Check out my YouTube video about using everyday objects you find around your home to create silly faces. You can share your silly faces you have made in the comments of this blog post!
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This year is already full of lots of changes for all the elementary Unified Arts teachers. It's bittersweet to transition from teaching at Highlands to focusing on Dk-4. I'll still be teaching at West Oakview (but will share my classroom with Mrs. Haugen who also teaches at North.) We're excited to have her join us at West! I will also be teaching all the students at East Oakview. I'm so excited to get to know everyone get started on some great art projects!
In our first quarter of art class, students created 4 projects: scratch boards, Egyptian Portraits, Mini Tree Sculptures and Smile Monster paintings. For 2nd quarter, we will be creating Doodles of Google instead of scratch boards. Next will be Egyptian portraits, clay sculptures and smile monsters.
We have been so busy in the art room at West Oakview! First: We are hosting a Scholastic Book Fair this week with the theme of monsters. Students created alphabet monsters with construction paper and we used them to decorate the library windows where the book fair is being held. DK students created spiders webs and spiders last week. 1st graders art working on some Creepy Carrot Collages. 2nd Graders have sunflower collages hanging in the hallway. Ms. Schelhaas's class is completing city collages with texure rubbings. Mrs. Ohnsman's class is working on a special Language Artists project with the Grand Rapids Art Museum. 4th graders have Fall Landscapes in watercolor and chalk pastel in the hallway too, and are beginning secret island maps.
We are off to a great start in art class this year! 1st-4th Grade read The Day the Crayons Quit and are working on large crayons with paper wrappers about themselves. We also completed Painting Boot Camp - where we learned/reviewed all the skills and tools we'll need for painting this year. This week we'll be finishing up our crayons and starting a new project in each grade level. Last week DK had some free draw time with markers, practicing being careful to put the caps back on so they don't dry out. We even had our markers run an "obstacle course" on our papers around some legos. Kindergarten learned about many different kinds of lines, and how important they are for artists to use in their pictures. We drew lines running a race across our papers in oil pastel, and this week we will paint on top of them with watercolors. At Highlands we have been talking about art as a language, and learned about the street artist Banksy. We made a scratch board with oil pastel and black paint on mat board, and decorated it with words/symbols/pictures that represent us. We also talked about how we can evaluate art and wrote in our art journals about what we think makes good art. I hope you are all having a great summer! Here are a few ideas of art activities you could try before heading back to school: 1. Beat the heat with a visit to the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Admission is FREE on Tuesdays 10 AM - 5PM and Thursdays 5PM-9Pm. Family art activities are offered every Saturday 1pm-4PM. 2. Enjoy art and nature at Frederik Meijer Gardens. They have just opened a beautiful Japanese Garden. 3. Make some art at home! Visit fun-a-day.com for fun outdoor art activities.
I am excited to be returning to school Monday after 12 weeks of maternity leave at home with my sweet little boy. It is going to be a fast few weeks before our summer break begins! We will be passing back artwork to send home and making a final project or two before the year's end. Also, congratulations to all of the students from West and Highlands whose artwork was featured in the District Art Show earlier this month, as well as 3 students from West and 1 from Highlands whose work was selected to be on display at the Plainfield Library through next May! I have recently gotten some great feedback from parents about student artwork on Artsonia. I did not post any work during my maternity leave, but plan to resume posting next fall. I even hope to try Artsonia at Highlands next year. There are great gift options and personalized items to celebrate the end of the school year. We receive 20% of the purchase price of each item to help fund our supply orders. You can also support our program by looking at the WISH LIST section for inexpensive items (or items you might already have) to contribute to our classroom. We are especially in need of Kleenex and hand sanitizer for next year. You can also make monetary donations the DONATE section at adoptaclassroom.org. Another great way to support our program is to share your thoughts with an administrator or school board member (including our new superintendent Dr. Korpak) about the importance of art at the elementary level. In addition to Artsonia, I found an opportunity for you to feature your child's artwork at Shutterfly.com. We do NOT have any affiliation with Shutterfly and don't receive anything from your purchase, but I wanted to share that with you as another option. ArtMyKidMade is another interesting app for your smartphone to save and share your child's art. Lastly, I would love to hear from you about how your child has benefited from having art in school. What do you see as important in their art education? What is your child's favorite part of art class? And what information is most helpful for me to post on this blog/website? You can post a comment or email me at [email protected]. Sorry it has been a while since my last post! We've been busy at West Oakview working on our goal for this year: drawing from observation. Learning to look closely is a great skill that not only helps budding artists, but for general academic success.
I've also been preparing for my maternity leave starting in a few days until mid-May. Patricia Thoms will be my long term sub and you can contact her at [email protected]. 1st Graders are making some beautiful collages of elephants in India. 2nd Graders have been working hard on some 3D paper castles. 3rd Graders are creating cut-paper self-portraits. 4th Graders are finishing up a black and white Parisian landscape including a self-portrait of them in front of the Eiffel Tower. Highlands students just finished their clay creations (5th graders made cupcakes, 6th graders made artsy coil pots) and are starting to paint them. Our K-12 art department also had the recent privilege of attending a full day workshop at GVSU to learn more about teaching clay. We had a blast and learned a lot! Also: you can see artwork from West on display at our Administration Building for the month of February. All of the students and staff at West Oakview are getting in the Thanksgiving spirit by decorating a turkey feather. They are writing what (or who) they are thankful for on their feathers and placing them on large paper turkeys. 4th graders are making great progress on their paper mandalas. 1st Graders completed some ant tunnel prints, and then had free choice to draw something above the ground. Here are a few: Kindergarten talked about how we express our feelings with our face. They practiced drawing all kinds of feeling faces. They they chose their favorite three and created a photo booth drawing of feelings. A few weeks ago 1st graders completed frog prince/princess paintings.
West Oakview artists are featured at the High School Performing Art Center Lobby ("The MAX") for the month of November. We hope you can check it out! The 3rd and 4th grade music program on November 20 is a great opportunity to view the artwork. Kindergarten painted some pumpkins after learning how to mix their own orange. They also add patterns to their paintings. Now they are learning about feelings and how to draw a face showing emotion. First grade created some Creepy Carrot collages based on the book by Aaron Reynolds. Pictured Below: Second graders are almost finished with some pirate ship collages. Here is a sneak peek: Third graders are creating Japanese landscapes that include pagodas and trees created by blowing through a straw. Fourth grade is learning about mandalas created by Tibetan monks using colored sand. They go to practice making their own sand mandalas in groups. Next, they are carefully planning a detailed mandala drawing. All students at west are taking a pre-test for drawing from observation. Learning to look closely, notice details, and be able to draw what you see are great skills for any artist. We'll keep practicing this during the year. It's a new marking period at Highlands, and the new homerooms that have art are: Mr. Prince, Ms. Hopkins, Mr. Damuth and Ms. Schanz. We're starting with dragon eye drawing. |
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April 2020
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