An "Accordion" isn't just an instrument? It can be a BOOK style too?

Accordion Books and Storytelling!

Schools focus so much on reading and literacy these days that the most important, in my opinion (and I could be biased), part of the story are forgotten....  

The Pictures!!!

During African American History Month fourth grade students looked at the narrative within Jacob Lawrence's The Great Migration series.  We looked at how he documents and tells about an event using primarily pictures, not words.   Students then were challenged to think of a simple event in their life (my example was when I adopted my dog Dublin) and simplify it down to 5-7 sentences.  Students then took those 5-7 sentences and illustrated each one.  

 

 Now here comes the fun part!  At a recent professional development day the National Museum of Women in the Arts came and demonstrated the process of making an accordion book.  I immediately thought... PERFECT!... so I came back to work the following week, pumped to share this idea with my students, and well, they picked the concept up and ran with it!  Check out some of our phenomenal final results...

 

This student remembered the field trip we took to the Botanical Gardens LAST YEAR, where we drew from observation!!

Cave Art!

Check out this easy 1-class project that you can even do at home parents!

Kindergarten students have been learning about the ice age and pre-historic times.... and usually I try to relate my art lessons to their curriculum themes... I'd never done this cave art project before with Kindergarten because I honestly was dreading it would turn into a mess of paint but WOW did these kindergarteners surprise me!

 All you need for this project is brown, black, and white paint, a paper plate, paper towels, q-tips, and a piece of paper(it doesn't have to be brown).  Check out the set up for this project to the right....




Usually, I show images of the pre-historic cave art from the caves at Lascaux, and we talk about what these artists put into their images (animals, people, nature).  We then talk about how everything is painted out of lines and shapes.  You will probably get asked a question like "why don't we have other colored paint?" and "why  don't we have paintbrushes?" At this point we usually talk about how there weren't big machines used to make paints and supplies and so the cave people had to use what they could find from nature!



Check out the awesome results of what happens when students return to their seats and begin working on their own cave art!!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!

 

Need I say more? SUPPORT your LOCALS! 

.Local School. Local Brewery. Local Real Estate. Local Legal. Local Food. Local Music. Local ART!

It's Coming......

Attention All!

SAVE THE DATE: February 27th, 2014 6-8p.m.

for...

The Second Annual Bancroft Elementary Art Auction!!!!

More Details to Follow in addition to a Formal Invite!!!

A-R-C-H-I-T-E-C-T-U-R-E!

The fifth grade students began a unit on landscape, as usual, I had the students do what we call a "baseline" which is a drawing prior to in depth instruction so I can get a read on the skill level and knowledge retention from previous years. I noticed that a large percentage of the students were focusing on architecture within their landscapes, so my initial lesson plan went out the window, and I made a new one(flying by the seat of my pants) about ARCHITECTURE! 

For a new baseline, students were asked to take the knowledge of a landscape and apply it to a cityscape... I was thrilled with the results and the creativity of my students!!! Stay tuned to see their final results as this project is just beginning!

Food, Art, collage, and Pre-K 3's!!

Still Life #30, Tom Wesselmann

 Many people may think it's crazy to have Pre-K 3's sit down for a solid 15 minutes just to look at, and talk about one piece of artwork. Believe it or not, it can be done!  In fact, I've found this year it's harder to get my third and fourth graders talking about art than getting a 3 year old to do so!

This project was spearheaded by a wonderful parent within one of my PK-3 classes who has a background of art. Since the students are learning about the grocery store in their classrooms, she brought this piece of artwork to my attention and offered to lead a lesson on collage with the students!

We dispersed images of Tom Wesselmann's Still Life #30 and asked students what they saw.  Students immediately began shouting out the various items they saw within this artwork.  We then explained to students that this artist used photographs of food, cut them out, and glued them onto his artwork.  This process is called a collage. Students were given pre-cut food images at their table as well as crayons, glue, and blank sheet of construction paper to work with.  As soon as students sat down they began working.  I was so amazed by the way students created balance, unity, and emphasis within their collages all on their own!  Check out  the pictures below of the process and some final pieces!

 

Where is the Orange, Purple, and Green?!

Check out these awesome observational drawings!  

Students reviewed how to draw complex objects by breaking them down into simple shapes, then adding lines to show detail!

    Students used an ultra-fine point black sharpie marker to do the basic line drawing of their objects.  Once it was time to add color, students were given watercolor pencils.  But they quickly noticed something.... they only had  red, blue, yellow, brown, white, and black... So hands quickly shot up into the air requesting the missing colors.  To the student's surprise I reacted as though I had never heard that there were more options within watercolor pencils and explained they would have to think back to previous lessons to solve this problem.  

  

     

     Immediatley discussion began about what two colors make green, purple, and orange.  Students quickly realized that...

RED + BLUE = PURPLE

YELLOW + BLUE = GREEN

RED + YELLOW = ORANGE

   Students did a great job layering the water color pencils then adding water on top when finished to turn the average looking colored pencils into magnificent paint!  Check out the amazing results the students of first and second grade achieved!

**Parents:  Color mixing is a great concept to review with your students over the winter holiday. For younger students, read the story Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh!  For older students ask them to describe colors using the "Ish".... for example, rather than a color being blue, it could be "blue-ish, green-ish"  for this, have students read the story Ish by Peter H. Reynolds!!