Art Club Update

I have all of the permission slips counted and am organizing paperwork! I am looking to start on January 7th- which is the first full week we are back to school. I will be sending a letter home to clarify asap, as soon as I find out a few details. Thank you for your patience and support in advance 🙂 SoOOO excited to get started! I have marvelous ideas I want to get underway! Stay posted for more updates!

 

Remember, Only Grade 2 will be the month of January. Depending on if we start late or not, I might have the second graders come during March to work with the Kindergarten students during their art club time….we sha’ll see!

Birch Tree Paintings

Birch Tree Paintings are very popular in the North Country, so I decided to have some of the classes make them. They will be reinforcing their knowledge of cool colors as well as continue to learn about different types of trees, animals, and how to prepare for changing of seasons.

Grade 2

Grade 2 has started their color theory unit. We have started making personal color wheels so far. Next class we will be finishing secondary colors and adding line designs of patterns and textures, that ‘represent ourselves.’ We also took a fun day today to get students caught up that were absent. While students got caught up on the color wheel, others worked on poinsettia drawings and ideal winter landscape drawings. We had fun today just relaxing and enjoying making art.

 Day 1 of color wheel: we watched a video, discussed how color effects our life, and what we think the different colors mean. Next class we will be doing a color mixing hand-shake to make the secondary colors!

 

First Grade

This week, Grade 1 has started working on their “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” project. We did take a quick break to do an observational drawing of a poinsettia too. I think they turned out wonderful!

Kindergarten

We started learning about magnets in my Kindergarten Classes this week. Then we started to make our own magnets. I had the students stomp on model magic to make a textured/ patterned surface. THEY LOVED THIS. Now, we are letting them dry and are going to paint them next class and put the magnets on. With the extra time we had left in class, they worked on their very first observational drawing of a poinsettia using oil pastels. Next class they will paint the poinsettia drawings with watercolors and learn how a resist works.

Mr. Jenne Appreciation Day

We had a Mr. Jenne Appreciation Day back on December 6, to show Mr. Jenne that we are all grateful for everything he does for our school. I had my classes work on a painting together to give to him. We have titled it: “A Day in the Life of an Elementary Principal.”

Kindness…pass it on

 

Art Club Update

I have been trying to plan art club for the past month now, and have run into many planning issues. It seems to be that about 250 students want to join !! 🙂 This puts the biggest smile on my face! My only issue is trying to figure out how to give all these students the extra art they want and deserve.

This is what I am scheming thus far: Each grade will get a month..so for example: January would be Kindergarten’s month…they would come every Wednesday (just an example not the real day) and Friday. Then, in February, it would be First Grade’s turn. Then March would be 2nd Grade. Then it would repeat once more. If the numbers dwindle down then I will re- plan and re-attack the approach.  Depending on the number of students too, it may be that I break the groups into 2 or 3 different days…so there would be Group1 Kindergarten…Group2 Kindergarten…etc. And they each only go once a week. So, I will be sending a letter home, explaining art club, the details, and if you and your child decide it is what they want to do, then send the permission slip back in.

 

I will stress though, the importance of dedication when signing up. So, give it some real thought, take a look at the paper work that comes home and make the decision then.

 

As always your feedback and input are welcome on here as a comment or you can email me at aeipp@potsdam.k12.ny.us !!

Onward March…

So, since our Fall projects have been done, we have taken a small ‘breather’ and did a quick, fun project. Kindergarten and 1st grade did a Crazy Hair Day Project after reading the book, Crazy Hair Day, by Barney Saltzberg. I taught the students what a portrait was, how to draw one ( a picture of a face), and then we gave the portraits crazy hair for fun. We then learned about pattern (which is one of our art elements), and we filled in the hair with pattern. They had a lot of fun with these projects and loved showing them off to one another about whose hair was crazier. The students ended up spending a great deal of time and care of these projects, so we ended up running out of time to finish them. Most of them will be sent home unfinished, but please allow finishing at home!

Second Grade was given a choice of doing the Crazy Hair Day project, or practice clay techniques using play dough. I’m sure you can guess what they chose! There were some 2nd graders that did the Crazy Hair Project, but for the most part they learned / reviewed pinch pots and coil pots. They looked at examples, watched my demonstration, and then practiced on their own with the play dough. The point of this is to get the students ready for when we start working in clay soon. With class times being so short, it will be nice to start right on our project instead of having to learn all of the techniques. Due to the time frame, any clay projects we do, have to be done in one class period.

Just about all of the classes have learned and practice how to draw a portrait, so keep practicing at home the proper way! No ‘smiley face drawings’.

 

While i’m at it…I thought I would share some of my ideas about upcoming projects…I welcome feedback and comments 🙂 Also, if you want me to further explain what a project is..just ask !!

 

Up Coming Project Ideas: ( I stress that these are ideas and a track for me to follow, but things will change i’m sure!)

Kindergarten: Klimt Portrait Quilts, Clay Magnets, Birch Tree Paintings, paper collage monsters/ animals.

First Grade: Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs (weather predictions, compare/contrast movie to book…LOTS OF ELA 🙂 ), Indian Dhurrie Rugs (intro to color theory), Teddy Bear Chairs, Symmetrical Staff.

Second Grade: Color Theory Unit (may be the only thing for the rest of the year) Various activities with this unit though: personal color wheel/ science experiment/ color hand shake, Folk Art Personal Winter Landscapes, Collaborative Quilled Quilts, Clay Checkerboards, Recycled Head Sculptures.

 

We also need to fit in making advertisement pieces for the author visit, as well as the Square 1 project.

Miss. Eipp and the NYSATA Conference…and a tid bit on recycled goods

In November, I got to go to NYSATA (New York State Art Teachers Association) Conference. It was very overwhelming, but WONDERFUL. I got to discuss APPR and Core Curriculum with a bunch of other Art Teachers and get their perspectives on things. Then, I got to make some art, which is always awesome. I got lots and lots of free material samples to play with and best yet, I came home with hundreds of new ideas. It took me about a week to come down from overdrive mode from the over stimulation at the conference. All in all, it was a great experience and I can’t wait to go back! Here is a colleague of mine (Mrs. Impey- she is the K-6 Art Teacher at EK) and myself after we learned some techniques for slab ceramics for the little kiddos.

This reminds me…at the conference, I learned more fun ideas for recycled art projects…so keep the recycled goods coming! Especially: the cardboard holders from paper towels, cereal boxes, jars, bottle caps, plastic bottles, soup cans, etc. Please avoid anything that had peanuts or peanut butter though! Thank you!!