Student Work

As some of you might now, we are using a new grading system this year called Gradebook. With any new technology, you have a learning curve. Since we have midterm grades due this week, the curve is certainly steep but it has to be done. Speaking of grades, all students in Ms. Kaiser’s, Ms. Gorman’s, and Mr. Brookin’s class will be receiving a “B” for the midterm. The beginning of the year schedule meant that we could not finish their first project. Since Ms. Fischer and I did not want to rush the project, we felt this was the best solution. If you would like to no more about your child’s progress, please contact me.

The other 5th and 6th grade class have finished their artist trading cards. Some of the examples are above.

Also, the other 4th grade class has finished their Alexander Calder Contour Line Sculptures. Check them out above. All of this work has already been or will be posted on Art Sonia.

Until next week…

Please come see our booth on Satuday, June 7th at the St. Thomas Art Fair. Mr. Brown and I will be selling watercolors made by the 1st graders, prints made by the 3rd graders, and canvas paintings by the 5th graders. Above, some of the students are painting a sign for our table at St. Thomas. The funds raised from these artworks will be used to support the fine arts department.

The 3rd graders finished their prints this week. Above, you will see some of the students rolling out the ink, pressing their printing plate on paper, and pulling their printing plate off the paper to reveal their print. As stated above, these prints will be available to purchase at the St. Thomas Art Fair on Saturday.

The 4th graders finished up their light and shadow paintings this week. The paintings were an exaggerated look at how a direct light source can effect the color, in this case, of a cube. Not only does it change the appearance of the colors on the cube, it casts a shadow. They will be bringing them home this week or next week.

The 5th graders finished up their canvas paintings this week and worked on signs for the St. Thomas Art Fair. Some of the finished pieces are above. And, as stated above, these will be on sale this Saturday.

The 6th graders are in the middle of watching My Kid Could Paint That. We have been watching the movie to discuss two questions, “Is abstract art art?” and “Did the parents help their child paint the artwork?” I would suggest asking your child about this movie since it touches on a lot of different ideas about art and, as I have told the students, they have to form their own opinion about the above questions because the movie will not answer it for them.

Until next week…

As I have mentioned before, one of Mr. Brookins reading classes worked with a programming language called Scratch. The students wrote a narrative for Mr. Brookins and were asked to make a storyboard based on that narrative. The storyboard was then used to create an animation and game using Scratch. The program is not easy to learn and in the end, the students just did not have enough time to complete this project during the time we had allotted. So, we decided to make it an extra credit project.

That does not mean we were not happy with the outcomes. Some of the students did a lot of amazing work. If you click on the image above, you will be taken to one of the games. Or, to see some more of the stories and games, check out the student gallery. As a lot of students found out, programming requires you to almost over think what you are doing. You have to tell the program everything you want it to do. It does not just happen automatically. If you want something to “show”, you need to tell that object to “show”. If nothing else, I hope the students learned that you can do some pretty amazing things with the computer other than look for music and pictures. You can still download Scratch from my blog, and it would be a great program for the students to work with over the summer…on a rainy day that is.

I just wanted to thank Madame Wehman and our wonderful student helpers this past Thursday at the CUIP Technology Expo at King High School. We were there to present the Rosetta Stone software and one of the programs we used this year, Scratch. I have gone to the expo the past 4 years, and this is the first time I have come with another teacher AND student helpers. It is a long day, but having the extra help there made the day a lot more fun and interesting. Thanks again for making it a success!

On to fine arts, the 3rd graders are starting to make their prints. Unfortunately, both classes have or will eventually miss a lot of art class, but we are still hoping to finish their prints before we need to sell them at the St. Thomas Art Fair on June 7th. They have already done some printmaking in previous years, so they have done a great job so far getting to work and building on their knowledge of this art making process.

The 4th grade students have been working with light and shadow over the past week. We have talked about light sources, shadows, and why they are an important part of a lot of artwork. We have been painting a highly exaggerated cube with different values of either purple or blue so the students can make out where the light source, how it can “change color” depending on where the light source is, and how shadows are created from the light source. This is all in preparation for a trip to the Art Institute we are taking next week to view portraits and artworks showing light and shadow.

The 5th grade students are busy working on their canvases showing either a Chicago scene or summer scene. We will be selling these at the St. Thomas Art Fair as well. The students are not only learning how painting on canvas is different than painting on paper, but they are learning how to mix their own colors and add details. I’m looking forward to see how these will all turn out.

Finally, the 6th graders are just about done with their graffiti pieces. This week, many students got to experiment using an airbrush. They did not use it for an extended period of time, but they at least got to see how it works and add a different look to their graffiti pieces. I hope to send these home next week. To end the year, we will be watching a documentary called “My Kid Could Paint That”. It is an excellent documentary about a 4-year-old girl who was said to have special artistic talent and began selling her artwork for thousands of dollars in a gallery. This continued until people suspected that she was getting help from parents with the artwork. I will have to edit a couple parts out in order to show it in school, but it will allow me to talk with the students about the validity of abstract art and the supposed artistic talent of children.

Until next week…

First of all, I wanted to pass along…I bumped into a great physics/drawing program called Phun. It can eb found on my download page.

Now…on with the show. The 3rd graders were drawing still-life’s this week. The still-life’s are going to be used to make prints from. In preparation to draw the still-life’s, Mr. Brown and I talked about background, middleground, foreground, and overlapping. The prints they eventually make from these drawings are going to be part of a fund raiser for the school. Mr. Brown and I are going to be selling art at the St. Thomas Art Fair on Saturday, June 7th.

The 4th graders are done with their self-portraits. I needed to pick two of the portraits to be displayed at the Art Institute over the summer and I chose to the two works above. Ms. Holzhauer and I are hosting a field trip to the Art Institute where we will be looking about other portraits and self-portraits. Also, we plan on looking at how artists use light and shadow in their paintings.

The 5th graders had their final event for the SmART Explorers project this past week.  Thank you to all the students, parents, and family members who attended. Now, we are doing some paintings on small pieces of canvas. The students either have to paint a Chicago or summer scene and they have to use at least two mixed colors. These paintings will also be sold at the St. Thomas Art Fair.

Finally, the 6th graders are still working on their graffiti tags. We have begun to do some airbrushing, so I plan to have all the students use it before we are done with this project. One thing I have been happy about with this project is the new sense of aesthetic I have seen from many of my students. Instead of just sticking with one design, many of them are making the choice to start over or paint something a different way because it did not look right the first. This is one of the first steps to being a very good artist and learning to make artistic decisions on their own without always asking the teacher, “Is this good?”

Until next week.

Let’s get right to it…

The 3rd graders took a trip to the Hyde Park Art Center this week to do some ink painting as part of the Art in Focus project. Next week, they will have their final trip to the museum before we eventually have a final event for both classes.

The 4th graders are still working on their self-portraits. Students that have finished their self-portrait are drawing portraits of their classmates to further practice drawing faces in correct proportion. As a class, we will be finishing these up before the midterms.

The 5th graders took their 3rd trip to the Smart Museum this week. Now, the students have to really apply their knowledge. They needed to pick one artwork in the museum and then describe it, interpret it, and put it into context. The writing will be used as the basis for their presentations that they will be practicing at the museum next week. Both classes will have a final event at the museum very soon. Mr. Bynum’s class will have their event on Tuesday, May 13th at 6:30 while Mr. Rowell’s class will be going at the same time, but on Wednesday, May 14th. I hope to see a lot of students and parents at this event!

The 6th graders finished up their monochromatic portraits this week. They are currently hanging in the hallway near the art room. I think they look great displayed together and it will give the students a chance to step away from their work to see how it looks. We are now in the middle of a graffiti project. The students have painted brick walls on cardboard and foam core to use as the background for their graffiti piece. They needed to choose a nickname for themselves and then paint it in a unique style. Soon, I will give the students a chance to use a airbrush on their piece.

Also, for the 6th grade students working on Scratch with me, I wanted to make sure they know the upcoming schedule for the project. I encourage all of the students to work on this project at home as much possible over the next week. On Friday, we will spend the entire reading period working on Scratch. Before that class, I will be looking at each project individually to see where you each student might need help and what they should try to accomplish in order to have a finished project. I realize that the students have been working at very different paces (some are still trying to figure out how to show the story while others are deep into the game play of their animation), but regardless of where they might be at this point, each student should be prepared to finish something. A final due date will be given on Friday.

Until next week…

I wanted to begin today by talking about the Scratch project Mr. Brookins writing/reading class is working on. Last week, the students wrote narrative and drew storyboards in preparation for animating their stories on a program called Scratch. Scratch is a programming language that could be seen as an “introduction” into the world of computer programming. It has an interface and language that is easier for a student to understand than what some might consider “normal” programming, but it provides students with a great way of understanding how to program. It requires them to problem solve and logically think about how their story is going to look on the screen. It is a tough program to really get a hang of, but I have a lot of confidence in their ability to produce some great work.

With everything else, we do not have many updates, so I will keep this brief. The 3rd graders continue to dive deeper into the Art in Focus program. Each class has now gone to the Smart Museum twice and they will both be going to the Hyde Park Art Center next week. Above, you will see some pictures from Ms. Burkhardt’s class trip to the museum this week. We are expanding their visual language (line, shape, space, non-representational…) by studying these words through activities, discussing the words while looking at artwork at the museum, and visiting the SmARTKids web site.

The 4th graders are continuing with their self-portraits. We continue to hit bumps in the road and feel frustrations, but the students who have put the most effort and concentration into their drawings have done the best job…regardless of their artistic talent. I hope they all know they are capable of success, but they really need to not only believe that they can do it, but they also put forth their best effort.

The 5th graders took a trip to the Hyde Park Art Center this week to create an ink drawing as a part of the Smart Explorers program this week. The trip to the Hyde Pak Art Center is different from past years, so I was happy the students had a chance to try out that medium. Above, you will see some pictures from those two trips. We will continue with the Smart Museum trips next week. Also, we are working on a project in class dealing with the concept of context…not an easy thing to understand…

The 6th graders are just about to finish their monochromatic portraits. They will be hanging up very soon. This week, we began a graffiti project. The students are choosing a nickname for themselves that they will be painting in a graffiti style. With this project, they will also be using an airbrush to add small details to their final pieces. Also, check out the above pictures of the mosaic…we are getting closer.

Until next week…

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…

First thing…I added some new programs to my download page. Blender is a 3D animation program and Pencil is a 2D animation program. They are both open source programs which means that they are free for personal use. Check them out…

Above, you will see some of the 3rd graders during their first trip to the Smart Museum as part of the Art in Focus project. After spending time with Mr. Brown and I learning about many visual language terms, they got a chance to show off their knowledge and learn even more from the docents at the Smart. Abstract and representational art were some of the terms we focused on this week while next week we will be working with the elements of art like line and shape. We want the students to be able to look at a piece of artwork and be able to talk about it intelligently and have an informed opinion.

The 4th graders began working on their self-portraits this week. While we struggled some with creating the grid, we had some great discussions about using your right brain to draw. While your right brain is the verbal part of our brain, the left brain controls how we see things and, essentially, is the artistic part of our brain. We have talked about being quiet during an activity like this because you want your right brain to do all the work. I expect there to be some frustration while creating these self-portraits but mistakes will happen. Like any other skill, it takes practice to get better. Drawing is one of those skills.

Above, you will see pictures from the 5th graders first trip to the Smart Museum as part of the Smart Explorers progra. (Yes…I practically lived there this week.) Since many of the students were part of the Art in Focus program two years ago, they were familiar with the museum, but reviewing never hurts. Like the 3rd graders, they have been enhancing their visual language and learning how to talk about art with intelligence. They spent time at the museum looking at the labels next to the artwork to learn what everything written on those labels actually means. Also, the museum has a video installation called Adaptations that was about to end that the students were able to view this week. Looking at video artwork is very different than looking at paintings and sculpture, so it was interesting to see how they responded to it.

As you can see above, the mosaic is coming along. Mirtes will be visiting the school four more times over the coming weeks to finish off the work. It is amazing to see how much progress they have made in what amounts to about three days of work. Now, that they know what to do, they are making even greater strides over each successive class period. Also, we are almost done with the monochromatic paintings. After finishing them up over the next few weeks, we will be starting a graffiti project.

Until next week….

With spring break ending, my list of projects has risen and my list of “to-do’s” has risen, so let’s get right to it.

Mr. Graves class took their first trip to the Smart Museum today and Ms. Burkhardt’s class will have their first trip next Thursday. Everything Mr. Brown and I do with the students over the next month or so will be focused on the Art in Focus program through the Smart Museum. Above, you will see some of the students working on an abstract artwork in preparation for their first visit. The point of this program is to increase the student’s visual vocabulary. Some of the words we have looked at recently include two-dimensional, three-dimensional, representational, abstract, and non-objective.

The 4th graders had one last activity related to their global warming videos. We watched them in class as a group to get different reactions….from the people who made them and from the people who were watching it for the first time. As we discussed, when you finish something and look at it again, it is normal to think that you could have changed something. Yes, it was turned in for a grade. And yes, we will not be working on it again in class, but it never hurts to think, “I wish we would have….” That is how we build are creativity. Also, we began a project drawing self-portraits. We talkd about self-portraits and how you can convey different personality traits through one picture. So, our first order of business this week was to take some pictures. You can see a few of them above. Next week, we will begin the drawing…

The 5th graders are preparing for their trip to the Smart Museum next week as part of the Smart Explorers program. This week, we talked about what a curator does. Each student created an artwork of their choosing and then we hung them on the wall. We talked about how it is the job of the curator to decide how to organize the artwork. It could be by artist, time period, material, or subject matter. All of the projects we do over the next month will be related to the student’s writing about an artwork at the museum and giving a presentation on that artwork to their family and friends.

Finally, the 6th graders are moving along creating the mosaic and monochromatic portraits. Above, you will see some of the students working on both of these projects. Not much to say other than these projects are going as planned and I am excited to see the results.

Until next week…

A few weeks, I didn’t have much to discuss…today, it is the exact opposite. First, I wanted to pass along a couple interesting articles that talk about the importance of technology in K-12 curriculum. I know it is easy for the computer teacher to notice the “importance” of his subject, but even if I was not responsible for the technological education of Murray students, I would still be screaming from the rooftops that computer literacy needs to be part of any good curriculum. Anyway, here is a link to an blog post about the urgency for computer literacy for teachers. And, here is a link supporting the learning of computer programming in a technology program.

Also, I wanted to mention that we are in the middle of updating the Spanish Flash Cards on the Murray web site. A student from the University of Chicago has been putting in a lot of effort to not only update the Murray site, but to make the Spanish Flash Cards a great addition to the site. Please, check them out! Thanks Chelsea!

Now…on to fine arts. The 3rd graders are preparing for their first trip to the Smart Museum as part of the Art in Focus program. One of the main goals of this program is to increase the student’s use of visual language. In other words, we want the students to learn how to correctly talk about art. Above, Mr. Brown and I worked on an activity with the students utilizing two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes. I have a couple examples above. We want the students to learn that different types of artwork have different names. I’m often surprised how students refer to sculptures as “paintings”. This activity was used to help students understand the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional artwork. We also filled out surveys that will be given to the folks at the Smart Museum before our first trip.

The 4th graders worked on a short activity this week. Mr. Brown and I are hosting a student teacher in the fall, so she has been getting her feet wet at Murray recently. She taught a short two day lesson this week to 203 that I duplicated with 207. We read the book The Adventures of a Nose to the students. It is a story about a nose that feels out of place, but all of the illustrations in the book use the background to create a face so the nose looks like it really does fit in. The students had to choose a place that they felt comfortable in, and then, they needed to create a face using the things they would find in that place. For instance, a lot of students use their home and used the windows and doors as the eyes, nose, and mouth. They created these pictures using oil pastels.

The 5th graders began preparing for their first trip to the Smart Museum this week as past of the Smart Explorers program. This program also focuses on visual language, but it is more advanced. Everything we do will be directed toward a final presentation the students will do at the Smart Museum. They will all have to describe a piece of artwork to an audience of their friends and family. They will be doing a lot of the preparation for this with Mr. Rowell. In art, we will focusing more on learning the terminology. Our first activity will be centered learning what a curator is and what they do. All of the students are making an artwork of their choosing that we will be using to “curate” different types of exhibitions.

The 6th graders…are busy. First, I am looking forward to videotaping Motown Madness tonight. I will be putting pictures up here on Monday.  the students have started working on their class mosaic this week. I have pulled some students out of class this week, and will continue to pull kids out over the next month. Above, you will see the students already putting it together. This project is VERY cool…I can not stress that enough. When this gets installed over the summer, it is going to be a great piece of artwork the students can always look back on…because it will be permanent! I’m very excited for them. While we are doing this, the students are working on another project. We are creating monochromatic portraits. This is one of my favorite projects all year long because it involves so many different artistic processes. One of the classes has begun to paint them, while the other class is just about ready to trace the areas of their face. I’m looking forward to putting these up in the hallway.

One last thing…we just got some new computers in the language lab, so it will hopefully be FULLY operational next week…whew…that’s enough for now…until next week…

Let’s get right into it, and then enjoy the break…

The 3rd graders finished up creating their biomorphic sculptures. The students really amazed me with their results. Just by looking at them, I think it looks like much older students created these sculptures. Thanks Mr. Brown for suggesting this project!

Download Anthony, Devonte, Michael H, and Stokely

Thanks to everyone who attended the screening of the global warming public service announcements last night at the Hyde Park Art Center. Our 4th graders were very excited about this showing and I think there creativity and hard work showed. This was certainly a long journey for them. We started this project way back in January by looking at how global warming happens and how it impacts the Earth. Then, the students worked in groups to come up with an idea, script, and storyboard for their global warming public service announcement. Then, they needed to plan, make props, and practice their commercial. Finally, they needed to record and edit the finished videos. They had to use multiple skills and work together as a group. The thing that impressed me the most were the discussions the students had with each other when they were deciding what to do and how to do it. They really had to develop a way to solve their problems and come up with a decision that everyone agreed on. Ms. Walsh and I made a big deal about the brainstorming portion of this project and I was glad that so many students took it seriously. To see ALL of the videos, check them out here.

The 5th graders finished up a short activity based on the artwork of Andy Warhol. The students were photographed in goofy poses and then they colored them in the same way Warhol colored in his famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe or Mao Zedong.  When we return from the break, we will begin Smart Explorers which has been part of the fine arts curriculum for many year. It includes writing, fine arts, and multiple visits to the Smart Museum. Please sign and return the field trip form for this project.

The 6th graders began working on their monochromatic portraits this week.I will talk about this after the break. Also, the students will begin putting together the mosaic with Mirtes. This project will require the students to be taken out of their other classes during the school day, so I urge you to read the following letter that should be finding its way home after the break.

Finally, I just wanted to mention the programs I have linked to this blog. If you go here, I have listed a bunch of free (mostly) art programs that your child can use at home. I’ve worked with all of these, so I’m not listing them just to list them.

Enjoy the break!

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 has been a while since we have seen cold like that…not sure if I’m ready for it. Oh well…

The 3rd graders are in the middle of making their felt puppets. The puppets were sewed together this week and the students are cutting them out and adding yarn, felt, buttons, and other fabric pieces as decoration for their puppet. We will eventually be using these for small plays.

The 4th graders are just about finished learning about the greenhouse effect and global warming.Together with Ms. Walsh, we learned about how greenhouse gases get into the atmosphere, how greenhouse gases keep the Earth warm, and how global warming could affect our planet. They will be given a homework assignment today that will be on Wednesday for 203 and Thursday for 207. Next week, we will be looking at how they can help slow global warming. These ideas might form the basis for their global warming video.

The 5th graders will be done very soon with their foamcore houses. Students who finish them are allowed to take them home right away. Above, you will see some of the finished houses. I’ve been very proud of the students with this project. Using an X-Acto blade is not easy and while there might have been some growing pains along the way, I think the results have been excellent.

The 6th graders are in the middle of creating their stop animation videos. Most groups have started to take the photographs that will make up their animations. As I have told the students, the difficult part is coming up with the idea and getting all of the piece ready. Once you get that far, it becomes a little easier.

Tomorrow, Saturday Academy begins. I’m very excited to begin a video editing project with 17 of our 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. See you all tomorrow.

Until next week…

I’ve always considered this part of the school year the “busy season”. With ISAT testing less than two months away, teachers have a lot to do. Plus, it is good chance for us in the art department to start new projects…it makes for an interesting time of year.

The third graders have finished up their music paintings. Above, you can see some examples. Some of them are already on Art Sonia and we will soon be hanging these in the hallway near the art room with titles explaining which song they were inspired by. I’m very excited to see if the display turns out as I am envisioning it. This week, they began working on felt puppets that we will be using to create short plays with.

The fourth grade students are starting a project well they are eventually going to make public service announcements about global warming. As I have explained to the students, I am part of an organization called Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). They look at arts integration projects in public schools. As part of the project, we are supposed to document our work. Also, I am working with a teaching artist from the Hyde Park Art Center, Jessi Walsh. This week, we began our journey by looking at the difference of weather and climate, looking at average global temperature, and watching an animation about how greenhouse gases get into the air. It will be pretty intensive project that we have high expectations for.

The fifth graders are continuing to work on their foamcore houses. Some students this week started to add more decoration to their house with cardboard, sequins, cotton balls, etc. It looks like we have a little neighborhood in the fine arts room now.

The sixth graders are continuing work on their stop animation project. This week, some group are starting to take pictures of their animation. As we discussed in class, creating the parts for the animation can be difficult, but the picture goes relatively fast and smoothly. I’m looking forward to eventually getting to the computer lab to put these together.

Until next week…

I’ll keep this short since I know many of us are going to focus our attention on the upcoming winter break. First, here are some pictures from the assembly today. Myself and three students will be putting together a video of the event during January and February.

The 3rd graders are almost finished with their paintings inspired by different musicians. We will be putting the finishing touches on these when we return from break.

Above, you will see some examples of the inspiration pictures the 4th graders finished recently. They are on Art Sonia and hanging in the hallway. When we return from break, we will be starting a long project involving science, writing, and video-making. We will be working with Jessi Walsh from the Hyde Park Art Center.

The 5th graders are continuing to work on their foamcore houses. We did not meet much this week because they were practicing for the assembly, but we will complete this project in January. Even though this is a new process for the students, I have been happy about their patience and diligence.

The 6th graders are officially done with their embroidered pillows. Everyone has had their pillow sewn together and they should have gotten a chance to seal the opening with some thread this week. When we return from the break, we will be working toward beginning to take pictures for their stop motion animations.

Once again, have a great winter break!

Someone asked me the other day when we start to pack it in for the year as it gets closer to winter break. I’m happy to say that Murray continues to expect a lot from our students right up until the last day of the calendar year. I know it can be tough as the holiday’s approach, but I wouldn’t have it anyway. You almost feel like you would be doing the students a disservice.

For fine arts, the third graders are in the middle of their music paintings. This week, the students used a pencil to draw the outline of their drawing so they could begin painting. Mr. Brown and I were a little cautious with them since this is the first time all year we have painted with them, but it has been a great experience so far.

The fourth graders are just about to finish up their inspiration pictures. These will be on Art Sonia and hanging in the hallway before we leave on break. Next week, we will be doing a few art activities in the computer lab before starting a major project in January that I am very excited about.

The fifth graders are in the middle of creating their foamcore houses. Basically, they have been cutting out a pattern for a home using foamcore and they are going to glue it together. For most students, this is the first time cutting anything with an X-Acto blade and it is not an easy thing to learn AND do correctly. I’ve been happy that the students have taken it so seriously and have been very patient with each other as they share the X-Acto knives. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished products.

Download Animation Example

The sixth graders have started their stop animation videos this week. Above is an example of what they will be working on. The students are working in groups to create short stop animation videos. I showed them a 40 second stop animation that I created so they get an idea of what is expected of them. We talked about how each second of animation has about 8 pictures/second. In other words, they will need to take a lot of pictures to make their animations look just right. The group needs to decide on a final animation to create by making a storyboard. They will be working on that next week while also creating the “parts” to their animation. I expect we will be doing most of the photography after the break.

Also, check us out here on the Saatchi Gallery site in London.

Until next week….

Fall just ended for me. I know we Chicagoans joke about not having a fall, but this year certainly fit the bill.

Anyway, the 3rd grade students finished up their landscapes on Windows Paint this week. Above, you will see a few samples. Check this link to see all of the them. Also, beginning this week, we started a project making non-objective painting. We looked at the work of Wassily Kandinsky which you can see below.

Kandinsky used to listen to music to make his paintings. He used to take the shapes, colors, and lines in his head and paint them on a canvas. In order to do something similar to Kandinsky, the students listened to different songs by Ben E. King, Stevie Wonder, and Earth, Wind, and Fire to create their own drawings. They will eventually be taking one of these drawings to make a painting from.

The 4th grade students are in the middle of their inspiration drawings. This week, they took the sketches they made to draw a larger image of their inspirational drawing. They needed to choose between markers, oil pastels, or colored pencils depending on the type of picture they were making.

The 5th grade students are finishing up their tint and shad pixel paintings. The entire picture is beginning to take shape in the stairwell near the elevator. We spent a lot of time putting on multiple coats of paint to make sure the colors were vibrant and bold. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product. Following this project, the students will be building small houses that they can decorate.

The 6th grade students will be finishing up their embroidered pillows this week. The embroidery is due by the end of the next class period for either class. We will still be sewing the pillows together with the sewing machine after this day, but they need to have the embroidery done by next week. This will impact their midterm grade. After this project, we will be working on a group project for stop animation.

Until next week.

With one quarter ‘almost’ in the books, we ended a lot of projects and are looking towards starting new projects.

Above, you will see some examples of the flip books the 3rd graders made. We just started creating landscapes using Windows Paint in the computer lab. The students are very excited about using this software and creating artwork with another medium. It can be frustrating at times since it is new to some of them, but we are making a lot of progress.

The 4th graders completed their high contrast pictures this week. They also wrote scary stories to accompany them. When we do write in fine arts, I focus them more on creating a creative stories instead of trying to fit inside a format. I’ve been very pleased with the stories I have read. Right now, we are creating origami cubes. It is a short project, so we will be starting something else very soon.

One of the 5th grade classes has finished the Google SketchUp buildings. I have a few examples above, but I will eventually be putting all of the projects on my blog. The students can download this program at home. It is free and I know a lot of the students really enjoyed using the program and we really only scratched the surface during this project.

Finally, the 6th graders have finished their Frank Lloyd Wright tiles. They are hanging on the first floor near the art room on the ceiling. I will keep them up all year long. We also just started creating embroidered pillows. This project will take us through the early part of December. It requires a lot of focus on the part of the students, but they are a lot of fun to work on so I am optimistic many of the students will find them fun.

Until next week…

After running the marathon in summer like heat this past Sunday, it is hard to believe that fall actually decided to show up this week. Wild…

Above, you can see some of the aliens the students have been working on over the earlier part of the year. These should be up in the hallway soon. Now, the students are working on their flip books. First, each student created a storyboard. Then, they got a 20 page flip book to transfer their storyboard pictures on to. We talked about how each “picture” is called a frame and most cartoons that they watch use 30 frames every second.

The fourth grade students are still working on their contrast portraits. They have finished using permanent markers to fill in the shapes of their face and are now adding Halloween themed tissue paper around their face. The last piece of the puzzle is creating a scary story to accompany their picture.

The fifth grade students have finished their weavings. Above, you can see some of the students working on their weavings. Now, they are going to create a three-dimensional structure using Google SketchUp. It is a free program that allows you to make (very quickly I might add) buildings, houses, restaurants, and basically any three dimensional thing you can think of. The great thing about this program is that it is very easy to get started with it and begin making something immediately. You can download the program directly from my blog here if you would like to use it at home.

The sixth grade students are in the middle of creating their Frank Lloyd Wright inspired tiles. They are finishing adding black strips and will soon use watercolors to create the “window” portion of their tiles. We have talked about craftsmanship and how this project looks better if they spend time putting it together.

Until next week…

With midterms going out next week, this is first time I’m handing out grades. If you have any questions about your child’s grade, please look at the parent letter for this year to see the rubric. And, please feel free to contact me.

On to fine arts, the 3rd graders have finished their aliens. Mr. Brown and I hope to have these on Art Sonia and hanging in the hallway very soon. This week, we started working on flip books. It is a lesson that Mr. Brown has taught in the past, so I decided to give it a shot. We started by showing the students part of The Incredibles and talked about how animation worked. We discussed how each individual picture in an animation is called a frame and television shows 30 frames per second. Then, the students began storyboarding their own 20 frame animation. They were all very excited.

Above are a couple examples of the students rhythm paintings. They are hanging in the hallway right now. We are also in the middle of creating high contrast pictures. It is a very difficult process but the students are really putting forth a lot of great effort. Since their faces don’t look like they expect them to look, it is tough for them to just outline the parts that see on the page. They are still tracing their face and will soo fill in their face with a permanent marker.

The 5th graders are just finishing or about to finish their weaving. Mr. Bynum’s class has taken them home, and Mr. Rowell’s class will take them home next week. Since I did not have enough time to grade this project before the midterm, every student is getting a B for their midterm. The weaving grade will most likely be different from their midterm grade.

Above are a couple examples of the students emotion painting. They are all currently hanging in the hallway. Now, we are working on Frank Lloyd Wright inspired tiles. They created designs in their sketchbooks and then used black strips of paper to layout the design on a large white sheet of paper. These end up looking great on the ceiling.

Finally, the logins on the computer are finally getting some use. I went ahead and activated the passwords for all of the students. The students are a little upset that their passwords changed and they are more difficult to remember, but we are going to have them use cards with their passwords on it when they come into the computer lab. Hopefully, though, they will eventually not need them.

Enjoy the long weekend!

An annual tradition for Murray…the PTO Walk-A-Thon. The rain stayed away and it was a great day. Thanks to the PTO for supporting CUIP with the donations made during the Walk-A-Thon. We all certainly appreciate it.

First, I wanted to mention that the 4th grade has finished up their video poems. I hope to have all of these videos up on the Murray web site next week.

For fine arts, the 3rd graders had their final event for the Smart Museum Art in Focus program. It was the culmination of their weeks of learning how to look and talk about art. They learned about many principles of art through visits to the SmartKids web site, three visits to the Smart Museum, and different art making projects. We would certainly like to thank the Smart Museum and the hard work of the docents to educate our students in visual language.

In 4th grade, we are doing two projects at the same time. The students are finishing up their surrealism collages that we started before Ms. Lager began teaching. Also, we are working on sonobe cubes. It is an origami cube you can make with 6 pieces of square paper.

The 5th graders have finished their mythical sculptures made out of clay and they are currently being fired in a kiln over at the Hyde Park Art Center. They painted a background for their sculpture on cardboard this week, and next week they will paint their sculptures.

The 6th graders are still working on their graffiti project. The students have really gotten in to this project and have been doing some excellent work. As you can see from the above photo, we went outside this week so they could paint outside. I hope to show them how to use an airbrush this week, but I do not think we will have time for everyone to use it.

Until next week…

The 5th graders have finished their public service announcements, and I can definitely say they are excellent. With all the information I threw it them over the past few weeks, they handled it very well and came up with some great projects. I was particularly impressed with the music choices for their commercials. I will be showcasing these projects at the CUIP Tech Expo next Thursday at King High School. Twenty students from the 5th grade will also be attending the fair. I plan on putting all of the projects on the Murray site, but I have three on there right now. Check them out here.

The 4th graders are also in the middle of a similar project creating poem videos. I expect these to be just as excellent.

On to fine arts…

The 3rd graders took their final trip to the Smart Museum this week. They discussed several different principles of art this week including repetition, pattern, composition, emphasis, and movement. They are really expanding their “visual” vocabulary. We will be doing one more short project next week before they have their final event.

The 4th graders were doing a little cleanup this week. We put an end to their CAPE project by watching a video that Ms. Walsh put together that chronicled there project from beginning to end. The kids enjoyed seeing their photographs and hearing about all of the work they put into this project since the beginning of February. Ms. Gorman’s class also finished up their prints they were working on with Ms. Lager. Next week, we will continue with the surrealism project we started at the end of March.

The 5th graders began a new project making mythical creature sculptures out of clay. Ms. Tepper from the Hyde Park Art Center showed both classes on Tuesday how to mold, attach, and form their clay. They learned how to keep it “mooshy” even though they were not going to be working on it day after day. The creatures are really coming along great. They will be finishing them next week, so they can be fired in the kiln over the Memorial Day holiday.

Finally, the 6th graders finished up their relief prints this week. We are starting our final unit on graffiti. This week, the students are painting a brick wall on cardboard that they will use as a background for their design. I’m very excited about this project because I have a lot of great images for them to see and the students will get to use an airbrush.

Finally, for the midterm, I gave every student a “/”. With the new IMPACT system, this was used in place of a “P” for pass. I will have a more complete rubric for fine arts in the fall.

Until next week…

First, I’d like to extend a welcome to Ms. Lager. She will be student teaching with Ms. Ziegler and I until earl May. She is originally from Alaska and has been studying to become an art teacher at the School of the Art Institute. She will be observing Ms. Ziegler and I until next Friday, but when we all return from spring break, she will be taking over all of the teaching duties for the next 4 weeks. Ms. Ziegler and I are excited she is here and very confident she will do a great job. So….welcome!

Second, I want to once again ask people to visit the Murray Language Academy blog to write stories based on the pictures the fourth graders took. This week, they have been writing stories on other groups pictures. Plus, the 5th and 6th graders have been writing stories about their pictures. We really want to create a community with this blog, so we are hoping that many people will participate.

The third graders have finished their landscape pictures using Windows Paint. There are a couple examples below.

The 5th graders are finishing up their Warhol portraits. They are currently hanging in the same wing as the fine arts room.

The 6th graders are working on their out of proportion collages. We talked about how things in this world look like they are “in proportion” because we are used to seeing them a certain way. For example, the human body has a certain look to it. For this project, they are putting together items that look like they are out of proportion. Some of the results are really funny.

Until next week…

It is Friday of ISAT week. I’m sure all of us will be glad to have this part of the school year behind us.

The 3rd graders are still working on their landscape pictures. They will be finishing them up next week, and I will be putting them on this blog and on Art Sonia.

I returned the stories the students wrote this week. I was pleased with a lot of the stories created by the students. It was not an easy project since it really required a lot of “higher order thinking” in order to complete it. We are still going to be working on this project during the next two months, but in a different capacity. I will be posting next week about this next phase.

Also, we began working on sculptures based on the artwork of Judith Scott. Scott had Downs Syndrome so there is something interesting about her artwork…she was not smart enough to understand what art is, but she made these very interesting sculptures where she taped objects together and then wrapped them in yarn. Both classes have been working on these together, so it has been quite the experience.

The 5th graders began a project this week based on the artwork of Andy Warhol. First, we talked about Warhol and how is artwork was based on the repeated images of celebrities. Last week, I took pictures of the students in goofy poses and then changed them on the computer to look like this:

They will be given 3 or 4 of these pictures to color in. Each one, though, will be a little different. Individually, they look good, but all together, they look great.

The 6th graders began working on a project this week based on things being out of proportion. We talked about how our eye recognizes when something is in proportion. For example, the human body has a certain proportion that everyone recognizes. If your hands, though were twice as big as we would expect, we would say that they are out of proportion. They are using magazine pictures to create collages with items that are out of proportion. I have not done this project for a couple years, so I’m interested to see what the students come up with.

Finally, Ms. Ziegler and I will be welcoming Miah Lager from the School of the Art Institutre this coming Wednesday. She will be student teaching in our classroom, so we are looking forward to her joining us next week.

Until next week…

I’ll have to admit, this is one of my favorite times of year. The weather finally starts to turn, college basketball is in full swing, and spring training has started. I guess that isn’t really school related, but I just wanted to say that.

First, I’d like you to check out the graphs the 3rd graders made with Excel. They can be found here.

Anyway, speaking of school, we are finishing up some projects in fine arts and starting some new ones. Ms. Ziegler and I will be welcoming a student teacher, Ms. Lager, in about a week and a half. She will most likely be taking over the teaching duties right after spring break, so I want to make sure we finish up projects before she gets here.

The 3rd graders are still working on their landscape pictures on Windows Paint. It is such a new process for them, but they pick up on a lot of the functions of the program very quickly. I think one of the toughest things to do is save what they have done correctly. I tell them that many adults don’t even know how to save their work correctly, but it is an important skill if you are going to be spending a lot of time on the computer.

The 4th graders turned in their story in pictures this week. I will be looking at them soon and grading them. Although this was the major part of the project, we will be doing more with this project over the next couple months…and it will require YOUR help. This week, we began creating large sculptures based on the artwork of Judith Scott. The students were very interested in her story, so be sure to ask them about it. They were very excited to make these sculptures and I have loved the results so far.

The 5th graders finished their grid pictures this week. Here is the final result:

Since this was the first time I did this with a class, I was not sure how the result would look. As you can see, it all came together in the end. It looks very different when you see it person, so I recommend walking towards the fine arts room one of these days.

The 6th graders finished their math games this week. They have one small thing to do next week, but for the most part, they are done. Here is a couple pictures of the students hard at work:

I think creating a game is a great experience. They will be playing these games for their world language teachers soon so they can see how the language was used.

Get some good rest this weekend…

This is just a little early, but I wanted to wish everyone a great holiday. We still have the winter assembly tomorrow, so it will be a little crazy and I wanted to make sure I posted before the week ended. Please check out the three-dimensional buildings the 5th graders created using Google SketchUp. As you can see, there are some above. In January, they will be starting a weaving project. The 3rd and 4th graders worked on holiday pop-up cards this week and will start new projects when we return after the break. The 3rd graders will learn about the principle of movement while the 4th graders will create logos on the computer. The 6th graders are in the middle of creating embroidered pillows. The students usually get very excited about this project and jump right into it. Some of the students have wanted to use them as early Christmas presents. All I have to say…go for it!

Well, have a great break, and we will see you in 2007!

I created some new pages that I thought I would mention. First, my sixth grade students created some logos. Some of them are shown above. The link no longer exists, but there are a couple examples above. I have also created some links for programs I think that are worth downloading. Check them out here.