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.

New Artslink Displays

Thanks to Ms. Akif for letting me take over the Main Hall display case again. This time I have Shape stitcheries from Ms. Spangler's 2nd grade class and Geometric Form soft sculptures from the 5th grade classes.

 It's a very colorful and tactile display. I wanted to show these 2 projects together since they show the progression from 2D to 3D and are both using fiber art.

 The 5th graders sculptures are arranged by theme: Wild Animals, Birds, and Houses and Machines. They came up with such a variety of arrangements based off of the simple forms!

If I were to do this project again I might limit the color selection so that each person's forms were uniform in color. I think the mixed up colors made it harder for the kids to imagine what their sculptures could become.
Oh well. Next week I'd like to find a place for displaying the 4th grader's lego fraction mosaics and all of the 2nd grader's stitcheries.

Week of Feb 21

Our "week" was short due to the President's Day holiday, but still jam-packed with activity.

 2nd grade: I only saw Ms Spangler's class this week. We had a helpful sub and student teacher, and the kids got to complete their stitcheries. Most kids just needed to fill in the backgrounds.

 There was a very staggered completion rate in this project, so I brought in paper, tap, and thread for the students who finished before the others to extend their shapes into a shape garland of cut paper attached to a long thread. It was interesting to see that despite mys saying repetitively that their shapes should be large, many, many of the kids drew and cut out teeny tiny shapes. I feel like this project overall may have been a little too demanding developmentally. Not everyone had the motor skills needed to pull the pipe cleaner "threads" through all the way, and the idea of scale is not fully understood yet.

 3rd grade: Ms. Lex and Ms. Didonato's classes completed their abacus projects. We had time to do some more values and then papier mache the frames to make them stronger. .

 I hope the papier mache is sufficient to make these useful tools. If I were to do this again I might change the materials to be a bit sturdier. The kids really seemed to gain counting fluency as they used the abacus. The movement of the beads is like taking a tally, and creates a strong visual. When counting coins the biggest mistake is losing count!

4th grade: Mr Willis and Ms McGinley's classes completed their lego fractions. We practiced some more equivalent fractions, did a compare/contrast between a Chuck Close and a Sol Lewitt image, and finally arranged and glued down their pieces. Mr Willis' class wins for most prints! His class was able to fill an entire board with leftovers. I would really love to get some plexiglass and find a spot for this lego fraction mosaic to stay on a while for a long time!

 5th grade: Oh my goodness! This was a feat to prepare and manage, but we had our variables/drawing machine experiments day. I came up with 8 art experiments for the kids to try, and they wrote a response about each of the experiments afterward. We met in the auditorium and I set up each experiment around the stage as "centers" to cycle through. We only managed to get through 4 rotations, but there was a lot of great, focused activity happening. The fast pace and novelty of each station kept everyone engaged.

 The sand pendulum was extremely popular, even though it was not a permanent image.

 The expandable/collapsible reach gizmo was interesting, but didn't do exactly what I'd hoped. Despite a fixed rotation point there was still too much play and not enough limitation in the range of motion.

 Body Compass had an interesting build-up of mark. The kids placed their elbows on a dot and rotated from the elbow as they drew with a marker.

 Action painting was popular. It as good to limit it to one page per group to get a nice buildup of color and mark.

 Race Car printing was exciting, but the resulting print was not terribly impressive.

 Marker pendulums were fun- markers taped to yo-yos to create linear and bang-dot marks. It could have built up even more.

 Limited reach chalk drawing had chalk tied to a short length of string within a frame. We also had pencil tops making amazing spiral marks, but I missed a picture of it.

A special thank you this week to our student teachers and interns who were a crucial part of making this experiment day run smoothly. Now to do it again on Monday with the other class!!

Week of February 13th

It was a slightly shortened week due to half day on Wednesday for report card conferences, so I only saw the Monday and Tuesday groups.
2nd grade: All three classes have continued to work on their shape stitcheries on plastic canvas. Many students have completed their shapes and some have begun filling in the background.

 The kids did much better this week at following their sketches to find the vertices. They also did a better job of pulling the pipe cleaners tight to prevent loopiness.

 A few students in Ms Spangler's class totally completed their projects and wrote a short reflection in their journals. When they are finished they really feel like fuzzy carpets.

 3rd: I only saw Ms O'Donnell's class this week. We did the abacus project with a slight supply difference. I cut board down for the frames instead of popsicle sticks for a wider base to tape onto, and we only used 10 yellow "nickel" beads instead of 20 since the other classes used up so many! Again, this project was a real hit- Ms. O'Donnell had the kids continue to do more practice with sliding the beads over to represent money values. Next week all 3 classes will be on the same page for papier mache over the frames.

 4th grade: Ms. McGinley's class got to do their coloring step to represent 1/3 and 2/3 in their circles and 1/2, 1/2 in their rectangles. Ms Yancey's class got to do the final step. We did a compare and contrast between Chuck Close and Sol Lewitt to see how the artists used the grid and squares.

 We did a short group fraction calculation to see how many of each color there was. Then the kids brought their squares back to a large board to arrange into a group mosaic. The kids liked the Chuck Close image better than the Sol Lewitt, so when arranging the blocks we tried to create gradations of color.

 Groups of kids came back to help glue everything down. Depending on how good the gluing was, I might go back through and try to get the blocks lined up a bit better.

 Since the entire class tried to do thirds in circles and halves in rectangles, the entire piece should have that as well- making it one huge equivalent fraction!.

 5th: On Monday, Ms Albert's class completed their geometric soft sculptures. Some kids were able to participate in the stop motion animation (see previous post). I hope to put a display up next week showing the 5th grade geometric forms alongside the 2nd grade geometric shapes.
On Tuesday we gathered both 5th grade classes in the auditorium to kickstart our next project. (Since there's no school on Monday this helped keep the classes at the same pace). We will be exploring the scientific concept of variables in experiments, combined with machines like pendulums and catapults. I showed a series of videos of pendulums and various other drawing machines to show how artists experiment with variables for art. We had some great compare/contrast opportunities and the kids were very engaged in watching the videos in this setting. The music teacher came down to help me set up the projector and microphone, and it was really great to have these videos on a giant screen with cinematic sound instead of on the smaller, quieter smartboards.

Next class we'll try out a few drawing machine experiments. I'm very excited about this project!

5th grade stop motion

Week of Feb 6

 2nd graders are all working on learning polygons. All the classes are stitching their shapes using pipe cleaners through plastic canvas. When all filled in they make quite a fuzzy carpet-like surface.

 The shapes begin by stitching each line segment side, then filling in the shape. This project is revealing a range of fine motor skills among students, which tells me this creative skill is on the edge of a development level. Some students are really enjoying it- but some are learning how to work through a challenge.

 3rd graders are moving from our coin color collage and making change project into one final money-counting focused project.

After a compare/contrast exercise between a Roman Abacus made of metal and an Incan Quipu made of string (both ancient counting tools/calculators) students made their own abacus of wood and beads.

 We began by taping bamboo skewers onto a popsicle stick, then counting out a specific number of each color bead to represent coin values to slide onto each stick.

 Once the beads were added and the op edge of the frame was attached the kids worked on moving the beads around to show specific values. Next week we'll do a little more practice and then complete our abaci by adding papier mache onto the frame pieces to strengthen them and add color. While this is a more "make and take" style project, the kids are seeing how tools can be handmade, just like humans throughout history have made useful things. It was great to see them using the abacus for counting, and finding it so easy.

 4th graders have continued the lego printing fraction project. Ms. McGinley's class got to print. The other classes started coloring in their circles and squares.  

 They had to count up their total circles, and if possible determine what the 1/3 and 2/3 equivalent fractions would be. Then they counted up their rectangles and determined a 1/2 and 1/2 equivalent would be. They then used 4 different colors to fill in the circles and rectangles to represent the 1/3 and 1/2 color relationships.

 The interesting visual aspect was that 1/2 or 1/3 the number of shapes was not necessarily 1/2 or 1/3 the SPACE because of the different sizes of shapes.

 Thanks to Mr. Willis for taking some photos and sending them to me!

 In 5th grade, Ms Albert's class got most of their sculptures stuffed and are ready to move on o the final stage of embellishment.

 Getting to stuff the forms is an exciting step, as the forms suddenly spring into 3 dimensions.

 Many students chose to transform their sculptures into animals. (Thanks for sending some photos Ms Albert!) Here's a raccoon:

 And a chicken:

Ms. Gelfand and Ms McAffrey's class has completed their projects and had time for reflection on the forms they had used, why geometry is important for artists and sculptors, and what part of the project they enjoyed or disliked. Some students who had completed their work early were able to create some wonderful stop-motion animation videos, which I'll post later. I was especially impressed with their collaborative effort to create narrative and direct when left to their own devices. There was great disappointment when the battery power on the camera ran out! I'll see if Ms Albert's class will be able to contribute before I complete editing it to post here.