Fifth Grade Fantasy Trees

Fifth grade students began our fantasy tree project by listening to an excerpt from "The Hobbit" that takes place in the forest as the group of travelers come upon the round green door of the hobbit. Step one was to draw or use a template to create the basic tree shape. This lesson focused on value and creating depth and texture with light and dark colors. It also required students to show foreground, middle ground and background behind the tree, as well as showing details that tell the season and time of day. The next part of the project had students cutting open the doors they drew to enter their fantasy tree. We were all about safety during these sessions which led students to the second phase of drawing their fantasy world inside the door. Stay tuned for more photos of fantasy worlds and finished works.

Fourth Grade Worms In Space

We began a favorite fourth grade lesson...Worms In Space teaches the concept of value and perspective with an out of this world theme. Artists drew a line that filled their paper and overlapped at least three times. The next step was to add a parallel line that followed the first line creating a "worm" or tubular shape. The next step was creating a light source and then adding hatching or shading to their tube to give the effect of a cylindrical shape. After working on the concepts of shading, students then had fun adding astronauts, aliens, space craft and more! Stay tuned for the finished work.

Jasper Johns Kindergarten and First Grade Paintings

In this lesson students learned about the artist Jasper Johns and looked at several works that focused on numbers in art. Students were asked to write four letters and numbers into eight sections that students created by folding their paper. The other part of the lesson was studying warm and cool colors so students chose wither color oil pastel to draw their letter or number. The next week was all about the magic of oil pastel resist and looking at color wheels so they could try to use the opposite of their warm or cool color drawings and paint the background of the section with the opposite color. Students were amazed as they painted on top of the drawings with tempera cakes and watched the colors of their pastels show through the paint as the oil repelled the water based paint.  

Second Grade Finished Essex Junction Architecture

All three second grade classes have participated in an arts integration project that connected to social studies and architecture. This is one classes finished work of painted clay. Students had to work small and use detail brushes and be mindful of work on such a small canvas of clay. 

Owl Puppets

Second and third grade students had so much fun studying owls that that several chose an extension project of puppet making and owl cartoons. We never seem to get tired of owls!

Mousekin's Golden House Kindergarten Arts Integration

After kindergarten classes went to the pumpkin patch they followed up the experience with an arts integrated lesson based on the book Mousekin's Golden House. This is a very old book that is no longer in print and written and illustrated by Edna Miller. It weaves in the idea of composting, nocturnal, hibernating, predators and migration concepts all into a wonderful story about a mouse who discovers a discarded jack o lantern in the woods. Students created a jack o lantern by tracing different shaped pumpkin templates and then cutting it out. The next step involved creating a torn paper mouse which was a little frustrating for some, but students persevered keeping in mind that all mice look different so it was OK if they ended up with a different size mice. Next they had to orient their pumpkin in the correct position onto a brown background paper to cover their mouse. The final step and the most fun of all was receiving a handful of cotton fluff to create a bed for their mouse, just like Mousekin had in his house. This project is a great example of incorporating literacy and science with the arts.