Skill Builders

All student groups have been learning new vocabulary, rules for safety in the art room, responsible practices for caring for art and materials, and building their skills through a variety of lessons.  Here's just a sample of students at work!

Kindergarten practiced cutting and gluing skills.  They put their knowledge to work by assembling collages for their Square One Art fundraiser projects.  These are basic skills that they will use throughout the year and into the future of their artistic lives.

Fourth graders learned important color lessons.  They learned about the wild colors use by the Fauves, a French art movement.  We spent many days learning color theory and then started making foxes.  I'm so excited about the final results to come!

Fifth graders studied symmetrical balance.  They created their own imaginative bugs that were designed to showcase their knowledge of symmetry.  They also practiced transferring sketches, which they will use often in art class.

Seventh and eighth graders have been doing an illustration project where they were tasked with designing their own fantasy buildings in a landscape.  Students looked at the illustration style of Quentin Blake, the illustrator for a number of Roald Dahl books.  They also looked at the line drawings of Vincent van Gogh and practiced his style of drawing in order to experiment with line, emphasis, and spacial qualities.  Next, they created a series of thumbnail sketches to plan their final works.  After experimenting with watercolor washes, they were set to begin their own illustrations.

I'm so proud of our artists.  You can soon own some of their work by purchasing merchandise from the Square One Art fundraiser!  Their art packets with catalogues, order forms and instructions come home next week.

Student Updates

It's hard to believe that we're already past the halfway mark in the month of October!  I just wanted to share a few things that students have been up to in art class.

At the beginning of the year, students played a team game, making team hats, in order to review classroom expectations.  They certainly had more fun doing that than sitting silently while I went over rules and responsibilities.  Check out their creativity here:

All classes started the year with a unit on illustration, specifically taking inspiration from the books of Roald Dahl.

Kindergarten Pattern Turtles

Fifth Grade Symmetrical Insects

As in my last post, students are completing art for the Square One Art Fundraiser.  Information will be coming home soon, and check Jupiter Ed for updates as well!

Art Room Fundraiser!

A unique fundraiser that celebrates your child's creativity!

Last year, our Bethlehem families raised a good amount of money for the art room through the Square One Art fundraiser.  This program allows you to purchase your child's artwork printed useful and quality keepsakes.  Some ordered flags, waterbottles, mousepads, ornaments. . . . there are many wonderful items!

Following the completion of the first art unit, all students will be participating again in the program. We have some "big ticket" art supplies to buy this year - including clay for ceramics.  Yes, we have access to a kiln this year, and students will be making actual ceramics this year!

Just a teaser on some of the art students will create. . . .

You'll soon be receiving information on the fundraiser.  

Thank you in advance for your participation!

Welcome (Back) To Art!

The summer was a good time to unwind after a busy first year as your Bethlehem Art Instructor.  However, I am so excited to begin a new school year of art!  This year, we will focus on building the students' abilities in the art classroom through the Studio Habits of Mind, a set of eight dispositions that an artist uses.

1.  Develop Craft: Learning to use tools, materials, artistic conventions, and learning to care for tools, materials and space.

2.  Engage and Persist: Learning to embrace problems of relevance within the art world and/or of personal importance, to develop focus conducive to working and persevering at tasks.

3.  Envision: Learning to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed, and imagine possible next steps in making a piece.

4.  Express: Learning to create works that convey an idea, a feeling, or a personal meaning.

5.  Observe:  Learning to attend to visual contexts more closely than ordinary "looking" requires, and thereby to see things that otherwise might not be seen.

6.  Reflect:  Learning to think and talk with others about an aspect of one's work or working process, and learning to judge one's own work and working process and the work of others.

7.  Stretch and Explore: Learning to reach beyond one's capacities, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan, and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

8.  Understand Community: Learning to interact as an artist with other artists (i.e., in classrooms, in local arts organizations, and across the art field).

This year we will once again participate in the Square One Art Fundraiser.  Your support provided the necessary funds for our clay exploration last year.  And this year - drum roll, please - we'll be doing kiln-fired clay!  A huge improvement over the clay we used last year.

WHAT ART WE DOING IN ART?

To being the school year, all grades will be exploring the work of acclaimed author Roald Dahl.  All classes will learn what it means to be an illustrator.  Lessons not only coincide with particular works by Dahl, but also explore the Elements and Principles of Art.

This year begins a year-long exploration of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design.  These are the foundation upon which artists build their images.  Here are some examples of what we'll be doing as we start  the year!

Kindergarten:  Dots, Lines, Shapes and Colors (Aboriginal Art)

First Grade: Line Paintings

Second and Third Grades: Shapes, Overlapping

Fourth Grade:  Lines (Bad Hair Day)

Fifth Grade: Lines, Overlapping (Still Life)

Sixth Grade:  One Point Perspective

Seventh and Eighth Grades:  Line, Value, Shape, Balance (Scratchboard Animals)

It's going to be a wonderful year!  

Looking forward to all of the creativity.

Mrs. Brown

What a year!

   Hello, Charger Families!  What a year it has been.  I feel so blessed to have been welcomed in to this amazing family.  Your students have made teaching an everyday delight.  There were so many wonderful memories created over the year.  Here a a few that I'd like to share.

   

Bethlehem and Holy Cross seventh and eighth graders helped to paint the windows at the Mid-Michigan Children's Museum. The theme was S.T.E.A.M.: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.

            

Student work and artists at this year's Region 11 Michigan Art Education Association Exhibition at the Saginaw Art Museum.  Katie Henry (center, top row) made it into the state's Top 100!

Students were inspired to make art about Mrs. Brown's germs when I was sick this winter.  The top left picture shows that I was REALLY feeling poorly!

ART ROOM IN ACTION







  

I just loved creating the set pieces for the school play.  
It was so satisfying to see it brought to life through the talents of our amazing students!

Jaden and me out at Fashion Square Mall to receive her award for the 29th Regional Student Art Exhibit.  She was selected as Best of Elementary for our school.  Way to go!

A job well done.  Student work on display at the annual Music and Art Extravaganza.

Student art from the course of the year will be coming home this week and the next.  My final newsletter from the art room will also be coming home.  It includes exhibitions to see, camps to attend, and resources for child and family fun in the region.  I hope you enjoy!  I have a lot of fantastic things planned for the following school year!