This March, the art room is celebrating a different kind of March Madness. Second through fifth grade classes will participate in mARTch Madness during art classes. Check out which two artists your grade will vote on. In class, you’ll learn a little about each artist and artwork and then…vote!
Cue the theme music!
Career week is coming up and the art room is getting ready for our next project, which combines art, career studies, and the International Book Project!
All K-5 students will create one career/college-themed bookmark to keep and another to donate to the International Book Project. All year, Simmons has been collecting books for the IBP and we’re going to donate bookmarks to go along with our book donations.
Check out what the International Book Project does! We’re going to each donate one bookmark to IBP. Think about what design you’d like to make on your donation bookmark.
For your second bookmark, you’ll create a bookmark to keep and take home. This bookmark will have a college/career theme. Which careers are you interested in? Which colleges would you like to attend? Why?
Of course, you could always check out the colleges that are near and dear to my heart!
The College of Wooster– Wooster, OH
One of my favorite things about Wooster is the bagpipers, always the bagpipers.
Wait, why does my college have bagpipers? Why do they wear kilts? What’s up with all the plaid? Why did I go to school in a place called Wooster (pronounced Wuster, not Wooooooster)? You can ask me or check out www.wooster.edu to find out more!
While we’re on the topic of music…my other alma mater has a band, too.
The Ohio State University– Columbus, OH
OSU is a great university with excellent academic opportunities and fun traditions, like this. I loved my time there. What’s a buckeye? Why is “dotting the i” such a big deal? Who is John Glenn? You can ask me or check out www.osu.edu to find out more!
All grades (preK-5) will be creating artworks for the PTA’s Art to Remember fundraiser. Art to Remember provides families with an easy way to have their students’ artwork turned into some pretty cool items, such as iPhone covers. If you love your students’ artworks and want to take them with you everywhere, you are in luck, that is exactly what Art to Remember helps you do!
Here’s a full listing of products that Art to Remember offers.
We’re painting our projects now!
The fifth grade will be learning about Plains Native American traditional art. Shields were used for physical and spiritual protection, which make them ceremonial and functional forms of art. Ceremonial art is used for ceremonies and rituals, while functional art can be used. Shields often depicted animals that would provide desirable qualities, like a bear for strength.
Here’s contemporary Lakota artist, James Little Wounded’s shields.
Art in Action: From National Geographic, here’s a video of the Oglala Lakota Nation’s Pow Wow. At the Pow Wow, we see how dancing, music, and ceremonial art (dress) work together. Pay close attention to how the Mr. Spotted Tail explains how he learned to participate in the Pow Wow.
Steps:
Two fifth grade classes completed their Dale Chihuly– inspired sculptures! They finished securing their “glass” pieces to the armatures, added tissue paper to cover any visible armature, and hung them up. Students even reflected on working collaboratively as a team. Right now, these sculptures are drying in the art room, but they have bigger places to be! Fantastic job, fifth grade!
You can check out Dale Chihuly’s website for more information on his artwork.
The fifth grade is learning about DaVinci and his masterpiece, The Mona Lisa. We will learn her history and why she’s so famous.
We will create our own parodies of The Mona Lisa, using mixed media. These are student artworks. How did they reinvent the Mona Lisa?
Mona Lisa– Download the PowerPoint we’ll view in class.
Here’s the rubric page for this project. Look at Level 4!
Steps:
We did it! Gifted art students worked collaboratively to paint this banner. The banner will represent Woodford County at the 2015 KY School Boards Association Conference. Simmons was asked to do the honor this year, and we were very successful. Students chose to work on the banner, and most of them even used RECESS time to do it! Thank you to all the teachers who were flexible with their students so that we could have this wonderful opportunity.
The theme for this year’s conference is “The Courage to Lead,” so we did a “school” of fish with a colorful leader. Get it? School of fish? We thought it was clever!
I picked up our Bibelots from the Headley-Whitney Museum last week. I was so excited to get them back to school so they could be put on display. These are the artworks that were student- nominated to represent each 5th grade class. Two students’ sculptures received Honorable Mentions at the Improbable Baubles Exhibition. I couldn’t be more proud of the students!
Bonus: The artist statements will be saved for our annual Writing on the Walls display this spring. This is the project that keeps on giving!
On Tuesday, January 13th, Simmons held our Winter Fine Arts Night. We displayed over ONE HUNDRED artworks while Mrs. Bowmer’s Friday classes performed on their instruments. The artworks are currently on display, so please visit our 2015 Winter Art Exhibition.
The 5th grade will study Colonial American portraits and creating their own self-portrait drawings. Why do people take modern self-portraits (and selfies)? Are the reasons similar to why people had Colonial portraits painted?
Here’s our PowerPoint for this lesson: Colonial portraits
More information on portraits:
Examples of artists’ self portraits: you might recognize a few!
And lastly, here’s one of Ms. Baird’s self-portraits:
Ms. Baird's Art Class 
