Projects In-Progress: Middle School

8th Grade:

8th Graders are in the beginning stages of their torn paper portraits.  Students are having to focus on values within a portrait and create their own "paint-by-number" which is then covered in different values of torn paper.  The project is challenging and time-consuming but the final results are magnificent.  Here are some work in-progress:

7th Grade:
Students are starting to finish up their cities in 2-point perspective projects.  They have put a lot of time into these and their growth from the beginning of this lesson to now is wonderful!

 6th Grade:
6th Graders are continuing to work on their paintbrush people!  Once completed we will begin painting them and bring their personalities to life!

"Who Needs Legs When I Have Wings to Fly."- Frida Kahlo

Ask a 5th grader what that quote means.  It's an inspiring story and one that came from our unit on Frida Kahlo.  

I am absolutely in love with these artworks!   I want to frame each and every one of these beautiful pictures and hang them all over my house!!!!  The students really grasped the essence of Frida Kahlo...uni-brow at all.  From the bold colors, the use of her pets in her paintings, her jewelry and fashion sense, and depiction of flowers and plant life, the 5th graders really show the amazing style of this famous Mexican artists' work.

Doodle 4 Google Contest

WHAT I SEE FOR THE FUTURE...

Starting this week in art class, students in grades 4th-8th will be given information in regards to the Doodle 4 Google annual art contest.  Entry forms will be available in the art room and all students will be encouraged to participate in the contest.

6th-8th graders will be given an added incentive to participate.  They will receive 3 sketchbook credits if they enter the contest.

Theme this year:  What I See For the Future...

Entries will need to be submitted to me no later than Friday, November 18th.  

Here is a link for more information and rules about the contest:  https://doodles.google.com/d4g/
I will be going over all of the rules with students in class this week.

Prizes:

Grand Prize:  The National Winner will have his or her doodle featured on the U.S. Google.com homepage for one day. He or she will receive:

• A $30,000 college scholarship
• A $50,000 Google for Education Technology Award for their school or non-profit organization
• A trip to the Google Headquarters in California
• A Chromebook
• An Android tablet

National Finalists

The four National Finalists who do not become the National Winner will have their doodles featured in the Doodle 4 Google gallery. Each National Finalist will receive:

• A $5,000 college scholarship
• A trip to the Google Headquarters in California
• An Android tablet

State and Territory Winners

The 48 State and Territory winners who do not become National Finalists will have their doodles included in the Doodle 4 Google gallery. Each State and Territory Winner will receive:

• An Android tablet

I always look forward to this contest each year as I am blown away with the creativity and the effort that is put into these by the students!

Do You Know The Way to San Jose?

4th Graders are working hard on creating iconic San Jose landmarks.  These will soon be gracing the bulletin board near the computer lab. 

Creative Compassion Corner: Our First Partnership

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford has contacted us and would love to accept some of the projects that the students are creating at the Creative Compassion Corner in the art room over the course of the year to distribute to their patients.

The projects that will be designated for donation to LPCH include:

-Student made joke books
-Student designed and collaborative coloring books, and
-Handmade worry dolls

Doing good for others one creative endeavor at a time.  

Tick Tock Crayon Clock

Never give an art teacher 30 minutes to herself.  

The new art classroom clock!

Sneak Peak: Future Project

What do you do when you have a full grocery bag of dollar store paintbrushes?
Make paintbrush people of course!

Can't wait for this to dry to start painting it!

Can you imagine a whole class set of cute paintbrush people all displayed at once?!  

 

6th graders in the next few weeks will get to start creating their own paintbrush people.  I can already visualize a whole wall full of these little creatures!

Fifth Grade Frida Kahlo Frenzy

This week students began translating their rough sketches into a final design.  Some students were even able to start adding oil pastel to their projects.  I know it is early but I can already tell that the final projects are going to be spectacular!!!  And more importantly, even though it has been two weeks (due to Labor Day) since 5th graders have had art class, the amount that they were able to remember about Frida Kahlo's life was remarkable.  Looking forward to posting the final results in a week or two.

Here are pictures of projects in-progress:

Talking to Children About Art

Facilitating a conversation about art with our kids:

It doesn't take much to get the conversation rolling but the lessons can be deep.  Art is everywhere we look.    Here are a few ways to get kids talking about art:

http://tinkerlab.com/five-easy-steps-for-talking-with-children-about-art/

Projects for the Week of August 29th

4th Grade:  

This week students will be working on an oil pastel architecture-based "San Jose landmark" project to decorate our hallway bulletin board.  It will include a drawing of St. Frances Cabrini church at the heart/hub of the bulletin board and will then be surrounded by a variety of Silicon Valley landmark architecture/buildings.  It will be fun for students walking down the hallway to try and find some of these landmarks that are special to our city.

Inspiration for the project:

5th Grade:

Students are learning all about the artwork and life of artist Frida Kahlo.  Students will be creating an oil pastel portrait of Frida incorporating what they have learned about her own style and her life.

Portraits will include features such as:

-Hair with flowers in it
-Use of vivid colors
-Connection to Mexican culture
-Depiction of her pets in the portrait
-Exaggeration of her eyebrows
-Adornment of jewelry and accessories
-Use of cactus, leaves, and flowers in the background.

Inspiration for student art:

6th Grade: STEAM-BASED PROJECT

Students are starting out the year by learning how to shade properly.  We will be looking at how lighting affects shading and shadow direction and we will be looking at how to shade a variety of forms including a sphere, cylinder, cone, vessel, and cube.

Finally, students will create a composition that only features the before-mentioned forms and we will explore how to shade when an objects shadow falls on an adjacent object.

7th Grade: STEAM-BASED PROJECT

We are jumping right into 2-point perspective.  Students just learned how to draw a city using 2-point perspective.  They will be working over the next few weeks to create their own cities which will then be outlined in sharpie and embellished with watercolors.

8th Grade:  STEAM-BASED PROJECT

Students will be learning how to draw the face in proportion.  We will be looking at the mathematical proportions of the face.  Along with this, students will be learning how to properly draw lips, eyes, ears, and a nose which can then be applied to a proportionately drawn face.

Think Like An Artist: Artist Statements

This year in grades 4th-8th grade, students will be attaching these artist statements (see picture) to the back of their artworks.  They will need to write a response to the prompts after the completion of every art project.
My goal this year is for students to be more aware of the art process instead of worrying about the art product.  After all, it is in the process where the learning happens.

"A Note From the Art Teacher......"

In grades 4th-8th, expect to get one (or multiple) of these notes home this year. 

Every week, I am going to make an effort to send a few notes home in each grade, letting parents know what GOOD I am seeing in their children.  Maybe I caught them helping another student out in class, or has been working really really hard in art class, or every day greets me when they walk in with a smile and thanks me on the way out the door.  Whatever, the "goodness" is, I want to send each student home with at least one of these notes this year. 

Too often the notes that parents receive from a teacher at home are negative in nature.  I want to send home some of the positive this year!

The students seemed very excited about this today in class and had lots of questions in regards to this "new" item in art class.  There are going to be a lot of proud students coming home with these notes this year. 

New for 2016-2017: Creative Compassion Corner

How can we use our creative talents for good?  How do we instill a community of kindness?

This year when students finish a project early, instead of free draw students will now go to the Creative Compassion Corner to work on a project that will give back to the community.  They will get to choose from a binder of twelve art-based projects.

The station is set up to give students the opportunity to work independently and choose what creative project interests them most.  They choose a project and each binder has detailed instructions for each one.

By doing this, I am hoping to show students that their talents can always be used to do good and to create a classroom environment that instills the idea of kindness.

Middle school students will get to choose to either work on their sketchbooks or a project at the Creative Compassion Corner if they finish an in-class project early.  4th-5th graders will only have this option.

Your Trash Is My Treasure

Cleaning out a closet?  Kids old craft drawer?  

Grandma’s a hoarder?  You need to make room in your garage to fit your car?  

Feel free to contact me to see if the art room could use your unwanted items.  

Some items that the classroom would gladly accept:

-Postage stamps (for our Creative Compassion station, letters to military personnel and letters to grandma and grandpa for our Mail-a-Hug’s)

-Hot glue guns (preferably low or dual temp)

-Sandpaper

-Foam poster boards

-Yard sticks

-Collection of wood scraps

-Glass marbles (for melting in the kiln with some of our ceramic projects)

-Newspapers (Do people read these anymore?)

The above list are things I can think of right now, but you’d be surprised at what projects I can come up with with some of the random “trash” that we receive.  So, anything goes.  I will also keep an ongoing list on the right-hand side of the blog page titled "Your Trash is My Treasure."  

If you find something you think we can use, just send me an email and I'll get back to you ASAP. Thanks in advance!  And your welcome for giving you an incentive to clean that closet ;)