A ship made of blocks

A block castle

A first-grade modeling clay man.

A dragon hand puppet

A creative collaborative holiday greeting made by two girls.

A bird's-eye view of a super-fast race car.

An interesting point of view of one of Santa's elves!

One of our 5th grade students chose to create three-dimensional lettering for this sign.

Many of our students enjoy making portraits of royalty.

Kimmy was inspired by ceramic comedy and tragedy theater masks that she had seen at a friend's house.

I have been a little slow this year in updating our class blog, due to injuries and surgery that caused me to miss some school at the beginning of the year. But we are catching up quickly in our choice-based art room. We currently have a drawing station, a paper station, a weaving station, a three-dimensional construction station using found materials , and a painting station open in grades three, four, and five. 1st and 2nd grades are able to go to the drawing station, paper station, modeling clay, and painting. 2nd grade also uses the construction station. Kindergarten has choices of drawing, pre-cut paper shapes for collage, modeling clay, stamping, and blocks They have just been introduced to cutting out their own shapes for a non-objective collage.

On Fridays, all students may go to the conceptual building station, where they use creative ideas for three-dimensional constructions that are temporary. The building station has a variety of 3-D sets: k'nex, kid k'nex, legos, shapees, tinkertoys, 4 large tubs of blocks, bristle blocks, space links, jigsaw puzzles, tangram puzzles, plastic and rubber shapes for making 2-D designs, and magnetix. They may also use the graphic programs on the computers on Fridays.

Third, fourth, and fifth grade students weave with yarn. Third grade students learn finger weaving and cup-weaving. Fourth grade and fifth grade students learn straw-weaving and rectangular weaving on pasteboard looms. These are, of course, a choice to work on.

I have recently introduced bookmaking. First grade students can make their own books using yarn for binding. Second grade students are making altered books by selecting cut-up nameless art work to add details to and change to their own art, then bind with yarn. Third through fifth grade students are using old books from our library to make their own altered books. First they are painting the covers, and then will add their own artwork to the inside pages.


I plan on introducing some new stations in the next semester, which may take the place of established ones. We are also beginning to get ready for our all-school spring art show, which takes place on March 27th.

Reflections on the Year

As I think about the past year, and begin to get ready for the new year, I am very pleased with what we were able to accomplish, and am looking forward to new explorations in the coming year. I have learned so much from watching my students create, and sincerely hope that they have learned from each other. Many of them are very pleased to see themselves improve, and are so proud of themselves when they find ways of making what they want to make - using found materials, and with creative solutions to problems. I love to see the light in their eyes when something that they have tried works, and have been particularly pleased with the many collaborations between, two, three, and even four students. We spent more time than I intended to on certain aspects of art, culture, procedures, and history, and therefore didn't get to some things that I had hoped to include, but the extra time spent was at the direct request of the students, and therefore worthwhile. Next year, through our continuing growth together, we will try to get to those things that were skipped this year. Our curriculum will continue to spiral around the stations that we have used for the last two years: drawing; collage; paper puppets and masks; paper sculpture; cardboard construction; papier mache`; weaving; stitchery; painting; printmaking; conceptual building with reusuable sets; and clay. I received a grant for our classroom for an architecture station from the Union Education Foundation in the spring, and have spent a lot of time researching what activities and materials I would like to include in this station for next year. We had several students show an interest in architecture this year, which led me to apply for the grant. I am excited to begin our third full year of allowing students to choose subjects, methods, and materials.

Printmaking

Kindergarten stamping

First grade gadget printing

In the spring, in each of our first through fifth grade classes, we did a printmaking rotation. First and second grade did gadget printing, third grade did monoprinting, 4th grade did screen-printing, and 5th grade did styrofoam block printing. Kindergarten had been doing stamping all year, but in the spring we emphasized stamping patterns. Unfortunately, in the rush and changes of schedules at the end of the year, I did not get pictures of all of these activities.

Hand puppets

Tyren's dog
Emma's Tinkerbell
Teddy Bear
Madeline's dog
Bride

At the end of the year, many of the students were anxious to finish their hand puppets and stuffed dolls. I was pleased to see how many of them made characters from stories, or created their own character that had a story to go with it. These are just a few of the ones made in 4th and 5th grade.

5th grade art work in the art show

Jorddeah's paper mache' mask

Adelaide's oil pastel dog.
Briana's Indian.

2nd grade collaborative mural - War of the Worlds

Jack, Cole, and Isaac started a collaborative drawing about a space battle one day near the beginning of the year. They were so excited about the way that it was turning out, that they asked if they could add another piece of paper. Every day for a couple of months, they would come in, get another sheet of paper, tape it on, and continue the battle, until they ended up with 24 sheets! They would have started with our big mural paper if they had known how fast their ideas would flow. Every class period, I would only see the tops of their heads as they were bent over their work and drawing excitedly.

4th grade art in the art show

Mason and Aaron made a "stretchy maze."
Jacob and Alex made a colorful non-objective.
Saketh worked for days on his haunted house.
Joseph, Hunter, and friends worked on their collaborative work about good and evil.
Annalise made her church out of clay.

3rd grade art in the art show

Emily's Pollock-style splatter painting

Kimmie's oil pastel drawing of a jewelry counter
Dylan's painting
Brandom's drawing of race cars

2nd grade art work in the art show

Murtaza's dinosaur
Lexi and Brianna's collaborative painting
Anah's white charcoal pencil drawing

Jacob's football player

First grade art work in the school art show

Tallon's rocket ship
Casey's men fighting mammoths

Ashad's space battle
Isaac's army helicopters with birds
Payton's race cars