3rd Grade Storytellers

3rd grade students recently finished a ceramic lesson in which they learned about Pueblo culture. They learned that story telling was important in Pueblo culture because it was a way of passing information from one generation to the next. Storytellers are figures made by Pueblo artists that depict a clay figure telling a story to one or more smaller figures. Third graders had a great time making the storytellers out of clay and painting them.

1st Grade Owls

1st Grade students just finished a project based on the book "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr. Students learned how to draw an owl using basic shapes. We used watercolor paints in order to finish the owls. The night sky behind the owl was made from flicking white paint onto a black paper using a large paint brush. Students finished the project by gluing on branches and a moon, then cutting out and gluing their owl onto their nighttime background.

5th Grade Warhol Self Portraits

5th Grade students recently finished a project about Andy Warhol. They learned about Warhol's life and work as well as about the style of art known as Pop Art. After studying Warhol's portrait series, each student worked from a digital photograph to make a two piece self portrait series using warm and cool colors.

2nd Grade Wild Thing Illustrations

2nd grade students recently finished a project based on Maurice Sendak's classic book, "Where the Wild Things Are." After reading the story to each class and discussing how the pictures in the book were made, the story was broken into many individual sentences. Each student chose one sentence to interpret and illustrate in their own style.

3rd Grade Hero Portraits

3rd grade artists just finished a joint art/library project. The topic of the month was heroes. All 3rd grade students chose a hero to learn about while they were in the library. Some students chose famous people and others chose family members who they considered to be heroes. They then created a cut paper collage of their chosen hero. Mrs. Torbert even talked about the hero portraits during the hero assembly.

2nd Grade Clay Bugs

2nd grade recently finished a study of insects and arachnids in art class. Students learned about many kinds of bugs and found out that all insects have six legs and three body segments. Each student chose an insect to sculpt out of clay. We then painted them and added legs. They look really great on display in the commons.

4th Grade Clay Castles

4th grade students recently finished learning about the middle ages. We looked at examples of castles built by many different cultures and studied why each castle was built. Students were then able to design and build their own castle out of clay using a slab building method. This project is a favorite of many kids and was a hit again this year.

1st Grade Penguins

First grade has been learning about warm and cool colors. In our study of cool colors, we learned about penguins because there isn't anything cooler than a penguin! Students began the project by learning interesting facts about penguins. They then made a wet on wet watercolor background using only cool colors. They then drew and colored four penguins, made some mountains and ice, then glued everything together. I think they came out great!

5th Grade Claymation in progress...

5th grade students have been working on a claymation project for the past several weeks. Students are working in four groups in order to prepare everything for filming. These groups include writers, storyboard artists, character designers, and set designers. Soon, students will be working together in order to film their stories with the technique of stop motion animation. This form of animation has been around for quite some time and has been made popular by Wallace and Gromit and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The final video will be posted as soon as it is finished.

Simple Machine Brains

Third grade students just finished a project about simple machines. Students learned about the six kinds of simple machines as well as the artwork of Rube Goldberg. They then put several simple machines together in order to create a complex machine that does something that usually happens inside a person's head. I was extremely excited with how well this project turned out.