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Our schedule has changed a great deal this year. It's been quite an adjustment for both the teachers and the students, but things are settling into place well. We are now using a rotation schedule, and we have A-week, B-week, and C-week. One benefit of the new schedule is that students in 1st-4th grades will have hour-long sessions for Art this year, increased from the 45-minute classes we had in the past. Kindergartners will have half-hour sessions, but will come to Art twice as often. It works out that in each three-week cycle of the rotation, all students will have 2 1/2 hours of Art! Each Friday, all art classes will last only 30 minutes, and each classroom will have one Friday session in each three-week cycle. Since our "Friday Sessions" are so short, we'll use these days for skill-builder exercises, rather than continuing our regular art projects. I'm excited to get to try some new activities with students! This session's activity was based on a new book I discovered over the summer, called "Swatch: the Girl Who Loved Color." Here's a preview video from the publisher- "Swatch" is an imaginative little girl who sees colors as wild, free, creatures. She tries to tame the colors and trap them in jars. She soon realizes that the colors aren't meant to be tamed, and instead should remain free. She releases the colors and they swirl together, making a masterpiece. Swatch describes her favorite colors with wonderful figurative language. She gives colors names like "rumble-tumble pink", "bravest green", and "in-between gray." After we read the book, students were asked to name their own color and write a description of it. This artist even drew his own interpretation of Swatch, riding the colors through the sky! And this artist drew herself as Swatch, complete with stripes of face paint like the character in the book!
At the end of the lesson, students shared their color creations with each other.
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I always try to have my kindergartners paint on the very first day of Art. I know that might seem like a lot to expect, since many of them have never been in school and have never even held a paintbrush (some not even a pencil!) but I like that it makes their first art experience a memorable and engaging one. This year, I introduced the painting process with my new favorite book- "To Be An Artist". The book celebrates all different types of art forms. It teaches that making art is not always just drawing, painting, and sculpting- playing instruments, singing, dancing, weaving, sewing, acting, and even creative writing are all ways of making art! My favorite thing about the book is that it is written with a global perspective. The images from the book are of children from all over the world! After seeing the children in the book making art, we were ready to make our own artworks. My goal for this lesson was really just to get a paintbrush in each child's hand- I wanted to give them the experience of painting, rather than focus on making a finished product. Students worked with a partner to make large collaborative paintings that we added to each day. By the end of the week, and after multiple painting sessions, lots of little hands had contributed to each artwork! Here are some of the finished paintings- they are so bright and beautiful! Welcome back to school! It has been a great first few weeks. Very busy, but great! We started the year with a solar eclipse-themed artwork, to celebrate the "Great American Eclipse" that passed over us on August 21st. We started by looking at some artworks inspired by previous eclipses. We discussed how each artist interpreted the eclipse in a unique way and with a variety of materials. Representing an eclipse through a pen-and-ink drawing. And a painting. With stained glass. Wood-working techniques. And quilting! Students then created their own interpretation of the eclipse using a chalk pastel technique. Here are our "Solar Eclipse Silhouettes"! ![]() I love the detail this student added- a drawing of himself wearing his eclipse glasses!! |
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