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Category Archives: Art Lesson
Our Jack-O-Lanterns
I am a pumpkin, big and round.
Once upon a time I grew on the ground
Now I have mouth, two eyes, a nose.
What are they for, do you suppose?
When I have a candle inside shining bright,
I’ll be a jack-o-lantern on Halloween night.
Jack-o-lanterns, big and scary,
Some are sad, some are merry.
Some are large and some are small.
Some just have no teeth at all!
A Special Visit
Last week we were very fortunate to have MIchael Crumback visit our class. He is going to school to become an animator.
Michael showed us the cool pencil and paper animating that they started with in his first year. He brought along a few of the flip books he created and also showed us what they looked like once they were scanned into the computer. We thought the flour sack was very funny!
Next, Michael showed us the amazing computer animation they moved on to. We loved seeing all of the projects he worked on in his class. The animations of the sheep were hilarious. We also got to see how to animate people using a special computer program. Michael let us make decisions about what to have the character do. Having the character do the splits and then have his teeth fly out of his mouth were very popular with the students.
Michael also shared the short film his class made together and showed us that parts he was responsible for. We loved the hippo!
Finally, Michael led us in some directed drawing. He showed us step by step how to draw a fun cartoon rabbit and then a snake. We also got a chance to try out the drawing pad and stylus that he using when animating.
Our Turn to Draw on PhotoPeach
We can’t thank Michael enough for coming all the way from Vancouver to share with us. He is definitely going to have one of the coolest jobs around!
Spring Chickens
Spring is definitely in the air! There were some strange characters wandering around the classroom and the hall this week. We would like to introduce our spring chickens…take it away grade 2/3s!
A Trip to the Opera
On Thursday we went on a field trip to Sunset School to see Vancouver Opera in School’s production of Hansel and Gretel.
Normally we take the ferry when we want to leave the island, but for this trip we got to travel on the NAIAD Explorer. It is a very fast boat. The trip to Port McNeill usually takes about 30 minutes, but on the NIAD you are there in less than 10!
We were asked not to take any photos or videos of the performance and so we decided to make our own retellings of the opera using Little Bird Tales. With our groups we planned out which scenes to include, drew our illustrations, wrote the narration, and then added text. Here is a short peek at the wonderful collaborations that were happening in our classroom:
We had all heard the story of Hansel and Gretel before, but the story the opera told was quite different. Can you spot all the differences?
(This group isn’t quite finished yet. They still need to add their text)
Did you notice any differences between the story the opera told and the one that can be found in most children’s books?
Valentine’s Day
Our school was a sea of red and pink today as we all celebrated Valentine’s Day. We exchanged cards, enjoyed potluck dessert and dancing in the gym, and played Bingo. We hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day too!
A Very “Animated” Friday
Yesterday we only had 7 students in our class! Several of our classmates got to go to a special First Nations performance in Fort Rupert and so we decided to do something special too.
In the morning we did a round of Daily 5 and then we went to the computer lab to create ToonDoo comics and SketchFus for our blogs. ToonDoo and Sketchfu are both free and we love that your finished product can be embeded on your blog.
After recess we had a special visit from the intermediate class who came to share their social studies projects with us. Then we worked on DreamBox and Xtra Math until lunch. DreamBox is a lot of fun and Xtra Math is a great way to master basic math facts.
The best part of the day happened after lunch. We dedicated the whole afternoon to claymation. Some of the grade 3s had tried claymation in Tech Club last year and so they were able to help the others out. We found out that it takes a lot of time and patience to make even a very short claymation video. Here are three short videos that are ready to share:
Have you ever tried creating a stop motion animation?
Polar Landscapes
We started this art project last Friday and finished this week. The funny thing was, that the very next day the snow started and it actually stayed around for a whole week. We may need to do winter themed art more often!
The first week we painted the sky and the ice. We added salt to the sky to make it look like snow and we used Saran Wrap to make the blue look like ice. The students were all amazed when they lifted up the plastic wrap and saw the interesting texture it left behind.
This Friday, we made our polar bears. We used recycled meat trays to create our polar bears for printing. We didn’t have any brayers and so we had to brush the paint on with brushes. We think they turned out great and we hope you like them too!
You can find the directions for this art lesson at another great art blog Mrs. Watson follows, that artist woman.
Dream Snow
Our latest art project was inspired by the book Dream Snow, written by Eric Carle. The book has beautiful illustrations and uses plastic overlays to add snow to many of the pictures.
We started by creating our backgrounds with shades of blue and purple and then painted our snowmen. We added details to our snowmen using the painted paper we created at the beginning of the year. Finally, we painted snow on overhead transparencies that we attached on top of our paintings.
We love how they turned out and we hope that we will get some real snow soon!
Wild Peacocks!
Those of you that had a chance to tour the community halls this weekend, might have noticed a very colourful muster (had to Google what a group of peacocks is called) of peacocks decorating the walls. The students in the school have an annual tradition of creating artwork for our community Winterfest and this year the theme for our artwork was peacocks.
The students had a lot of fun creating their peacocks and wanted to tell you a little more about their feathered friends. We hope you like them!