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.
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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]. 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.
Kindergarteners painted symmetrical butterflies this week after we finished our caterpillar collages. 4th and 5th graders have been painting with coffee to make their papers look old. 4th graders are working on inventing their own secret islands and 5th graders made WANTED posters of themselves for their self-portraits. Mrs. Lyons class also had some free paint time this week and they made came up with some cool ideas. Here is a pirate ship, a ninja turtle and a cat. Have a great week! Here's another reason why art is so important for our students.
We're getting into an art groove and starting to complete some of our first major projects. DK students created drawings of their families this week. First graders finished their drawing of a fun street. Second graders are busy making dragon collages after reading Dragons Love Tacos. Can you spot a taco in this picture? Third and fourth graders are still finishing their first projects.
Students at Highlands are creating some very cool tropical bird collages with lots of bright colors. 1st-4th students at West graduated from Glue Bootcamp this week! We underwent intense training so that they can independently open and close glue bottles, put them away neatly, do "glue push-ups" (glue dots) and completed a glue line obstacle course (a maze.) Finally, students practiced very careful cutting skills to cut out minions. They worked together in teams to make scenes with their minions.
It's been a great first week! At West learned out classroom routines and expectations with the help of some minions. Highlands students completed their dragon eyes and did a great job! 2014-15 is going to be a great year. My Highlands students will be starting off the year with a dragon eye drawing - in which we will work on shading and creating visual texture. Lots of fun lessons are in store for my West students, too, such as dragons for 2nd graders, and puffy doodle paint for DK students. We also have a "Glue Bootcamp" in store for the second week at West which will be a fun challenge which we hope will help us become glue champions.
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AuthorMrs. Usadel Archives
April 2020
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