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!
