November 20th

Today is our only day in Art this week with the long Thanksgiving break beginning tomorrow.  I am excited for a few of my classes to have an extra day to work on their projects.

During the past few weeks I have been encouraging my classes to use their time more wisely by working instead of talking.  We have had a contest going between the classes.  There were two classes that tied for the best workers (I used an app that helped to monitor our volume level as part of the contest), these were Mrs. Wiser's and Mrs. Engles' classes.  For working so hard to keep on task and work together, they were provided an extra art experience on the last day of school.  These classes were allowed to do a painted cookie project.  Using food coloring (similar to watercolors) they used brand new brushes and painted a design onto a sugar cookie.  Many of the students did projects using rotational symmetry while a few others simply painted a variety of designs or attempted to paint a portrait.  It was quite a fun project for those that got to participate.

Week of November 13th thru 16th

This week we began working on our Aurora Borealis projects.  These projects begin with the watercolor texture paper we created last week.  The watercolor papers were turned into mountains and then using chalk students were able to create an Aurora or Northern Lights effect behind them.  This project has taken us a couple of class periods because the chalking takes longer for some of the students.  The end results are turning out quite well.

This is also the final week of the trimester.  I have sent home an email encouraging students to check their skyward to see if they have missing assignments.  There are several students who show they have missing work, however many of these are probably in the no name basket in my room.  Please check and turn in anything that is missing.  The last day to turn in anything will be Friday at 2:15PM.   Grades will post after Thanksgiving Break.

Next week we will only have one day of school and will be used as an extra work day on projects.

Week of November 6th thru 9th

This week we continued to work on finishing the Halloween silhouette paintings.  Most of the students are making great progress.

For those classes that have struggled with following instructions we have spent some time working on art concepts instead of time spent on projects.  In 4th grade classes this meant that we focused a class period on exploring what art means to them, and what they have learned and how to use art as an expression.

Throughout the year we will take time to re-direct our focus to art as an expression and learn about specific techniques and art terms as well as completing projects in those styles.

At the end of this week we began a new art project.  Using another watercolor technique we created a textured painting that will then be used to create a complete project next week.

Week of October 30th to November 2nd

This was a fun week in the are room.  We did a bit of subtractive sculpture (aka pumpkin carving) and I think the students had a great time.

 

I took a picture of the classroom before all of the fun got started and then each of the classes pumpkin groupings afterwards. 

 

For those students that didn't bring pumpkins or for those that finished early we had an extra watercolor project they could work on.  It is amazing just how fast the class time seemed to go both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday and Friday we were back to work on our Fall Silhouettes.  By this point all of the students should have completed painting their sunset backgrounds and will work on finishing their silhouette foregrounds next week. 

November's Art Case

The 3rd graders made the artwork for the display case this month.  I helped to create a semi 3-D tree and the students all wrote on colored falling leaves what they were thankful for.