Building communities continued.....we have been painting!!

I will not write long tonight....just want to post some of the buildings in their finishing stages of painting. I know you will fall head over heels in love with these buildings too ;))). SO incredible!

Building "dream" buildings in envisioned communities

 I am getting quite behind on posting projects so I'm posting our current in progress work tonight.

For the past 4 weeks we have been deeply investigating communities and the buildings within them. We studied our community and talked about the buildings and resources we have within it. We talked about how and why communities grow and change. Then we took a good look at WHY buildings are in our community- what purpose/function do they have? Are they for shelter like houses? Are they for entertainment like movie theaters? Are they there to provide food like grocery stores?

Then we had fun taking a look at some pretty interesting buildings in other parts of the world and specifically buildings made by Hundertwasser (architect and painter-love him!!!).

The kids were challenged to think of a building that they would want to see in their community and explain what function it would provide for the community. We sketched their building idea, named it and wrote it's function/purpose.

The following week we began construction!! Oh my has construction been a BLAST!!!! I was the city commissioner ;).  I bought a crazy amount of wood pieces  for them to build with and we used wood glue to bind them. They were given maximum height and width requirements and I teased them that the commissioner would knock their building down if it exceeded those guidelines. It was great for the younger grades to get even more familiar with rulers and measurements.

They had to stay as true to their sketch as possible. This week we began to paint them. Each class came up with a name for their class "city" so we have "Downtown Dillinger", "Clark Country", "Mitchelson Mountain" and several other clever variations. In the following weeks we will build roads, plot the buildings, design traffic patterns and then see if our imagined community would actually succeed on it's own ;).

I wish you could hear the dialogue that has gone on between the kids while we have been working on this project. I feel the "spark" in the room that I'm always aiming for- it's been awesome!!

I'll update more as we complete them!!

  

                                                           painting ;))

                                      the first day of construction

           second day of construction- adding further details

                                        how cool is the bridge?

          here are some of the sketches before we began building

              a building to take care of animals- love it!

Hand Sewn Gingerbread characters by Clark's 2nd grade

I was super excited when my son's 2nd grade teacher asked me to come in to provide an extension on their writing project. They have been studying the author and illustrator Jan Brett. They each wrote a story based around a Gingerbread character after reading Gingerbread Baby. 

My part in the project was giving them the resources to visualize and construct their Gingerbread character into a real stuffed animal ;)). Can it get any more fun that that?? Needless to say the kids were completely obsessed with making their Gingerbread characters. 

Seeing their excitement was contagious and I was floored by their sewing skills. Hand sewn (except when we ran out of time I machine stitched a few openings) by the students and hand stuffed as well......simply wonderful! 

The icing on the cake was when they came to my regular art class time on Monday afternoon and "F" told me that he loved his Gingerbread character so much he was sleeping with it every night- then several others chimed in saying they did the same :))). Thank you so much Mrs. Clark for letting me be a part of this special project!!

    LOVE the bow!! When she asked me how to construct the jacket we looked at how my sweater connected and she figured out how to make it look like it was an unbuttoned jacket- wonderful!

                                       What a clever way to add the mouth. Notice the shorts too ;).

 I like how this student used the orange fabric for bandana and then stuck with green for the other embellishments.

 How great is this one with the monkey tail!? In his story the Gingerbread was a monkey- awesome!

 I think I want to take this one home with me to sleep with- doesn't he look snuggly? Really great solution to making the clothing.

 This little girl has incredible craftsmanship skills- I'm blessed to have her in my after school enrichment courses as well as regular school. I adore the vest and how she approached making the mouth.

                                 How fabulous is this cozy little guy's stitching?? These kids are 7 and 8!

 Again, beautifully stitched and the use of buttons is great! So glad the button nose was chosen to be bigger....gives it a ton of character just from that once choice.

                                                 I love, love, LOVE the butterfly eyes!!!

                WOW on the stitching and cute way to color coordinate the buttons. Great detail!

   So great that this one has really long hair- such a nice way to accentuate the detail that was important.

 Notice the trims on the outfit!! So cool!

 My own son's gingerbread boy ;). He asked me for Velcro so he could make his character "hug himself".

                                                      Here with his cute little arms open.

                                                      The outfit on this one is to die for!!

 This precious Mickey Mouse gingerbread character needed casts for his broken his arms, legs and has "head gear"- is that imagination at it's finest or what??

                This guy has an entire outfit!! So neat!!!