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.

Pilot Projects Spring 2011

From May to June 2011, a  pilot program was launched to focus on math and arts integration at Comly Elementary school. One Kindergarten, one second grade, two third grades, one fourth grade, and two fifth grade classes participated. Th classroom teachers selected particular math skills their students needed to review, and we developed projects to explore those specific skills through art.



Kindergarten number mosaic



The Kindergarten class focused on number models and counting in a button mosaic. Each student was assigned a number, counting was practiced when counting out mosaic pieces, special pieces of sequins or pompoms were selected to represent their numbers, and laying out the individual pieces in an array helped review counting by 5s.

2nd grade foursquare time story sketch

 The second grade focused on telling time and telling time stories. We created a group clock to use as a classroom practice clock, then we began a number story fabric collage project. Students started with a foursquare organizer for their sketches, and then used fabric scraps to illustrate their stories.


2nd grade number story fabric collages

  Warm colors were used to represent am and cool colors represented pm. The collages were all arranged in a film strip/timeline format banner and students got to tell their stories to the whole class.


2nd grade time story banner




3rd grade probability cross-stitch

 3rd graders were focused on learning probability. Students made a color die with either a 2/2/2, 3/2/1, or 4/1/1 color combination. The rolled their die 100 times and kept a running tally of each color rolled. The results were graphed onto gingham and cross-stitch x's were stitched to mark each tally. Some were more like bar graphs, and others were a little more inventive with the placement of colors


checkerboard distribution of tally mark colors

 4th graders were focused on calculating volume of geometric solids. We measured and cut plastic canvas to construct a needlepoint cube. Student created an initial stripe pattern to mark one centimeter width on their cube, and used different colors, patterns, and stitches on each side.

 The sides were stitched together and students measured and calculated the volume of their own cube, and the aggregate volume of the entire class's cubes.


calculating volume

  Students arranged their cubes in various sculptural formations and recalculated volume of the resulting forms as well. We really stretched their multiplication practice with decimal points due to the irregularly cut canvas squares!

4th grade cube combos

5th grade focused on surface area of geometric solids. We selected a cylinder as the major form we would make. Student designed 2 inch square designs with their initials and shapes, then printed vertical and horizontal stripes on fabric rectangles to mark out the base and height of their cylinder.


printmaking station

 For the top and bottom circles, students designed radial symmetry patterns to mark out radius/diameter needed for calculating area of a circle.

 Their pieces were sewn together, and students stuffed and handsewed the closures. Additionally, their cylinder/pillows were signed by every student in the class to serve as a souvenir for this graduating class.

The pilot projects were short and sweet and gave an initial opportunity for artist and teachers to get used to each other and get their feet wet in arts integration.