This will be my last year at Simmons, and next fall, I’ll be teaching at Southside. I’ll miss seeing all of my Simmons students, parents, and fellow teachers, but I look forward to this new opportunity. I know Simmons students can do anything if they set their minds to it. I hope you all have a wonderful summer, I can’t wait to see what exciting things you will achieve!
With love, Ms. Baird
The kindergarten will learn about Plains Indian cultures while hearing The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Students will learn how Little Gopher used his talents and shared them with everyone. Students will create pendant necklaces based on Little Gopher’s artwork.
The first grade will learn the order of the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. We will learn that indigo is a blue-violet hue. An easy way to remember the order of the rainbow is Roy G. Biv.
We will look at Peter Paul Rubens’s painting The Rainbow Landscape (painted in 1636) . What do you see in this artwork?
We will create our own rainbow landscape paintings and even learn to mix orange and indigo!
As a fun, end-of-the-year project, some classes are creating Zentangle drawings.
What is a Zentangle? These are Zentangles! We’ll use patterns like these to help us get started.
Once you feel more comfortable, you could try something more advanced…a giraffe, perhaps?
Picasso was a Spanish artist who invented Cubism with his friend, Georges Braque. Picasso was a prolific artist, who created over 50,000 artworks during his lifetime. His portraits are some of his most famous.
We will create a Cubist-self portrait. Think of how you can rearrange your face in a Cubist style. Here’s the trick: the face still has to be recognizable as you. 
Here’s a website that lets you practice making a Cubist portrait.
Here’s the rubric for this artwork. Review Level 4.
Steps:
8) Neatly begin painting your background. Follow painting steps.
9) Paint skin colors. You skin colors can reflect your mood, like green= jealousy, it doesn’t have to be realistic.
If you want to use realistic skin colors: you can either mix paint or use paint from the bottles. If you mix skin colors, you must finish it today. Today is the only mixing day.
10) Finish your painting. Fill out your rubric and staple it to the back of your artwork.
The kindergarten has been learning about the different reasons why people make artwork. We’ve learned that art can be made to be used, for celebrations, and now to tell a story. Eric Carle is a children’s author and illustrator. An illustrator is someone who creates the art that we see in stories. What does the artwork in this story tell you?
Here is how the chameleon looked at the start of our story:
Here is how the chameleon looked by the end! We will create a collage showing many different animals for our chameleons. Think about how your collage will help tell this story.
The 2nd grade has learned about many forms of functional art, such as pottery and quilts. We’ve also learned that art can be used to express their emotions, feelings, and ideas. When art expresses ideas it’s called artistic expression. But wait, there’s another reason why people make art…to tell stories! Let’s add that to the list:
There’s an artist who uses quilts to tell stories, her name is Faith Ringgold. She made a quilt called Tar Beach that tells a story about growing up. People liked the quilt so much that she turned it into a book!
What story would you like your quilt to tell?
Student example:
The third grade is learning about Appalachian art forms. Appalachian folk art is a traditional art form, which means it’s usually passed down through families. We will learn to weave yarn on a loom.
Watch the following two videos (one has a link). What similarities are there between West African and Appalachian basket weaving?
Video for Appalachian Egg Baskets
Day 1:
Day 2 & 3:
Two student examples: look at how much weaving they did!
Kindergarten has been learning about functional art, such as pinch pots and baskets. They will learn that Appalachian artists make quilts, which are also functional. Functional art is art that can be used, such as quilts, pottery, and rugs.
Quilts often use patterns. Can you find patterns in these students’ quilts?
The 5th grade has learned about ceremonial and functional artwork. We’re building upon our knowledge of ceremonial African masks from last year. Students will learn a new process for creating artwork called paper mache.
Here’s the PowerPoint we’ll use for this lesson. We’ll focus on the African Mask section. Masks from Around the World
Here’s the rubric for this lesson. Our goals for this project:
Ms. Baird's Art Class 