Mr. Mills Blog

Not a ton of true updates this week, since we are continuing with a lot of the same projects, so I will keep this short.

The 3rd graders are continuing to expand their visual language through class with myself and Mr. Brown plus their trips to the Smart Museum. Mr. Brown and I have found everything to be moving along quite nicely at this point…

The 4th graders are in the middle of creating their self-portraits. We are certainly hitting some frustrating points with drawing, but I want the kids to know that they can not learn to draw over night. It takes practice, persistence, and the ability to activate their right brain (the visual part of their brain).

The 5th graders have made their second trip to the Smart Museum and we continue to work towards the presentations they will be giving in the middle of May at the museum. Above, you will see some pictures from their trip this past week. Next week, they will be going to the Hyde Park Art Center for some art making as part of the Smart Explorers program.

The 6th graders are continuing to make progress on the mosaic. I was very happy to see some parents this week checking out during parent/teacher conferences. Also, the students are about to finish their monochromatic portraits before starting a project centered on graffiti.

Also, I am working with Mr. Brookins starting this coming week to begin using a program called Scratch. From their site:

Scratch is s a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

The students have been writing creative narratives this week that will become interactive stories with a game component on Scratch. They are working on storyboards this weekend in preparation for our first day with the program on Tuesday.

Until next week…