The Art Room

What a month! Within the craziness of February we managed to get a lot done. First and foremost, we made about 250 Valentines for Children's Hospital. We gave a little bit of love to some strangers that could use a smile.  Kindergarten finished their landscapes and we started our Northern Lights. Working in centers we used unique tools to stamp paint on paper for our mountains. We will be finishing this during March!  1st grade worked on cityscape collages using paint sample strips for buildings and paper and texture plates for the rest on the cities. 2nd grade worked on Romero Britto inspired designs.  Focusing on patterns and colors students created a fun colorful piece of art.  3rd Grade worked to complete works of art that used photographs they took of themselves with the iPads. They photos focused on 6 different facial expressions: happy, sad, angry, disgust, surprised, and scared.  After looking at pictures were taken and printed out in black and white we looked at colors tha

Januuary was a crazy month with 2 hour delays and my own absence for some time.  That didn't stop what we were doing this month!     Kindergarten  We looked at skies and Peter  H. Reynolds's Sky Color.  We used watercolor paints to paint our own skies.  Then we added scrap paper and and some drawing to complete our landscapes.  Kindergarten also watched Brother Bear.  Brother Bear showed us a different kind of sky with the Northern Lights which we will be looking at next.  It also showed students the importance of love.  1st Grade This month we are working on cityscapes. We compared and contrasted a landscape and cityscape. Students use watercolor paints to make their own skies.  For our buildings we used sample paint strips.  Students were able to cut and create buildings.  We recycled all our scraps to make unique buildings.  Next we are adding in other parts you may see in a cityscape (lights, roads, sidewalks, cars, people, bridges, etc).   2nd Grade In preparing for Valent

December has been a short yet crazy month with the holiday approaching.   We have busy working on finishing and sending our projects home before the break. Kindergarten This month kindergarten completed their mouse paint pictures.  We cut out ovals, semi-circles, or circles for the bodies of the mice.  We placed them in a circle to make the color wheel. Next after the mice we glued down we started to add in all the things that could help make it look like a mouse: hands and feet, nose and whiskers, ears and eyes and last but not least a tail.    We used the rest of the month to fit in a quick Christmas project.  Using simples shapes: squares, rectangles, triangles to create a tree with present underneath. Later if there was extra time bows, ornaments, and other details were added. 1st grade This month we finished our shooting stars!  Next we started a winter landscape.  We reviewed warm and cool color families.  Everyone used each family once. One family for the trees and the othe

This November was short but full of activity.  Students in 2nd and 3rd grade started their online portfolios with Artsonia. 3rd grade had been bouncing around between their ninjas and Chihuly's Macchias.  As our first clay project we talked more about glazing.  Although chihuly worked with glass we were able to get a glass look with our glaze.  Students used our glaze sample chart to select their glazes.  They were able to use two different glazes on the inside and outside or just one all over.  We discussed what made each brand's glazes different from one another. 2nd grade finished their landscapes and have started to talk about repetition.  We have used repetition to create our stacked cups and will be starting a snowflake piece that also will include repetition.  We are making the same things and repeating them, making each on a little bit different. 1st grade has just finished their shooting stars!  Watercolor paints, permanent markers, with lines and shapes an

This October was quite busy causing me to be so late on our monthly post.  The kids have luckily been so flexible between all the assemblies and the holiday and even my absences.  This month has really started the ball rolling on skills and knowledge that we will be using this year. Kindergarten has probably had the biggest month.  The month began with the story The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds.  This will not be the only book of his we look at this year. We look at one of our basics shapes a dot or a circle.  We create a dot series just like Vashiti did in the story.  We created a large dot by coloring a coffee filter with watercolor markers (Mr.Sketch) and spray it with water and watched how the colors ran into one another (or bled together).  Another pieces had lots of dot in all sizes and colors.  Our last dot was made by making a dot by not drawing a dot.  Students colored the space around a dot so the 'negative' space was left us with a dot. This was many of the students f

Our first month has been quite busy!!  Each grade has completed at least one project so far. Kindergarten This month was a testing period to see where each student is with their motor skills and listening skills.  They completed their I CAN CUT, COLOR, AND GLUE booklets.  Next we talked about texture . We experimented with texture plates.  This led us to creating texture burgers!  Students were able to create each layer in their burger with different textured materials, mainly papers but also included foam and cardboard.  Students were also able to choose what went on their burger. It's finished and should be graded and sent home soon. Remember Kindergarten can receive an 'S' satisfactory, 'W' working towards goal or 'N' needs improvement.   1st Grade We took a look at Henri Matisse for our first project.  We create free form shaped mobiles.  (You can see our artist below, he's one of our table artists) Students created at least 3 shapes so we c