The 8th graders graduated last night, and I’m happy to know that many plan to take art at CRLS next year. Their legacy tiles were on display for families to see. Hopefully soon the tiles will be permanently installed somewhere in the building!
Enjoy the summer vacation, the next Morse Art update will be in September!!
A couple weeks ago, I went to a great conference for kindergarten teachers and art teachers. Cathy Weisman Topal ran the workshop, as in introduction to her new book: Explorations in Art: Kindergarten.
I decided to try the line printing lesson with the kindergarteners for their last project of the year. They did a great job, and had a lot of fun with it!
The 5th graders finished their superhero self portraits. Some students have taken on the challenge of drawing a large superhero. The hardest part when drawing so large is keeping the person in correct human proportions!
Look for the finished superheros to decorate the halls in September…
The 3rd graders just finished their large self portraits. Using mirrors to carefully study their faces, the students each chose an expression to replicate. Chalk pastels were used to color the self portraits, in less than realistic colors, of course. Because chalk pastels are the most messy of all the art materials, the students had a secondary goal of staying as clean as possible. Thumbs up for no chalk pastels on the elbows!
The 1st graders started this clay unit with Eric Carle’s The Mixed Up Chameleon. They had to choose three animals to combine together to create a new imaginary creature. We also read poems from Scranimals, by Jack Prelutzky, as inspiration.
The students created the creatures in clay and carefully glazed them last week. In my rush to send home all artwork before the end of the school year, my only regret is that I didn’t copy some of the poems the students wrote about their own creatures!
These oversized flower paintings are a yearly favorite for kindergarten students. They get to invent an imaginary flower and paint it by mixing colors. The flower must be large enough to touch all 4 sides of the paper, and must include the 6 important flower parts: stem, leaf, petals, pistil, stamen, and pollen.
The 6th graders have been slowly constructing a collaborative sculpture using the paper pyramids they folded a few weeks ago. For now the sculpture is hanging near my desk, but will have a more permanent location soon.
The 4th graders illustrated stories, in the collaged style of Eric Carle. The words however, were not written by them. 4th grade students from the Eliot School in Needham wrote these stories earlier in the school year. The Morse students had the challenge of illustrating someone else’s words. Books were created in 3 different styles: accordion books, starburst books, and foldout books.
To share these books with the Needham 4th graders, we decided to record the Morse 4th graders reading the stories!
WordPress doesn’t support video uploads, so I’ve uploaded a couple videos on vimeo.com, please visit!
http://vimeo.com/24800450
and
http://vimeo.com/24802208
More to come, stay tuned!
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