Monday, November 11 is Veteran’s Day in America. My 5th and 6th graders had the privilege of a visit from a lady from our local senior center whose husband is a veteran. She talked to the students about the symbolism of the poppy and read to the students the poem “In Flanders Fields.” The students were invited to create a small artwork that honors all of the veterans. They also had the opportunity to write a poem in response to … Read more…
Hi friends. I have so many projects back-logged to show you. I did clay with all of my classes during the month of September. We are building on to our school and because of construction, our kiln will be out of commission at the end of November through the end of the school year, so we have to get all of our clay done now! My 5th/6th grade classes made clay castles. They will be studying the Medieval period later … Read more…
I still have some things to share with you from last school year. Towards the end of the year we had an editorial cartoonist visit our school. Every year our students draw editorial cartoons as part of the art curriculum. You can see some of the cartoons my students drew in 2013. When teaching about editorial cartoons, it is very important to show cartoons from both sides (in the U.S.= Republican/Democrat). It is also essential that you do not tell … Read more…
Welcome to the 3rd post in my series On Teaching Art. The first post and the background behind this series is On Teaching Art: Art vs. Craft. The second post was On Teaching Art #2: Organizing Curriculum. The question posed for this installment is: How can art be integrated into math, science, social science, and literacy? That is a great question and I very often connect art lessons with their units of study in the classrooms. Integrating art with other … Read more…
Teaching about editorial cartoons is a great way to bring current events into the classroom. Every year our students in grades 4th-8th participate in a local editorial cartoon contest. The students watch a video about editorial cartoons and they discuss, analyze and interpret current editorial cartoons. Cartoons for the Classroom is an excellent resource for lesson plans about editorial cartoons. If you are going to teach about editorial cartoons, this website is a must-see. The cartoon templates we used are … Read more…
I think Alaskan native masks are so beautiful. Our 2nd graders learn about Alaska in their social studies class and to connect with this unit, they explore the meanings and characteristics of Alaskan native art. Here is an example of a mask from Alaska: Our masks are colorful and each child felt free to express their own ideas and to create their own meanings for their mask. We watched an excellent Alaskan art video that I highly recommend. It … Read more…
This is a great project that ties together math, art, and social studies. We looked at the repeating patterns and shapes in Islamic tile designs (they are studying Islam in social studies) for inspiration. The tutorial for this project is in a blogpost I made earlier. The only difference is that this year we used light tables to trace the image through the triangles.
