Week of January 23rd

It was Spirit week at Comly! Everybody's trying hard to keep kids engaged as PSSA's approach. We had a lot of fun in Artslink this week too:
2nd grade:

To round up our weather project we created radial design compasses to show the cardinal directions. We'll use these when I bring our windsock back. The windsock is about halfway constructed and will be completed soon. We'll need to find a spot outside for it!

 Everyone started with the same foundation in various colors, but then they did their own radial symmetry design. It was great timing for this project as the kids just started doing lines of symmetry in math class.

 3rd Grade:
Ms O'Donnell and Ms DiDonato's classes began the money/shapes collage project. We started off trying to find the shapes to match a specific value, with each person at the table coming up with a different solution. The kids did a great job with this- many naturally started arranging the shapes in patterns and designs while they waited for everyone in the class to catch up.

 Then they had an opportunity to begin their own design, first planning it out, then gluing down the pieces. They had o use at least one of each color paper, use repetition or pattern, and try to use all the space on the paper. They were encouraged to show some symmetry as a starting point, but then add an asymmetrical element to make the composition more exciting.
Ms. Lex's class had an opportunity to complete their designs and then began tallying up the "value" of their pictures. Next time we'll do a "making change" activity.

 4th grade:
Ms Yancey and Ms. McGinley's classes began the lego/fractions project. They had plenty of time to build and play in response to my challenges- I realized I didn't give Mr Willis's class enough time for that the week before. So we began making something with 12 pieces and then tallying up the total of each color to show how to make a fraction- with the "color part" as the numerator and the "Lego total" as the denominator. Then they made a sculpture of 2 colors to show a 1/2 and 1/2 relationship. As we looked at the sculptures I wrote up the equivalent fractions on the board so we could see that 1/2 all the way up to 10/20 meant the same thing. Next, the kids tried a 3 color sculpture to show 1/3,1/3,1/3 relationships and again listed their equivalent fractions on the board. Finally we did the big lego sort-out to see which color had the largest fraction.

 Mr. Willis's class began with some extra time for building exploration and equivalent fractions which they missed out on before. I thought we were going to have a longer class period, so I did a demonstration on how to do our print project as well- but the kids didn't have time to try it out themselves this week. At least now all the 4th grade classes will be on the same schedule.


1/3 blue, 1/3 yellow, 1/3 white sculpture

 5th grade: Both 5th grade classes are continuing their geometric soft sculptures.

 Check out the great craftsmanship in careful stitching!

 Ms Gelfand's class is nearly finished since they've had more time (poor Ms. Albert's class has had 2 Monday holidays this month!). Several children have gotten to the assemble and embellish stage of their sculptures. In the 5th grade classes this week I handed the camera over to a select student or 2 for documentation. When downloading the photos I was surprised to find one student had set up a little backdrop to take some closeups- not realizing the fixed focal depth of the camera doesn't support closeups.... so here are a few inventive, yet fuzzy photos:

 That's a duck wearing a fez, complete with tassel. It was made with a cube, a cylinder, and a hexagonal prism.

 This is a rather adorable kitty with very expressive whiskers. It was made from a cube, a square pyramid, and a triangular pyramid.

 This will soon be  a turtle with a green cylindrical head and pink cube and blue square pyramid shell.

My photographer with her duck sculpture and awesome "crazy hat" for spirit week. I told the kids who were finished they could try to make a movie with their sculptures next week!

Week of Jan 17

There were no classes on Monday due to MLK day, but this week was the beginning of our new schedule to accommodate an extra day and 3 new classes.

2nd grade: Ms Drossner and Mr Pitt's classes missed out this week, but I met Ms Spangler's class for the first time. They are a lively and quick-working group! They accomplished in one meeting what I expected to take 2 sessions!. We passed out their brand new books and started off with a compass drawing to show North/South East/West. We did a kinetic activity to help differentiate the 4 directions by standing and completing a different motion to each direction. We talked about radial designs in art and I walked them through the steps to create a collaged and drawn compass using different colored squares of paper, drawn radial designs, and an arrow attached with a  brad. I look forward to doing the lesson with the other classes next week.

3rd: Ms O'Donnell's class missed out on Monday, but I got to meet our new teacher, Ms Lex, and Ms Didonato's class in their new Wednesday slot. Ms Didonato's class completed their sound unit with some review, practice and performance time, and a chance to paint their bridges. Their patterns are so colorful! It was a real luxury to meet them first thing Wednesday morning with plenty of time to work! See the previous post to hear/view some performances!

 Ms Lex's class began with introductions. Most of the students were excite to get to be a part of Artslink again as they all had been in either of the 2 other 3rd grades before the classes were split up, and had met me before. We picked up with the money concept they had left off with, as the 3rd graders need lots more practice. I brought pre-cut colored paper shapes to represent each coin value. Green squares = $1, smaller blue squares= $0.25, long purple rectangles = $0.10, short yellow rectangles= $0.05, and small red squares = $0.01. We talked about patterns a little. The kids worked in teams to create arrangements of the papers to represent a specific value. or example $1.25 could be represented by a green and a blue square. They practiced with several values. Then they created their own pattern collage by arranging at least 1 of each shape onto a background paper. They were asked to make a geometric design that showed repetition and did not leave too much empty space. When they are complete we will find out their "value", and then make a second composition to represent "change" back from a specific value.

 4th: Ms McGinley and Ms Yancey's fully completed their coordinate grid map projects. All painting was completed and grids drawn. Then we played a coordinate grid game. We established values for each possible item on their maps. When I called a coordinate, the kids had to find it on their maps, and tally up the points for whatever was in that square. The table with the most points at the end got to be the first to hang up their pictures.

 In Ms McGinley's class we also had enough time for a reflective writing piece about what they liked or disliked about the project and what they learned. She had some students type up their responses to add to the pictures in the hallway!

On Wednesday I met Mr Willis'sclass for the first time. There were many familiar faces from last year's 3rd grade class! First I passed out their new books and asked the kids to write a bit about what they liked about math, science, and art as a way to ease into the artslink program. Then we started off our fractions project. I thought legos would be an interesting material to work with as I've recently found lots of lego"hacks", or ways to use a tool for alternative purposes. The kids were split into 5 groups by random numbering. Each group was given a basket of legos and asked to sort them by color, then tally up how many of each color they had. They then added up their total, and had to show what fraction of each color was in the basket. I thought they'd be able to reduce their fractions, but apparently that's a bit ahead of the curriculum, so Mr Willis asked them to use their calculator fractions function for the activity. Finally I asked each kid to pick out 12 legos, build something, and we found out who had 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, and 1/2 colors in their little sculptures. Next time we'll begin making a printmaking matrix from the legos to stamp an edition. I had so much fun on Wednesday!

5th: Ms Gelfand's class continued sewing their geometric forms. Some students were able to begin stuffing them and combining them into the final sculptures. It was interesting to see that some students found that creative thinking step a challenge. Although we started our sculpture unit by identifying the underlying geometric forms in sculptures, the reverse process of turning the forms into more imaginative sculptures was not as concrete. I don't think they are quite used to the possibility of an open-ended result in an assignment. They need to work their imagination muscle.

what can you do with a cube and a cylinder?

Monday Nov 28th wrapping up projects with 3rd, 5th, and 2nd!

We welcomed some visitors today! Raye Cohen, Mary Dupree, and Catherine Cullen paid us a visit and joined our 3rd and 5th grade classes in the morning.

Patricia said the arrow was pointing to school (the ziggurat shape)

  Ms. O'Donnell's 3rd graders complete their notan/color fact family projects. We looked at some artwork by Piet Mondrian, Anni Albers, and Josef Albers to see how artists use the color families and to note the difference between abstract and realist artwork. Abstract art uses line, shape, and color and comes from our imaginations- it doesn't have to look like anything in real life.


Interesting organic shapes- oops! green side was supposed to be up in the center!

 We reviewed geometric and organic shapes and students had one last chance to sketch out a design before doing it on our good papers. They drew on the primary side of their color sandwich, cut out carefully, glued the negative space down onto the background, fit the puzzle pieces back together, and flipped them out of the square to reveal the other color.


organic and geometric. Flipping the shapes makes a new symmetrical shape!

 There were a lot of steps to this project, but the kids did really well. Ms. O'Donnell was doing a fabulous job making connections between math and art for us as we worked.

great shadow detail and text emphasis

 Ms Albert's class completed their sun banners adding marker details. They had an easier time with the text having already plotted out text on their mylar pieces before we switched to plain stencils.

They got to see what the finished product was like and used Ms. Gelfand's student work for inspiration. They had plenty of time for final reflection as well, which we shared. We thought and wrote about poster art, our artmaking process, and their favorite aspect of the project. Not all students took this reflection time seriously, though. I think kids in general aren't used to subjects being integrated and don't realize that the processes we use in learning all subjects are parallel- being able to write well help in all subjects, understanding and explaining a process is important in science and math, and even in art we need to write.



careful cutting!! Even simple shapes are tough when there's a lot of shapes, but check out the results below!

  In Ms. Drossner and Mr. Pitt's class we reviewed our color fact families and practiced simple vs difficult shapes to cut and geometric vs. organic shapes. I was very concerned that the scissor skills of this age group might not be up to this kind of project, but they did pretty well considering the challenge!

some of the skill range is evident and interesting

There were so many directions to follow! Most kids got it, but there were a few misglued pieces. However, despite some cutting or gluing challenges, this project looks impressive even with simple shapes. The third grade had more careful craftsmanship, but the 2nd graders had some pretty dynamic compositions.

Dion's had very interesting variety of shapes

After everyone finished gluing we had a little time in Ms Drossner's class to look at who had organic shapes and who had geometric shapes. Mr. Pitt's class ran out of time for reflection, unfortunately.

large organic shapes made a great composition too!

double symmetry!!

The compositions look fabulous hung up in the classroom! Each one is unique, and I never cease to be amazed at the creativity and variety that is possible in this seemingly step-by-step type of art. Flipping the shapes out of the puzzle results in big surprises. I'm very pleased at the color aspect of this project as well- there are lots of versions of notan, but I've never seen this color family version before.