The real kalimbas are amazing. Check out the music in this video:


And then this is just breath-taking

Tuesday, November 29th with 4th, 5th, and 3rd grades

4th grade- making progress on our erosion group sculptures, but we'll need at least another day to get through attaching all our little pieces together. Sorry no pictures again- we've been so focused on our process.

5th grade- Ms Gelfand's class started our geometric forms lesson this week. We began by brainstorming the shapes-->forms the kids already knew. It was exciting to see them run for their math textbooks to use as a resource for this brainstorm as it shows they're learning to use resources available for problem-solving, an essential study skill the teachers have been encouraging all along. Sometimes it's not WHAT you know but HOW to find out that's important.

 We then talked about SCULPTURE as the art word for forms. I gave each group a poster containing some kind of sculpture from many different time periods, materials, and subject matter. In their notebooks the kids were to figure out the title, artist, material, and then figure out which geometric forms they could identify or envision within the sculptures.

 They did a great job helping each other find information and discuss the forms.

 There were some wonderful discussions going on about the artwork too. Afterward we shared out about each poster, and I offered some extra info about the artists or processes as we went.We also did some time elapse to figure out how old some of the sculptures were- which explained why some of them were by unknown artists. Art images are a great way to spark ideas and discussions in pretty much every subject matter!

 I finally got some color wheel/color fact family pictures! Ms Didonato's 3rd grade is a little bit behind, so we just started this project with them. We talked about primaries, secondaries, and how the colors mix together. Then we made our color fact family equations to remember part+part=whole and the turn around feature of addition and subtraction. They'll get to do the notan step next week, but perhaps a little compressed so we can get it done in 1 session. We'll see how it goes.

great displays

I totally love seeing the kids' artwork hanging around school! Ms. O'Donnell took our Notan/Color fact Families a step further by matting them on colored construction paper and mounting in the hallway outside her room with a title. The whole school will get to see them, since everybody walks right by there when going to art class!

 On Tuesday I brought Ms. Gelfand's class's sun bunting back to show off the final product.

 It was so long, it stretched around 3 sides of the room! Interestingly, this class chose mostly horizontal orientations for their stencil pictures, and with 38 kids/artworks they got one really long bunting!

 I also dropped Ms. Albert's class's finished project off on Tuesday and by the end of the day she had hers rigged up across the length of the room. This class chose mostly vertical orientations and has fewer students, but they still managed to get a pretty long finished piece. The colors and images look so bright!

Great job everybody!