Woodworking Camp!

:) Woodworking camp started this week! My class is so precious!! They make all of the planning I have done to make this camp possible worth every second!!

 

You might not be able to tell from these pictures but we are making wood, fully functioning gumball machines. I can't take credit for the design- I found the instructions on Instructables posted by a high school shop educator. Genius!

 

 Because my kids are elementary aged they certainly couldn't operate a drill press and scroll saw so I prepped all of the gumball bases for them before camp started. Depending on the age level I'm teaching them beginning woodworking skills with a variety of tools. We are also working on understanding simple machines, developing well thought out characters and personification.

 

The first two days of camp have been a lot of prepping, brainstorming and writing. Watching them develop their ideas is always very interesting to me.

 

The following pictures are from Monday's class. The kids designed a woodworking art journal to record their sketches and reflections. They also (very patiently) worked on sanding their gumball machine bases with sandpaper as well as files.

Doing a great job getting the sandpaper in the gumball holes!

Beautiful journals!!

Clever, this student layered the stickers to make those little flowers.

All of the stickers I passed out were a hit ;)!!

Mobiles!!!

 

Oh my goodness! These are such stunning mobiles that I'm having a hard time not putting a picture up from every student!!

 

These mobiles are a cumulating result of months of work. We have wrapped many skills, creative concepts, new art standards and art history into this one project. Best of all- KIDS LOVE TO BUILD....so after we made all of the stuff that would be on our mobiles, I let them loose to construct them and it was a constant buzz of activity.

 

My favorite part of teaching (other than just being with the kids ;)) is when we get really deep into a project and they keep going. They uncover new methods and ideas as they work through old ones. We sure hit that spot with this project!

 

Enjoy viewing these deliciously great mobiles!!!!!!!

 

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!

Young at Art at the Tampa Museum of Art

The Tampa Museum of Art put on an exhibit this weekend that represented K-8 schools fine arts programs in Hillsborough County. Each public, private and charter school was asked to submit a student piece that represented their art program. I was thrilled with the idea and I chose a marionette made by Sarah K in Ms. O's class!

Sarah is in third grade and is inventive, resourceful and hard working. I remember the first few times I taught her at the beginning of her second grade I would see her completely absorbed in her work and I was immediately curious about what she was making. I love watching her process and I love whenever she has a little discovery she always comes to find me to share it with me. While making this marionette she figured out that by wrapping wire around this teeny, fluffy trim she could create a tail that would twist in different positions and hold the position. Art teacher love!!!

Sarah and her marionette are what I dream our art program at LP is all about. I hope the kids are curious about what they can achieve with their hands, I hope they apply meaning to their art making and I hope they feel like little explorers when they come into the art room.

Thank you Sarah and family for your support!!

                                            Seeing her name on the display was so cute! ;)

Sarah's fantastic mongoose marionette displayed in the case

Sarah and I ;)

The crowd listening to the presentation. I was happy to hear the speaker say one of my mantras- "the wonderful thing about art is that there is more than one answer"....amen to that!!

 Sarah and I walked through the exhibit. We viewed and talked about the other student's work. They didn't list the materials used in the information tags so we had fun guessing how they were made. I enjoyed seeing her critiquing. I have to get her ready for all the critiquing she will do in her art program at college!! ;)

           My daughter studying a piece portraying a lion that was done by an 8th grader in the county.

Making Marionettes!!

 Ah! My marionette making enrichment class is heaven!! It is so exciting to be with this group of kids after school! It is the first after school session I have done so far this year and I greatly missed it.

I had been thinking about building marionettes since last year. It fascinates me to combine the building, simple machines, painting and theater all together in one project. I decided to base our marionette making off an ancient folk tale from India- I can never find the exact title but it is about Never Rushing to Judgement and involves a mongoose and a snake. The children will eventually put on a marionette show enacting the folk tale. In the meantime I will teach them as much as I can about the culture of India while we are making.

After we read the folk tale together they all chose what character they wanted to create- either the wife, husband, mongoose or snake. I have a great resource book titled "Art From Many Hands" which had an illustration of how to build a marionette. It gave me the idea to sketch out instructions on how to put the marionettes together. I gave them each a "kit" and the instructions and let them work through it. Of course I walked around and helped but for the most part they did it on their own! Below is the wife or husband instructions....

 

These are the mongoose instructions

          The top pictures in this post are pictures of some of the kiddos making a snake character.

The following pictures are the husbands and wives. Can you believe the kids nailed them together and screwed in eye hooks on their own?! Yippee!

 This is what one table in my room looked like AFTER the first marionette session.......took 2 hours to clean up but still sooooooo worth it!!! ;)

During week 2 we began working on the marionette clothes. We studied traditional Indian designs and the students designed fabric using geometric patterns, flora and fauna and stylized images. I sketched and copied a little pattern for them to make a long shirt, dress and pants. Some of them started sewing the pieces together and others I took home and sewed for them so we don't get too far behind (class is only 4 weeks and I'm worried we will not be done!). Don't the dresses look so cool!!?

I can't wait to see all of this come together. I'm hoping to video the performances and post them afterwards.