4th/5th grade final project

 Our final project for the 4th and 5th grades was to create a game mural on the school recess yard. At first we did a labyrinth walk to spark the conversation of why games are important. The labyrinth was a metaphor for life and growing (which tied in with science content around life cycles)

 To prepare for the mural we decided on a location and measured and calculated the area in order to determine the amount of paint needed for the design.

 We spent a day playing and analyzing different boardgames to help brainstorm a design. Students were asked to come up with a game design of their own and include some form of labyrinth and a four square court. After reviewing and compiling the students' designs, I brought 4 possible versions for the students to vote on. The one above received the most votes. 

 Somehow between rainy days in May and super hot days in June, we managed to get the mural painted. I brought 6-8 students out for about 15 minutes at a time so all the 4th and 5th graders had a chance to do something on the mural. We measured and marked out the blocks of color to be painted around the perimeter.

 The classes all worked on creating flower and leaf stencils inspired by the drawings made by the 2nd and 4th graders' trips to the John Heinz Nature Refuge. The flowers were stenciled in black around the perimeter, and the leaves were stenciled in green to mark out the labyrinth.

 At one side, a hopping game was created in the form of a lily pond, complete with frogs at either end and the life cycle of a frog marked out across it.

 The foursquare court in the center contained symbols for the four seasons. The water and vine labyrinth has a red snake hiding in it. The imagery throughout represents habitats, life cycles, seasons, and change.

 The mural creates a bright spot in the middle of a vast concrete courtyard, and creates new possibilities for play during recess. The games laid out in the mural are open-ended and allow students to create their own rules for playing on it, encouraging fairness and creativity.

 On the last day we tried (between rainstorms) to go out and try playing on the mural. Four square was a big hit!

Back in class, we spent some time writing about favorite projects through the year. Painting the mural was a highlight of the year for many students. Many students requested that next year we do some work in clay.

For the fourth grade, my favorite project was at the beginning of the year as we went from meandering water to eroding landforms to coordinate treasure maps. Fourth grade was wonderful this year- students were well-behaved and eager to participate. They fared well with both individual and collaborative projects, and they did some wonderful reflective writing throughout the year. They do better with concrete/realistic type artwork rather than abstraction. I feel like we could do similar things next year.

For the fifth grade my favorite project was our drawing machine process. I loved seeing the kids work through the design process and collaborate. However, most of our projects in 5th grade were too drawn out, and the classes were so large, they were a little hard to manage efficiently. We also had scheduling troubles do to Mondays and end-of-the year events. I think we should start earlier in September to move through our 30 sessions effectively. I'd like to do more short projects with 5th grade. Their attention is so easily distracted by the social side of being 10-11 years old, that they might work more effectively with something more fast-paced and energetic.

Life Cycles, Time stories, and games

 2nd graders are learning about Life Cycles- especially of butterflies. While the 3rd and 4th grade classes were making our video, I met with 2nd grades in the artroom. We watched some animations of plants, butterflies, and birds moving through a life cycle and brainstormed lots of different species for the categories of plants, insects, and birds. Then we painted our backgrounds in a wet-into-wet technique to create a soft landscape appearance. The kids loved watching the paint bleed into their water-painted paper, and watching the yellow paint drip, "grow" into the blue, and transform into green.

We created our own "inchworm" stamps to stamp out the perimeter border of our picture. (and sang my inchworm song). Finally we drew our life cycle pictures on top in crayon, choosing to do an insect, bird, or plant through its life cycle. The kids were asked to make them detailed and colorful. Each group of students with similar subject matter projects had a chance to stand up to show off and compare their pictures for critique.

 Here and there are some random Kittens and Lizards.

3rd grade has returned to Time Stories. Ms Lex and Ms O'Donnell's classes are painting, while Ms Didonato's class finished constructing their "stage" and added their characters. Each time story was written out to show the start and end times to calculate the passage of time.

 4th and 5th grades started working on planning our playground game mural by analyzing their favorite games and designing their own game. I brought a large painted canvas labyrinth in for the students to walk as well:

After walking the labyrinth we talked about why games are important for humans and what games teach us. The labyrinth was a wonderful metaphor for the life cycle: it has a single path, beginning, middle, and end. If you get confused or lost you need to ask for help from someone more experienced. If someone ahead of you is going slowly you have to learn to be patient and wait your turn. Everyone has their own way of living and growing- not in the video below, one student danced his way through the labyrinth:

 Ms McGinley's class went out to the playground to help us select our site for the mural and measure the area so that the correct amount of paint could be purchased. We found a space with a 5x6 array of concrete squares each measuring 4x4 ft. The children calculated that each square was 16 sq ft making the total 480 sq ft.

Next week 4th grade is traveling to the John Heinz Nature refuge for some hiking and drawing to connect our mural with life cycles as well.

"A Day at Comly School" stop motion animation

week of 4/16- stop motion!

This past week we made a switch in the schedule so that Ann Akif, the art teacher, and I could work on a stop motion animation video with the 3rd and 4th graders. We're using sculpture robot/characters the kids have been making with Ann over the past few weeks to act out "A Day at Comly School". The idea was sparked when she started lining up the bots in the hall to dry after painting, and they looked like an army ready to march down the hall. The kids learned about some video vocabulary, planned a storyboard, and have been stagehands moving the sculptures for each frame. The music teacher agreed to help out with our soundtrack as well, making this a truly interdisciplinary project.
The second graders have continued the life cycles painting project with a wet-into-wet watercolor landscape background.
The 5th graders missed out this week due to PSSA testing.

week of 3/26

2nd graders started learning about life cycles by viewing a few stop-motion growth videos like the one above.

3rd graders began coloring and painting their time story pictures for a crayon watercolor resist effect

4th graders completed their geometric form sculptures with added springs of paper and pipe cleaner and paper sculpture embellishments.

Some were more architectural, others animalistic.

some were just abstract.

5th graders had the honor of showing off their drawing machines to the crowd at the Comly Science night, Wednesday March 28th. We set up the spin art station, which was so successful we ran out of paper!

The spray bottle color mixing/op art station was very wet, but made beautiful art.

The marker pendulum was popular with the little kids.

We've been off from school for Spring break for a week now. When we get back there will be a change in the schedule so that Ann Akif (our art specialist) and I can work on a stop-motion animation project with the 3rd and 4th grades.

Week of 3/20

I came on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so missed a 3rd and 5th grade class, but everyone else has been busy, busy, busy!
2nd grade:

I finally finished the windsock! With the help of Jim from the building staff, we installed a pole for the windsock from a tree stump in the yard. Luckily we had just enough wind for it to blow around to our delight. We repeated our greetings to the cardinal directions. We also used our paper compasses to figure out which direction the wind was blowing from.

 Of course it was very exciting to come outside in the afternoon with the whole 2nd grade!

 Mr. Pitt's class above and Ms. Drossner's class below were curious to find their own picture on the windsock. I can't believe how big it turned out to be!!

 3rd grade classes began sketching their time story settings drawing "light as a feather". I'm not a big fan of prescriptive drawing directions, but so many kids crave knowing "how to draw" something, and they get frozen up with worry if they think they can't draw what they want. So I demonstrated some "tricks" for tables etc. It was wonderful to talk with kids about their ideas and offer suggestions for making their pictures more detailed.

4th:

 Two classes seem to have completed all their form building and have either started or are about to make sculptures. One child suggested that our Frank Stella art images reminded her of a playground. What a wonderful idea for our abstract sculptures- turn it into a crazy playground! Our third class started their building steps. The forms look great with their bright color edges and patterned faces. We learned some new vocabulary words, like "relief sculpture" (such as the Frank Stella piece we looked at), and "CONTRAST" (meaning what makes us see differences in art-color, texture, material, etc.)

5th grade: Ms Gelfand's class has moved into testing each other's projects. It was very interesting to hear them discuss the successes and failures of each project, and for each team to hear the feedback. We'll participate in the science fair next week with our drawing machine winners!

Artslink during PSSA week!

The schedule this week was all switched up in order to accommodate PSSA testing and still provide the kids with creative experiences during their stressful testing week. Instead of coming Mon-Wed, I came M/T/Th/Fri in the afternoons.
2nd grade:

 the 2nd grade teachers kindly switched their sessions to AM on Monday and Tuesday instead of their usual afternoon schedule. In Ms. Drossner and Mr. Pitt's classes we introduced the money collage project with counting up our class value, and practicing matching values with the colored paper. Ms Spangler's class tallied up the values of their pictures, arranged them in order of value from highest to lowest, and created a hallway display. We need to meet up for the next step in our plans for 2nd grade.

3rd grade:
Ms Didonato's class had a second day of puppet-making, with an added reinforcement of elapsed time measuring. Ms. Lex's class started their puppet-making and will have another chance at it. Unfortunately I missed meeting with Ms O'Donnell's class, but we'll catch up.

 4th grade:
Armed with colored duct tape this time, the 4th graders were successfully able to create their geometric paper sculptures! YES! I love how persistent the students have been through this project. Sculpture engages totally different thought processes, and they seemed thoroughly committed to making their sculptural forms.

 One boy taped his hexagonal prism pieces together, folded the squares in to make the creases, and brought the folded piece to me in delight saying "Look, it blooms!!!"

 The sticky duct tape worked far better, and I did not hear complaints of failures or frustration as I did last week. The only hard part was sharing a roll of tape amongst a table.

5th grade:
Ms Albert's class came down for their "build" day on their drawing machines. This class had mostly machines involving paint of some sort, which proved to be a messy session.

 The spiral art machine worked superbly!! But the ink pendulum was a bit sloppy. They discovered that watercolor ink flowed out too quickly- with calls out that it looked like someone bled all over the paper! They tried again with tempera, but weren't happy with the splats. I think they need an in-between viscosity.

 Oh the paint mess of certain groups! yikes! But we got it all cleaned up. Many of them just need to think about controlling or constraining their variables to make it more successful. One group didn't get to try their machine out yet, but they were incredibly focused on the engineering of their structure:

Ms. Gelfand's class tried out some variations to fix machines, and wrote up their directions. I think we're almost ready to swap and try out machines. It would be excellent if we had some experiments to put into the science fair night!

Week of March 5th

I think I forgot to post last week's activities.... But here we are this week, working very productively.

2nd grade: Mr Pitt and Ms Drossner's classes completed the shapes weaving project. They make interesting carpets when arranged all together. Although not everyone completely filled in their canvas, it was time to move on.

 It was very interesting to see how different skill levels became evident through this project. There are some big motor-skills differences among the age group, which goes to show that age is not always an ideal grouping factor.

 Ms Spangler's class has gotten farther ahead on the coin value collage. We had a practice day for the kids to match the color shapes to a specific value. For example both images below represent 82 cents, but equivalent coins make for different solutions.

 In 3rd grade we looked at some images and video that represent different "times". For example, Eadward Muybridge's photos show seconds of time. Andy Goldsworthy's ice sculptures only last a few hours. The Bayeux Tapestry represents months and possibly years worth of time and events. The kids were asked to sketch 4 pictures to represent 4 different lengths of time: seconds/minutes, hours, days/weeks,months/years. In Ms DiDonato's class we started the next step of making felt puppet characters for our time stories. Here are some of the amazing creations:

 Check out this horse rider!!!!!

 4th grade: Mr Willis' and Ms McGinley's classes have completed cutting out all their template shapes for the geometric forms project.

 Ms McGinley's class completed adding patterns and textures for each facet. Ms Yancey's class started construction BUT our science/art experiment failed- electrical tape is super colorful but not super sticky. There was a lot of material frustration, so we decided to stop and try it again next week with a new product. I feel badly, except for the fact that all the kids are doing science experiments right now, and it was an excellent opportunity to model scientific thinking and process.

5th grade: Ms Albert's class completed their drawing machine designs this week. Ms Gelfand's class got to make theirs. We worked in the auditorium, and each group constructed their machines and tried them out.

 The adjustable sponge stamping project was a very successful mark-maker, and created a beautiful painting. The kids tried out different colors and built up lots of marks.

The marker compass was a huge success. A dowel was inserted into a hole in a board and markers were attached with rubber bands and paper clips so they could spin around with the dowel.

The ink pendulum had an excellent design, and a surprising result- the thick viscosity of their paint made their marks more like drips than like drizzles.

The paint ball staircase made a wonderful mark- but it was rather messy!! Some adaptations need to be made to make it a more controlled experiment for less mess.

I'm especially excited and invigorated by the 5th grade mark-making experiments. It is a great exploration of the design process and a wonderful parallel to scientific experimentation. There was great opportunity for disaster in the "Build" stage, but the students are engaged and interested and maintaining their focus well. I only wish I could split myself into 8 so that I could work with each group.