Week of Sept. 30th - Oct. 4th

First, I want to thank all of those students and parents who took the time to come and visit me in the Art Room during SEPs.  I hope you enjoyed getting to see a little of what they have been doing so far in art.

This week we finished learning/reviewing color.  We talked about primary, secondary, and tertiary colors as well as learned about complementary and analogous colors.  We talked about colors as they are used to express emotions and feelings.

Because I like to start each month with a fun project for the students, we created chalked pumpkins this week.  We talked just a little bit about texture in their drawings and how using different mediums as well as different drawing techniques can create a different look to what we are creating.  When drawing their pumpkins they were to add texture elements.

They also had the opportunity to do a paper folding activity to create 3-D fall leaves.  These leaves and some of their pumpkins were used in creating the hallway display.

Next week is a short week with Fall Break on Thursday and Friday.  I will only get to see each class once, so I will let students use this last day to work on finishing a variety of projects that they may only have partially completed.

Week of August 20-23, 2013

Welcome back to another exciting school year!  I am thrilled this year to have 8 classes of 4th-6th grade students to get to spend my days with.

We have had two class periods together in each class this week.  During our first class students were able to participate in a classroom scavenger hunt to help them find where everything is in our new classroom.  We then went through primary classroom rules and expectations.

During our second class together I introduced the idea of art through a fun children's book.  We then talked about the "Artistic Process" in a similar style of the scientific process.  We began talking about the way we move from the original thought and idea of an art project through creating a plan, gathering materials, creating the work, critiquing our results, and finalizing a project and displaying it for others to see.

We will follow this same procedure next week as we begin our first art project.  Students will individually design and create a puzzle piece that will be combined with all of the pieces created by all of the 8 classes to create a collaborative art piece that will be displayed throughout the school year.  I am excited to see what they come up with and the final results.

This week each student also brought home a disclosure document that details our class rules and expectations as well as a list of supplies that we can use in the classroom.  I am thankful for the supplies that have already been brought in!  If each student brings in just one item from the list it will help benefit all of our 8 classes.

I look forward to a great year exploring art ideas and concepts as well as creating with your children.  I believe that inside each of them are great ideas and creativity waiting to be expressed.  If you ever have questions about projects we are working on or what we are doing in the art room please feel free to email me at jenniferharding@alpinedistrict.org or call me at the school 801-756-8531 room 158,

A New Year, A New Room

It's almost time for a new school year to begin, and I am excited to be meeting my students next week.

I have been busy this summer.  Some of the things I have done this summer include moving from our old classroom to our new art classroom just down the hall, taking online courses in art and education, and attending a fun summer Elementary Arts training through the district.  I have also had the opportunity to spend a lot of vacation time with my family and found several good books to read.

Moving our art room has given me the opportunity to re-decorate and create some new fun displays in our room.  I also have discovered a great collaborative art piece that was done by Forbes students a number of years ago.  I have also started planning some of the fun projects we can do this year.

I hope you are all as excited to get back to school as I am!

Week of December 4th thru 7th

This has been a busy week in the art room.  We have been trying to get both the Aurora Borealis and the Watercolor Sillohette projects compeletly finished. 

For fourth grades this will most likely take all of our time left before winter break because we had an extra one day project last week of creating Christmas ornaments to decorate the lunchroom with. 

For fifth and sixth grades these projects should be finished now with only a handful of students needing an extra day.  So we started also talking about stained glass windows, the origin of stained glass, and how it is considered and used as an art form both for windows and art glass as well.  Students began designing a stained glass window they would like to make.

In addition to the other projects we had going on, I decided to let a few of my fifth and sixth grade students decorate my classroom windows for the holidays.  Those students who had all of their other projects completed had the chance to draw sticks to see which three students from each class would get to decorate a window pane.  Those students were then allowed to pick two others to help them.  Finally, this afternoon all of the windows were finally painted.  It was a lot of fun for me as well as the students.

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.

Our First Days

It's the second day of school and I've finally had a chance to meet the students from all 7 of my classes.  What a great group of kids I'm lucky enough to spend part of every day with. 

In our first class time together, each class helped to create a masterpiece for my room.  These are collaborative artworks that are patterned after the "UP" balloons that carried away the house.  I had each class help me create their own bunch of balloons using their thumb prints to carry away our classroom.

They are kind of hard to see, but across my cabinets are all 7 of my classes and their bunch of balloons.

 

Also during our first day we made name cards that will help me recognize students with the right name (until I can try to start remembering all 200+ students).  In addition, I let them create their own Lego Men.  They could make it look like themselves, their future self or career, or even just a creatively designed figurine.  Here's some of what they created.

It is fun to get to spend time with these kids watching and enjoying their creativity. 

Our Classroom

Here's a sneak peak inside our room: