Dot Day

While Campus School was doing their introductory lessons with Mrs. Chang, Walter Hill students created projects for Dot Day in celebration of The Dot by Peter Reynolds. Students used positive and negative space, repetition, and various other techniques to create dot paintings. I should have hyped this more than I did, but it was on short notice. Next year, we'll have a bigger Dot Day event.

Campus School Art Show

We held our first art show at Campus School during their fall festival a couple of weeks ago. Mrs. Ming Chang and I have been working with the students to create artworks based on Chinese art and culture. This was the longest that I have spent on a single unit and I definitely see the benefits. The students had more of a handle on the key points of the lesson and seemed to retain the information better. Also, we used time to practice the skills (which I highly recommend) instead of just jumping into creating. Here are some photos from the art show. Walter Hill did the same projects, but I haven't gotten any pictures of theirs yet. This was a big deal and I'm very proud of their hard work. ^_^

1st Art Projects: Names

first of all, for some reason, Rutherford county feels justified in blocking Blogger on our school computers, and the iPad app for Blogger is possibly the worst app I have ever used, so I haven't updated at all this year. Whenever I can get around a real computer and have time, you get updates!

So far, we have completed one project and are in the middle of a second. Our first projects were all based on our names. We created various artworks about letters so that I can learn their names easier (it has not worked in the least).

5th grade created zentangles using the first letter of their name.

4th grade used symmetry with their names to make a name design. At Campus School, we used our Chinese names for the design as an introduction to the Chinese art unit.

3rd grade got an introduction to one-point perspective with 3D names.

2nd grade created original alphabets to design their names. This was an especially frustrating lesson that I don't think I'll do again. :/

1st grade made crayon resist paintings based on Jasper Johns' letter paintings. These are beautiful and I will do them again. :)

Campus school design

For campus school, I went with an apple theme. The colors were black, red, lime, and pops of yellow. I was worried about too much color, but they work together nicely. There were also a ton of boards to decorate, almost half the wall space in this huge room was board space. Here are the boards.

Outside the room, I had a board to decorate. Since I'm pulling in a lot of common core, this one was an easy fit.

In the reading area, I divided a board for elements and principles and a "I'm through, what can I do?" board for early finishers.

I also had a space for standards and made a neat thing. I used a string and paper arrow with slits so that I can move the arrow to the lesson focus.

I have one wall that is all windows. I made some Pom curtains with the theme colors to bring some interest there. They do not photograph as well as I want!

To help keep order, I made a helpers poster. Each week, a different table will help with passing out and clean up.

In the front of the room I made a "writing about art" board. Every project (hopefully)  will have a writing assignment. I can slip the question into the lime page protector.

I made a current projects board with clothespins. Each grade has a pin for their project. The black paper below is where I will post the "I can" statements and project standards.

So that's what's done so far! I will have a couple more boards to share next week.