Welcome back!! 2016

Welcome back to school! We have a lot of learning and growing to do this year and I'm excited to be at Valley!! I love working with your children, so thank you for sending such spectacular students my way! This year I plan on having tons of fun while learning and getting better at art in all of its forms.

Valley Academy's New Mural and Recent January Projects

We hired Markus Tracy, a mural artist from Las Vegas, to come and work for a week and paint a mural with our students. It turned out great! Come have a look!! 

Every student had a chance to paint on the wall and participate in our mural painting. 

"The Mitten" by Jan Brett. A literary and art integration project. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. watercolor painting projects by kindergarten students.

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!