Mr. Mills Blog

December came in like a lion today and I’m not sure if everyone is happy or unhappy to see the first snowfall of the season. Unfortunately, it makes it hard to get around, but when it sticks to the trees, it certainly makes a wonderful sight.

The third grade students finished their community murals this week. They are hanging near the computer lab in the new wing of the building. We will be working with using watercolors for the rest of the year.

The fourth grade students are working on designs that inspire them. They have all cut out designs and patterns from magazines that they like and have changed that design in some way to make their own design. They have to choose between colored pencils, oil pastels, or markers to create their final piece.

The fifth graders are working with a great 3-D modeling program called Google SketchUp. You can download it from my download page on this blog. They got a chance to experiment with the program (which I think is the best way to learn a new program) before creating their own home, building, or sculpture with the software. I suggest checking this program out because it is free and it might tap into the talents of your child.

The sixth graders began working on one of my favorite projects of the year recently. They are creating monochromatic portraits. We have gone through many steps in this project. They started by taking a picture of themselves and increasing the contrast. Then, they outlined the shapes on their face with a transparency and marked the areas as white, light, medium, and dark. Then, with an overhead, they traced their face again on to a larger sheet paper. Now, they have chosen a base color (red, blue, green, yellow, or purple) and are using that as the medium color. They are creating a shade and a tint of their color to fill in the light and dark areas. I’m very happy to see how these are turning out already.

Also, I strongly suggest that parents check out our different blogs and comment on what your child or another student has written. The blog is “universal” so we can try to create a community with them and learn together instead of just learning in our individual classrooms.

Until next week…