Making a Math Connection

In order to support the NECAP testing, my art lesson had a strong math connection during the first months of school.
Concepts reinforced were:
Straight lines and shapes made with these lines
Shape and area, Form and Volume
Geometric vs. Organic Shapes

Making connections with other disciplines also meets the Visual Arts Content Standard #6

Please enjoy the beautiful artwork the students made:

Horizontal and Vertical Line Designs

Second grade students made these designs after studying the work of the artist, Mondrian. Mondrian's art is non-representational. He designed his work using only horizontal and vertical lines (not diagonal) and a primary color scheme.

This was definitely a challenge for the students!!!

Featured Artist: Nathaniel

Featured Artist: Andrew

Sculptural CUBES

Fourth grade students made comparisons between SHAPE (flat, two-dimensional) and FORM (three-dimensional, volume).

Math concepts were stressed in this lesson.

Featured Artist: Cody

Featured Artist: Braydon

Geometric and Organic Shapes

Third grade students learned the difference between geometric and organic shapes and then used these shapes to create these colorful designs.

Featured Artist: Hunter

Featured Artist: Matthew

SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Studying and creating visual images helps students to learn about spatial relationships - how objects relate to one another in space.
Through the study of landscapes, first and third grade students are learning about foreground, middleground and background, and how artists create the illusion of space in a picture.

Learning about Foreground and Background

First graders learned how to draw "monster finger trees" in this landscape lesson.
Their goal was to make one tree look like it was in the foreground and one tree look like it was in the background.

Featured Artist: Nicholas














Featured Artist: Grace












Ask a first grade student what "special tool" we used to add the leaves to the trees.

Landscape Collage

Third grade students are learning more about spatial relationships through the art technique of COLLAGE.
Because collage is made by layering shapes of paper to build an image, students are challenged to think backwards by building their image from the background to the foreground.



Featured Artist: Alexi













Featured Artist: Adrianna

Welcome Back Charlestown Artists!!!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable summer vacation.
I am looking forward to the first days of school and seeing all of my favorite artists again. We will be learning many new things and be making fun and creative art projects in art class this year.

Just a reminder to parents and students:
We sometime use messy (but always fun!) art materials during art class. Please remember to wear play clothes or bring an old t-shirt as a smock on art day.

As you will be finding out your specials schedule during the first week of school, we will not be doing anything messy during that week.

Please check the Art Blog frequently.
I will be updating my blog whenever the students have completed a project, so that you can enjoy their work and be informed of what wonderful, in-depth learning is happening in the art room.

See you soon!!
Mrs. Rich

Look at what we have learned!!!!

For my last post of this school year, I wanted to highlight some of the major projects and concepts that the students have learned.
Please enjoy the beautiful artwork that follows.
Thank you for all of your hard work this year.
Be creative over the summer!!
Mrs. Rich

Drawing with Your Scissors

COLLAGE

I describe the technique of collage to the students as "drawing with your scissors."
The technique of collage teaches the students many concepts - shape, spatial relationships(overlapping, foreground/background), and texture to name a few.
They have to use their problem solving skills to figure out how to "build" their composition. It is different than drawing, because you have to think about the picture from the background forward.
As the student progresses in their artistic thinking and skills, the compositions can become increasingly complex.


Here are some examples of the second and third grade collage projects this year.

Featured Artist: Mark

In this second grade project, students used the bottom of their shoes to start a fish shape. Each "fish" was unique because each student had a different texture on the bottom of their shoe.
Then they had to build an underwater environment for their fish to swim in.
Torn paper and texture scissors added more details to the collages.







Featured Artist: Kaiser
"Lake Eries Monster"
The third grade students were asked to create a landscape collage. They were required to include the three parts of a landscape - foreground, middleground and background - and have details in each part. Most details had to be made with paper, either cut or torn, and only the tiniest details could be added with fine tip marker.
They were asked to write a descriptive title for the landscapes.

Thinking about Peace

This year, one of the themes the students learned about was the different ways that art can communicate a message. The fourth grade and the second grade looked at the idea of communicating a message of peace.

Fourth grade studied the art of Edward Hicks and several of his Peaceable Kingdom paintings.

The students were asked to think about peace - in their life, in the community and in the world. They wrote their own message of peace and used it in the border of their artwork. For their artwork, they were required to choose two animals that would not normally get along and represent the animals existing peacefully together.

Here are some examples:

Featured Artist: Tommy

Featured Artist: Kendra

Second grade students were asked to think about peace in a different way.

Each student finished the sentence, "Peace is......" and created the artwork to illustrate their sentence.

Featured Artist: Aidan

Using Elements & Principles of Art

LINE - SHAPE - TEXTURE - COLOR - FORM

These are just some of the Elements & Principles of Art that the students have been learning all year in art class.

The students learn them as concepts and apply them to their artwork.

They also learn them as vocabulary and use them during class discussions about their artwork and the artwork of famous artists.

Here are a few examples of how the students used the Elements & Principles of Art in their artwork this year:
Featured Artist: Miranda
In this third grade lesson, students learned about the artist, Georgia O'Keeffe. They applied her style of making a magnified (or close-up) composition.
Students were asked to use line and color in a very specific way.







In this first grade lesson, we started with the book The Rainbow Fish. This is a wonderful story with a lesson about sharing and making friends.
Students learned to draw the fish starting with basic shapes. Then they practiced their painting skills carefully painting all the scales on their fish.
There were many steps and processes for the students to follow in this lesson - a great test for all they have learned this year!

Featured Artist: Sergio
In this fourth grade lesson, students learned about the concept of form versus flat shape.
Students were asked to used shading to suggest the form of the lighthouse and other objects in their composition.

Junior Duck Stamp Contest 2009

Redhead Duck by Jamie Dzwil
First Place Winner

Trumpeter Swan by Michaela Hopkins

The third grade students in 3R, 3B and 3MC participated in the RI Junior Duck Stamp Contest.

This contest promotes awareness of wetlands and waterfowl conservation.

Best of Show from each state's contest goes on to the national contest, and the national winner is made into that year's Junior Duck Stamp.

Junior Duck Stamps are sold by the U.S. Postal Service for $5 per stamp. Proceeds from the sale of Junior Duck Stamp support conservation education, and provide awards and scholarships for the students, teachers, and schools that participate in the program.

Ruddy Duck by Michaela Caparco

This year, Charlestown School had 35 student entries and 6 winners in the top 100 in the state!

Redhead Duck by Braydon Marriott

Honorable Mentions:

Michaela Hopkins

Michaela Caparco

Braydon Marriot

Lauren Holly

Artwork by Lauren Holly

Mario Perretta won a Second Place ribbon:

Redhead Duck by Mario Perretta

and Jamie Dzwil won a First Place ribbon!!

CONGRATULATIONS JAMIE AND ALL OF OUR CHARLESTOWN SCHOOL WINNERS!!!

Youth Art Month

March is Youth Art Month (YAM).

During the month of March, art teachers across the country celebrate their students' artistic successes by participating in various exhibits in their respective states. This is a time to celebrate and advocate for visual arts and the many benefits that art education provides our students in their general education experiences.

This year our fourth grade students participated in a YAM poster contest. The only requirements were that the artwork had an ocean theme and contained the words, "Start with Art. Learn for Life."

From a record number of entries this year, one of our students won as a runner-up. Her artwork was used on promotional posters for YAM throughout the state of Rhode Island.

See Esmeree's artwork, and the beautiful artwork of other participants, at this year's Artessy (Artessy is a YAM registered exhibition).

Congratulation, Esmeree!!!

Artessy Border Project

ART FOR ALL SEASONS

Students in grades one thru four worked on a border project for Artessy. Each grade was responsible for a different season.

First Grade made fall leaves using oil pastels.
Second Grade used a collage technique to make spring insects.
Third Grade made winter snowflakes using a familiar cut-paper technique but also used bleeding tissue paper to make a colorful background for the snowflakes.
Fourth Grade made summer suns using a metal embossing technique.

Be sure to check out this special artwork at this year's Artessy, this Saturday from 10am - 4pm at the Chariho Middle School.

ART + MATH

All students learn in different ways.
Some students need to read the instructions.
Some students need to hear the instructions.
Some students learn better with hands-on activities.
And some students understand concepts more deeply when they are presented in a visual way.

With much focus given to math scores and NECAP tests recently, I thought everyone would like to know how math concepts are reinforced in the art room.

Here are just a few lessons I have taught this year that have a strong math connection:

ROTATIONAL SYMMETRY

In the mandala project that the fourth graders are currently working on, they are learning about rotational symmetry. They practiced using a compass to make circles. Their designs had to revolve around a center point. The lesson reinforced vocabulary, such as, center point, diameter, radius, and symmetrical.





Featured Artist: Alex

SHAPES WITH VOLUME

In this fourth grade lesson, students learned the difference between flat shapes and shapes with volume. During the initial discussion before the students began their art project, I demonstrated with solid shapes and a flashlight that shapes with volume cast a shadow. Their task was to make a drawing of a pumpkin look like it had volume (three dimensions) by using color to show the shadows.


Featured Artist: Brennon

STRAIGHT LINES AND SHAPES

In this first grade lesson, students learned about the three different kinds of straight lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal) and how these lines combine to make different geometric shapes. In a fun and interactive way, students made designs or pictures using only these lines. Vocabulary was reinforced with a song about the different lines, and the students were able to tell me which kind of line they were using to make the different shapes.


Featured Artist: Ezariah

Fourth Grade

Our fourth grade students have been working on a very personal project...creating a personal mandala. Mandalas are symbols in a circular format that represent a person’s wholeness (what that person thinks about that brings them peacefulness). Mandalas are a means of self-reflection.


Most students are currently working on completing the artwork for this project.
This project has been a great collaboration with all the fourth grade teachers!

Featured Artist: Lauren

Third Grade

The third grade students have been learning about the element of LINE in art. This project taught the students how horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines can be put together to create a picture.

Stay tuned for the next project when the students will learn about expressive line and how the artist, Wassily Kandinsky, used line in art in connection with music.



Featured Artist: Kaiser

Second Grade

The second grade students have been studying the work of artist, Marc Chagall. We have learned that his artwork was based on memories of his childhood in Russia and that the style of his art is "dream-like." The students created their own dream-like paintings and included a famous quote by Marc Chagall..."Great art starts where nature ends."

Featured Artist: Anna

First Grade

During the snowy month of January, the first grade students made "snowy day" collages based on the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Ask a first grader how we made the picture look snowy.

Featured Artist: Andrew

January 25, 2009

Pictured are some examples of the Charlestown School student artwork featured at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in Kingston, RI during their student exhibit last month.

Upcoming exhibits:

YAM (Youth Art Month) Exhibit at the Courthouse Center for the Arts during the month of March

Artessy at the Chariho Middle School - March 27th and 28th