November Winslow Homer Ships and One Point Perspective Tall Tale Characters

 This month in art we have been studying the watercolor masterpieces of Winslow Homer and recreating what The Mayflower may have looked like! Students learned the history of the Mayflower and the story of the Pilgrims who came across the ocean in it. Watercolor techniques were learned and a wash was applied to depict the sky and the ocean water.

 Ms. Isom's 5th grade class is writing stories on tall tale characters and we collaborated with this idea in art. The students learned about one point perspective and we drew a very tall character on their paper and then painted it in with background. This is what we are striving for with an arts integrated lesson! Collaboration and cross discipline learning.

Paul Klee Kindergarten Cats and Warm, Organic Leaf Patterning

Kindergarten is learning about shapes and painting in their hand drawn lines. We studied Expressionist Swiss Artist, Paul Klee, and learned about his favorite cat named Bimbo.  After looking at Paul's 'Cat and Bird' painting we painted our own!

Fourth and fifth graders are learning about warm colors on the color wheel, organic lines from nature, patterns, symmetrical and asymmetrical patterning and backgrounds. This project covers all of these important concepts and gave students a chance to celebrate the beginning of autumn!

'BEYOND THE BORDER' Benefit Art Sale for Families of the Victims of Colorado City/ Hildale Flooding

Please come support our middle schoolers and purchase one of their paintings for a minimum donation of $10 each. Our students have been working hard to get these finished and sold so they can give the money to the mayor who will purchase a memorial bench with the names of the local families lost in the flood in September 2015. 

Fourth Grade Integration of the Water Cycle

Fourth grade illustration of the water cycle.

This past week the fourth grade students were learning about the water cycle. The classroom teachers and I collaborated and this is what came out of our collaboration. Students illustrated and labeled the water cycle in a beautiful way!  

 Kindergarten, first and second grades finished painting their line owls. An emphasis was put on symmetry, line designs, bold color choices and learning to paint with watercolor. 

Kindergarten and first grades are learning about the changing season and practicing stamping leaves and painting in the lines!

Arts Integration and Self Portraits

"How the Arts Unlock the Door to Learning"

Mariko Nobori

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-reform-overview

"Integrating the arts into the curricula helped students embrace their learning and retain their knowledge."

"Arts integration goes beyond including art projects in class; it is a teaching strategy that seamlessly merges arts standards with core curricula to build connections and provide engaging context."

"Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention.  For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information."

"Beyond engagement and retention...numerous other benefits of arts integration: It encourages healthy risk taking, helps kids recognize new skills in themselves and others, provides a way to differentiate instruction, builds collaboration among both students and teachers, bridges differences, and draws in parents and the community.  Plus it's just plain fun."

"Creating a richer, more memorable learning experience through the arts...unleash not only a rising tide of academic achievement but they lay the foundation for what it means to be a truly creative community."

What I loved most about this article is that it states teachers do not need to be "artistic" to be able to use art integration, rather they just need to learn a few of the fundamentals.  I look forward to the rest of our integrated learning this school year!

In Honor of September 11th

 Students were working on collage so we made these flags over our collages to show our support of September 11th. Charlotte Potter took them around and gave them to the fire fighters, police, ambulance crew, FBI and state's attorney. It was a great way to pause and show our thankfulness to those who keep us safe!

 First grade patriotic owls

Our first week of school in the art room

Here's what we worked on for our first week of school. We looked at the artwork of Kandinsky and made as many lines as we could think of and then we painted them with tempera paint. Beautiful paintings of color and line emerged. 

Color and line composition by a 2nd grade student

We also started working on our self portraits after looking at self portraits by Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh. This is the beginning of a self portrait by a kindergarten student. Don't you just love the lines of his hair so quickly rendered?

A fourth grade student begins to paint her self portrait and then begins to work on an interesting background. I can't wait to see how these turn out!

New School Year....New School!!

I am very excited to be a new member of the incredible staff at Valley Academy Charter School! Our school is in its fourth year and will offer all of the four art forms this year. We have highly qualified, certified and experienced music, theatre, visual art and dance teachers! The students will have visual art twice a week, which will increase their depth of knowledge and skills. I am very optimistic about how much we will accomplish this school year!!
Here's a picture of the new art room. Take a look and see what we will be doing for our first projects. Please come in and volunteer or participate in our art room whenever you would like! I will be teaching every day, all day so come catch the enthusiasm and learn along with us!