Mr. Mills Blog

ISAT’s are here. Soon they will be over. Let’s move on…

I put some pictures up of the African American Heritage Fair here. As always, it was a great event and the performances were beyond excellent. The media club recorded the event and they are in the process of editing the video in order to sell the DVDs. On that note, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who purchased the winter assembly DVD. We can still make more if you would like to purchase one…just let me know.

On to fine arts, the 3rd graders began a project this week focusing on biomorphic shapes. Mr. Brown taught them the difference between biomorphic and geometric shapes. From there, they practiced drawing biomorphic shapes. When I saw the classes this week, they began drawing and cutting biomorphic shapes out of styrofoam. They will be making sculptures with these shapes soon.

The 4th grade students are in the middle of planning, recording, and editing their global warming environmental public service announcements. I have so much to say about this project, but I’m going to give my full assessment until it is over. Let me just say that I have been extremely proud about how the students have tackled the video making process. And, please try to attend the closing event for this project at the Hyde Park Art Center on Thursday, March 13th at 4:00.

Download What Are Your Kids Listening To?

The 5th grade students finished up their hip hop project this week. Above, you will see a short video I made for the African American Heritage Fair. It includes a lot of the students responses to discussions we had in class about the way they view hip hop now and the way it “used” to be. We are going to do a short project centering around Andy Warhol before starting the Smart Explorers project when we return from spring break.

Download Disco Dance by Ali, Liza, Ellynne, and Helena

Above, you will see one of the finished stop animations. All of the stop animations can be seen here. Some of the students worked on the final mosaic design this week. After spring break, the students will be working on putting the mosaic together with Mirtes. The project will continue through early May, but we will not be working on the project during every single class period. Mirtes will be here on certain days for the entire school day and the students will work on the mosaic in shifts.

Download Zoe

Finally, Saturday Academy ended last week. To see on of the dub videos the students made, you can look above. I will be making DVDs of all the finished videos soon.

Enjoy the long weekend!

It is good to know that in the midst of all this ISAT craziness, there is something to look forward to. With the African American History Fair tonight, the students have a chance to put on a tremendous musical show. I’m looking forward to it…pictures will be up next week.

The 3rd graders gave their puppet performances this week for their classmates and Ms. Graham’s preschool class. We had some bumps and bruises with the performances, but it was fun to see the students be excited to perform and give it their best. The photographs above are from the camera of Mr. Phillips…thanks!

The 4th graders are in the middle of making their videos…this is the crazy part of the project since the students are at different points in the project. Above, you can see one of the groups in action. Also, we will be having a “end of the project celebration” at the Hyde Park Art Center on March 13th from 4 to 7. Slips about this went home yesterday. We are trying to get a head count, so if these can be returned soon, we would appreciate it. Thanks.

Download Ryan’s Breakbeat

The 5th graders are just about finished with their hip hop unit. Mr. Bynum’s class are done with their breakbeats and Mr. Rowell’s class will finish next week. You can hear an example of one of their breakbeats above. We also listened to some older hip hop songs in class this week so the students can hear that hip hop is great art form that can be used for many positive messages. It is too bad that many of the students see it as a money first, almost inappropriate piece of popular culture. Considering it has very modest beginnings, I wanted them to see what the lyrics could be.

The 6th graders are finishing up two things. First, they are going to be completing a finished design for their class mosaic with Mirtes next week. Plus, they are just about to finish their stop animations as well. I will be putting all of the stop animations online soon.

Also, the video editing Saturday Academy will be ending tomorrow. I will be putting the student videos on a DVD to give to them next week. I had a lot of fun teaching this class, so I hope the students learned a lot and enjoyed their time with me on the weekend.

Until next week…

I feel as though many of the projects we are doing in art are pointing towards a performance of some sort. Let me explain:

The 3rd graders have been preparing their scripts over the past couple weeks in preparation for a performance they will give to the Pre-K next week. Above, you can see some of them writing and practicing with their puppets. Mr. Brown and I are certainly looking forward to it.

The 4th graders are just beginning to video tape their public service announcements. I have been very excited to see all the great conversations the kids are having about their videos. They have had some very “heated” discussions trying to come to a compromise on how they are going to accomplish their goals. I guess it has been rather loud in the art room during this time, but the creative talk that is happening is truly astonishing. I’m looking forward to these videos coming together.Ms. Walsh and

The 5th graders have been working on their breakbeats using Audacity. While they are basically copying and pasting parts of old soul and funk songs to create their breakbeats instead of actually using turntables or more sophisticated equipment, I think it is important that they see just how the music of hip hop began. They are also working to get their performance ready for the African American History Fair next Friday.

The 6th graders have been working with Mirtas to create the design for the mosaic they will be working on after spring break. I guess I see this as a “performance” since it will be hanging on an underpass near the Museum of Science and Industry for all to see.

Enjoy the long weekend!

I’m going to switch it up a little today and talk about the 5th grade first. With the African-American History Fair approaching quickly, the 5th graders have been learning about hip hop in a couple different ways and performing a famous Run DMC song (see above) during the fair. In fine arts, we have been looking at the birth of the breakbeat and how it has been used in hip hop music. In class, we have begun making very simple breakbeats using Audacity just so they see how DJs used to loop music to great a seemingly never ending beat.

The 3rd graders are working on performances using their puppets by writing script within their table groups. I am looking forward to seeing them practicing their scripts and performing them for our younger students.

The 4th graders are deep into video production now. They have been brainstorming, script writing, storyboard making, and planning their video. This has been a truly creative journey for them because they have had to really work together as a group to come up with these ideas. And, they have not just chosen the easy route…they want these to be good! Ms. Walsh and I are looking forward to next week where some groups actually begin filming.

The 6th graders got a crash course in mosaics this week through our visiting artist Mirtas. She is working with the students to create a mosaic that will be put up underneath the underpass between the lake and the Museum of Science and Industry. She showed them mosaics she has worked on with other schools and the process involved. Then, the students started sketching ideas for the mosaic. The theme for our portion of the mosaic is architecture so we used some photographs of Hyde Park Homes to help inspire the students. Next week, we will begin thinking about the final mosaic by including the drawings created by the students.

Enjoy the long weekend!

I want to talk about the decision to keep schools in Chicago open today, but I’m going to try and keep this positive for now. Let me just say that although it was wrong to keep school open today, I am glad to see that many students did make it.

The 3rd graders are just about finished with their puppets. The students are going to create mini-plays within their table groups to perform for each other. Also, Mr. Brown is working on setting up a time for the kids to perform their plays in front of the Pre-K or Kindergarten students. That should be the fun part.

I’m sure the 4th graders were happy this week to begin working on their global warming public service announcements this week. Above, you will see a couple pictures of the students in action. After a few weeks of preparing them to make the videos by learning about global warming, they were put in groups this week to start brainstorming ideas. Ms. Walsh and I really stressed that they used this time to come up with different ideas and now get too bogged down just yet on how they were going to make the video. We wanted them to let their ideas really flow and not be constrained just yet with all the technicalities of making the video. Next week, we will be talking more about specifics.

All of the 5th grade students are done with the foamcore houses and we are moving on to hip hop and breakbeats now. Since we had a low turnout today, we did not get to start talking about hip hop with Mr. Rowell’s class, but Mr. Bynum’s class had a history lesson into the origin of the breakbeat and began learning how to make a breakbeat using an audio editing software called Audacity.

The 6th graders are just about finished with their stop animation videos. We are going to take a short hiatus from the animation videos during the next couple weeks because we are going to start working on mosaics that are going to eventually be put up on the underpass between the Museum of Science and Industry and the lake. We are working with an artist to create these mosaics, and she is scheduled to come in next week.

Also, just wanted to say that we are almost half way through Saturday Academy as of this coming Saturda. The students are making “dub video” using Adobe Premiere Elements. I know it is sometimes difficult to come in every Saturday, so I’m happy that so many students make a point to come in on the weekend.

Until next week…