End of Year Folders

1st grader

As much as I am looking forward to a wonderful summer, I am also looking forward to next school year. Looking at some of the projects going home as I clear out the display art that has been in the hallway and around town, I am reminded of the school year that is coming to a close. Every student has made a large white folder decorated as they wished to hold all leftover art to take home.

2nd Grader

The Worm...

When I was in late-elementary or middle school, I used to draw worms on the rubber side sole of my converses along with sunflowers, symbols from Tolkien's books and whatever other doodles.
As an end-of-the year free project, I introduced worm drawings. Challenge is using line to create the illusion of 3D on a 2D surface.

Serena

Kerry

Dragon Mural in Progress

Mrs. Muhlbauer (our Media Specialist/Librarian) and I donated a Teacher Experience for the PTO auction this year. The winner, a 5th grader named Cait, gets to paint a dragon on the wall of our library with a few friends. On Friday we are having a pizza and mural painting party after-school. Cait has a lot of work to do but got a great start yesterday by drawing her dragon on the wall and she started painting a base coat of color.....keep in mind that the colors you see are undertones for the final painting.

Next year, at some point the plan is to have students paint a castle around this dragon.

Grade 2: Mexican Serape

I've realized that I am drawn to the messier materials (except glitter) for some reason. It was nice to have my second graders working on the drawings for the Mexican serape project today.

We loved looking at this beautiful fabric

I loved talking to my students about where they have seen serape fabric before. Most answers detailed family trips to Mexico, trips to Shop Rite and displays in Senora Morrison's Spanish classroom. I loved the recall. 

Gathering the kids around the demo table, I spread the serape out and we touched it and admired the beautiful colors. I was excited that when I asked where value is seen in the serape, my students identified areas of light and dark blue.

Intricate center design

We talked about the designs and how they were created using lines with a neat center design that is more elaborate. How can you create a design using only lines? Here is a sketch and the start of the  final serape a student completed.

Kind of Cute but Meaningful Nonetheless

My Toll Gate 5th graders started the Mandala, radial design project today that I blogged about a few months ago with one group of student at Bear Tavern.

So I am demonstrating and explaining what a Radial Design is and the kids got so excited because Radial Symmetry was a topic on their NJASK standardized test they had this morning. They got a bit sidetracked for a few seconds as they chatted about what the right answer was on the exam. So cute they were!!
Later in the period, I was discussing the pros and cons of the use of a symbol in their radial designs and mentioned that when viewing art with symbols, it can be reminiscent for the viewer (ex. If you use a symbol of HV and then move out of Hopewell Valley, every time you see your art with the HV symbol, you will remember the times before you moved) in a positive or negative way.
 Again, some of the kids were so excited because "reminiscent" is one of their current vocabulary words in 5th grade.

The meaningful part. It is important to be aware of the various topics that students are learning in their respective grade levels to help them to secure the information,  grasp the learning and really understand it.

I love when kids are excited about connections that they make in their learning.