First Grade "Special Me - Slippers with Symmetry!"

Are you …

Sweet like a kitten? 

Friendly like a puppy? 

Fast as a cheetah? 

Tough as a shark? 

Wild as a monkey?

In this lesson, first grade artists each identified a quality they have that makes them special.  They thought of animals that share that same quality.  They made slippers with the faces of the animals.  As inspiration, we read the book Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood.  This lesson affirmed that each of us is a special person with different qualities and strengths.  We learned about each other through the art project and our class discussions. 

Students were challenged to make each slipper have symmetry.  Symmetry and balance are concepts that they will revisit in their future math lessons and art lessons. 

Fifth Grade Wabi Sabi Felted Pouches

In this lesson, we explored the idea that people see the world in different ways and find different things beautiful, interesting, or mysterious. We learned about the Japanese tradition of Wabi Sabi – finding beauty in things that are imperfect, simple, comfortable, and ordinary.  We read the book Wabi Sabi written by Mark Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young.  We thought about wabi sabi qualities as we designed and felted our pouches.

Felting is a way of compressing and matting wool fibers so that they turn into cloth.  We felted our designs by taking barbed needles and arranging wool roving on top of the felt cloth.  When we poked the needles through, the roving was pushed through the felt and was caught on the other side.  After doing this dozens of times, the roving became matted to the felt. 

We learned about contemporary nomadic peoples in Mongolia and Central Asia who felt clothing, tents and yurts today.  Students enjoyed watching a brief video of the traditional process done by modern-day Mongolian people.  

Art Volunteer Work Parties!

This year, we are hosting work parties once a month.  We hope that students and parents will be able to help out with preparing materials for art classes and displaying artwork in our hallways. 

During our first work party this year, kindergarten students and their parents built a cave filled with kindergarten paintings in just thirty minutes!!  It is really fun to work together and make new friends.  We hope that you and your child are able to volunteer! 

We plan to work from 3:00-4:00 on the following dates:

Tuesday, November 19

Thursday, December 12

Tuesday, January 14

Tuesday, February 18

Thursday, March 20

Tuesday, April 15

Thursday, May 29

Please meet us in the art room to enjoy a quick snack at 2:45!

Fourth Grade Baskets!

Fourth graders are weaving baskets!  We are so excited about our artwork.

In their Social Studies classes, fourth graders are studying the history of Vermont and learning about Abenaki traditions.  In Art, we are learning about Abenaki basket weaving traditions.  Check out this beautiful video from the Vermont Folklife Center of a master Abenaki basket weaver, Jeanne Brink, who is teaching her son how to weave.

Second Grade Felted Clouds

Second grade art explorers discovered felting!  We read the book Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker.  We turned into "washing machines" and used our muscles to felt the wool with soap and water.  We watched a video of Mongolian nomadic people working together to make a traditional yurt out of felt. 

The alpaca wool was generously donated by Montpelier's own North Branch Alpaca Farm! Thanks to the Pierce family for this wonderful gift.  Here is a picture from Mrs. Pierce of some of their alpacas: 

Kindergarten Cave Art!

Kindergarten artists just discovered cave painting! We looked at cave paintings from Lascaux, France and talked about how the long-ago artists got ideas from what they see in the world around them. We used our drawings skills with lines and shapes to create pictures of BIG wild animals! The student artists made "cave paint" by mixing crushed red, brown, black and yellow chalk with water. It was fun to paint with our hands! This lesson is part of our "Earth Art" unit.

Thank you to the volunteers (and their parents!) who came in after school to build the cave with all of the kindergarten cave paintings!