SPRING ARTS SHOWCASE!!!

SPRING ARTS SHOWCASE

ORCHARD GARDENS PILOT SCHOOL 

THURSDAY, May 25th 

5:00-7:00pm

Come walk the corridors,

view the amazing student art work, 

and stay to enjoy performances from 

music, dance and theater!

K0-K2 Strand Hungry Caterpillar 

1st grade Chalk Robots

2nd grade Laurel Birch Line & Patterns Cats

3rd grade Monet Landscapes  

3rd Grade Mixed Media Owl Biomes

5th grade Sumi Ink Exploration

Middle School Strand Russian Nesting Dolls

6th grade Folk Art Landscapes

6th grade Egyptian Profiles

7th grade London Postcards

Middle School Elective Modigliani Portraits

Complementary Colors Robots

Key Vocabulary:
Value
Tint
Shade
Complementary color

I wanted to design a lesson for my 3rd graders to better understand value and the color wheel.  We initially talked about value and how artists can brighten or darken color with tints and shades.  We learned that adding white to a color brightens up a color and is called a tint.  We sketched out robots both in our sketchbooks and then on a larger scale before using tints to create robots which appear to have light casting on them.

After the tinted robots were finished we then discussed shade and complementary colors.  Students watched the above youtube clip to help understand how complementary colors work.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this song!  Students then matched their robots to their complementary color and used shade to created the background.  A little outline work and , ta-da!  Awesome color robots!

Owl Biomes

Mixed media collage with water color and oil pastel backgrounds

Save the Date: Winter Arts Showcase 12/17/15

WINTER ARTS SHOWCASE

ORCHARD GARDENS PILOT SCHOOL 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17th 

5:00-7:00pm

Come walk the corridors,

view the amazing student art work, 

and stay to enjoy performances from 

music, dance and theater!

1st grade VanGogh Inspired Still Lives

7th grade Romero Britto Painting

1st grade Paul Klee Cats

Middle school elective Jasper Johns inspired American Flags

5th grade Clipper Ships

6th Grade Cowboy & Cowgirl Portraits

2nd grade Geometric Cityscapes

Make Your Mark Mural

This school year started off with a community mural for all grades and abilities to contribute too.  I was inspired by this post on Art Rocks to get the process started.



Students started the project by listening to the classic art story, The Dot by, Peter Reynolds.  This was a great way for students understand how to put their "mark" on our group mural.  The rest was then up to them.  I left various colors of paint out for students to use and ask groups of 3-4 students to come up and contribute  to the mural by painting a dot or circle.  I can't wait to see the finished mural!

Isn't the finished product stunning!

Hot Air Balloon Ride

Ever since I was a young girl, I've been fascinated with hot air balloons.  There was a annual festival near my hometown and we would see the balloon floating through the rolling Green Mountains during the month of June.  I found this video clip and had my 3rd grade students watch how magical this experience is.  We "ooooed" and awwwwwwed" at the balloons lifting up into the sky and flying through the lush Vermont landscape and tried to replicate what we saw through a watercolor painting.

Day 1: Working on making rolling hills using watercolor technique

Day two will be devoted to adding the sky and making the hot air balloons.  Stay tuned for more pictures and final products!

Bugs In A Jar

Doreen Cronin has hit a home run with this trilogy!  These captivating books bring a touch of humor and insect facts in a diary style format.  My students always enjoy listening to these books and they lend themselves to an art project.

With summer approaching, we discussed ways we could turn off technology and connect with nature. Collecting bugs is a great way to observe the insect world and have some fun getting messy by flipping rocks, digging in the dirt or busting out a butterfly net to catch some flying creatures.  With that in mind, we designed bug jars and filled with with thumb print bugs.

Each color represents a different bug which needed to have a minimum of four bug details:

wings

legs

eyes

stinger

antenna

stripes

dots

hair

claw/pincher

The final piece to make this project complete is a math word problem.  I designed a template for students to use which made editing and proof reading a real breeze for this projects.

In my bug jar I have ______________   ______________ bugs,

______________   ______________ bugs and 

______________   ______________ bugs.  

How many bugs do I have all together?

______________ + ______________ + ______________ = ______________ bugs

Spring Arts Showcase!!!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!

The spring arts showcase is here:

Thursday, May 28
4:30-6:30pm

Book Making - Things That Come in Groups

In collaboration with the 3rd grade math curriculum, students began a collective art project on multiplication and book making.  Students were divided into small groups and were asked to brainstorm a list of objects that come in groups of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, (skipped 11) and 12.

Students were then asked to "tag" which group(s) they want to illustrate.

Here's what a finished chart looks like.

We then spent a class making various styles of printed paper.  We used 1) paint and stamping techniques, 2) tissue paper and bleeding techniques and 3) rubbing with a wash technique.

 From there we began collaging.  The catch, no pencils or writing materials allowed!  I wanted students to really pull from their imagination and use their creative thinking to branch away from the crutch of drawing before cutting.  It was a challenge for them at first but once they started, nothing held them back.

This is just a sneak peek of all their hard work.  Check back to see their finished books!