3rd Grade Visits the Museum

Once again this year we had the opportunity for our entire 3rd grade class to attend a field trip down at the Blanton Art Museum on the University of Texas at Austin.  All the student got the chance to spend just over an hour exploring the many different works the museum holds with guide a a docent. This was a great culminating event after having spent much of the month of January talking about the idea of looking vs seeing and how we can really begin to dig deeper into understanding art and what it might mean or represent.  It was a great day and experience for everyone and we are so thankful that Blanton offers this program for a FREE field trip.

Kindergarten Flying Mitten Project

Kindergarten students created these colorful mitten paintings after reading Jan Brett’s book The Mitten.  Building on their knowledge of lines each student designed their own matching pair of mittens by including vertical, horizontal, diagonal, wavy, zigzag, and broken lines.  The biggest challenge of this project was making sure to keep both the right and left-handed mitten matching.  The students worked hard to paint with quality and ensure their colors were bright so their mitten would be seen if it was dropped in the snow unlike the character Nikki from the story.  The students used the Medium of pencil, sharpie, and tempera paint on the mittens and then practiced their cutting and gluing skills to adhere the mittens to blue sky background along with some whimsical movement lines to make their mitten appear as if it were flying in the air. 

 

5th Grade Meaningful Picture Collage

After looking at some examples of collage work from various artists and reflecting on how the artist used the images to tell a story, prove a point, or just make us laugh students had to reflect on what they felt was important and how they might create a visual image representing it.  The students spent a lot of time collecting images from multiple sources and then had to figure out how to combine them all together to make one cohesive piece that was interesting, had balance, and had enough meaning to write a complete paragraph about.  The student chose topics such as healthy living, world hunger, environmental awareness, and the importance of family.  Each student included a write up expressing their feelings on the images they chose and what it all means to them.  The students also made sure to focus on workmanship and craftsmanship to ensure that each images was carefully cut and glued to fit together with the whole picture. Great job 5^th grade.