Category: Art Programme

St. Patrick’s Day

As this holiday will happen while we are on Spring Break we spent some time during the past two weeks doing some Irish activities.

We read some stories and did some art.  Students wrote out three wishes for what they would like if they caught a leprechaun.  They chose their most favourite wish and then created a shamrock depiction of that wish.

We also created layered shamrocks with three sizes of shamrocks on construction paper which were coloured with oil pastels in the shades of blue and green, with some added bits of gold/yellow.

We also have some ‘wee folk’ visiting the classroom.  They seem to like ‘hanging around’ …

May the luck of the Irish be with you.  I hope you all wear some green on March 17th – you wouldn’t want to get pinched …

Burnaby Arts Alive Programme

We spent time during February working on a project for the biennial Arts Alive competition.  This is open to elementary school classes every second year – alternate years with the secondary schools.  Every year there is a set theme.  This year’s theme was, “Place, Home”.

As we have been looking at aboriginal art styles this year we created a project that incorporated the coastline of our glorious province and the four different styles of aboriginal art: North Coast; Mid Coast; West Coast (outer part of Vancouver Island); and South Coast.  Each of the styles have similarities and differences mainly in reference to the shapes and the colours that are used.

Students each chose an animal which they practised drawing on their own.  They made a ‘good copy’ of it and then adorned it with the colours allowed from the style of their animal.

These animals were affixed to a canvas that was transformed into the coastline of BC.  A variety of different students painted (base or mottled top layers), separated cedar fronds, soaked off the title labels, or created the human pictures.  Cedar was chosen as a representation of how important this tree was to aboriginal peoples.  All in all it was a whole class project with everyone doing something to contribute.

Normally for Arts Alive each year every student would create an individual project from class lessons about the year’s theme.  The Jury Panel from the BAG comes to each school on a specific day in the final week and a few of the individual projects would be chosen to be taken to the Burnaby Art Gallery for their annual exhibition.  This year we were asked to do a whole class project with the idea that most, if not all, of the participating classes would have their project taken.

At Rosser our class, along with Divisions 1 and 2, participated this year.  The Jury Panel came on February 28th and each of the three divisions had their projects taken back to the Burnaby Art Gallery.  These collected works will be put on display for the Annual Exhibition.

The Opening Night for this exhibition will be on Thursday, April 13th at 6:00 p.m.  I will be there and I hope some of you can come to see the students’ great work.  The picture here doesn’t really show how great the individual animal pictures are – so seeing them in real life would be best:)

 

 

Aboriginal Study Week – Salmon

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During the week of November 14th – 18th we had visits from Ms. Brandi Price, our Aboriginal resource teacher.  We spent three lessons that week learning about salmon, and its importance to the coastal First Nations peoples.  We heard three different stories: Simon and the Salmon; The Salmon Twins; and P’esk’a.  Students learned how to remember the five different types of salmon by doing a ‘hand’ activity.

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They also were introduced to some of the shapes that are used in Aboriginal art, and the traditional colours used. For the northern coastal bands are red, black, white, and sometimes a bit of yellow.  They used these colours to complete a salmon picture.

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We learned about a few ceremonies and performed a salmon dance in the classroom.  It was a fun week.  We look forward to our next visit with her in the New Year.

 

Remembrance Day at Rosser

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We had discussions on Remembrance Day and why we commemorate this particular day.  We looked at these two books.

Students created poppies.  Some for our class wreath which we took to Confederation Park and laid on the cenotaph during our ceremony …

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and some we did through a directed drawing lesson …

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These were drawn onto white paper, outlined with black crayon, and then painted with red and green paint. Once these were dried they were cut, re-outlined, and then glued onto green construction paper.  We had a discussion on complementary colours – those that are opposite to each other on the colour wheel.  Red and green are complementary colours.  This is why they ‘pop’ when put next to each other.

Other complementary partners are:  blue/orange; and yellow/purple.  Each primary colour has a secondary colour as its complement.

Some of these poppies are on the bulletin board in the office; the others are on the smaller bulletin board in the hallway outside the office.

We also had a great outing to the Confederation Park cenotaph on Thursday morning. The students were solemn and respectful; the Division 2 leadership students put on a great assembly; Mrs. Schwarz told some great stories about life in the wars; and the weather was spectacular.  It was nice to see some parents join us for this outing.

Fall Scenes

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We spent some time experimenting with colour theory by using the three primary colours – red, blue, and yellow – to create some interesting looking variegated leaves. We used leaves cut out of special colour diffusing paper.  On one of the leaves students coloured it with the three primary colours using food colours; with the other one they used Solucryl water colour paint.  Most students enjoyed using the food colours better than the paints, with this particular paper.

These leaves are placed around the bulletin board in the hallway which holds our bat pictures.  These bat pictures are the students’ third bat drawings.  We initially did two directed drawings of the same bat on regular drawing paper.  The students then created this same bat drawing on grey construction paper.  They could then add some background details that would be found in the Fall.

Fin’s Friends

This is a programme from the Vancouver Canucks organization which focusses on personality traits involved with social and emotional learning.  We will be doing several lessons over the course of the school year.  We began our lessons by discussion some personality traits such as: kindness; friendliness; and perseverance. We read a book called, “I Like Me”, which is about a chubby pig who likes herself for being just the way she is – whether she is on her own or with others.  Students then thought about things that they like about themselves – things they are good at doing, how they treat others, etc.

They then created wishing well art pieces with their written statement about themselves incorporated into the art.

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I look forward to many more lessons over the school year.

 

 

Colour Theory

On Friday we spent some time reviewing Colour Theory, including:

  • Primary Colours – yellow, blue, and red
  • Secondary Colours – green, orange, and purple
  • How secondary colours are made from primary colours

Students then made a tesselation on their paper; initially drawn in pencil and then traced over with black marker.  The criteria for their artwork was to fill in each section by only using the three primary colours in wax crayon.  They were to create their own secondary colours.  Students were allowed to do some sections in primary colours but the goal was to create mostly secondary colours.  Adjoining sections needed to be different colours.

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These art pieces are placed on the bulletin board at the back of our classroom.  There are some not finished; they will be added to the board when they are completed.  I think the lesson reinforced the colour theory for the students.

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We Are Thankful For …

Last Friday we spent the day doing things all about being thankful.  We read about the history of Thanksgiving in Canada.  Students learned that the first Thanksgiving in North America was in Canada in 1578 (in Newfoundland) with Martin Frobisher and other immigrants from England.  They were celebrating being thankful for surviving the long journey and the bounty of foods grown in the ‘New World’.  After being celebrated on many different dates over the years, the Parliament of Canada declared (in 1957) that the second Monday of October would be the recognized day of thanks in Canada.

We discussed traditions and modern celebrations.  Students enjoyed a sample, or two, of pumpkin pie!

After a class brainstorming of things that we are thankful for, students were paired and set to work writing their own things to be thankful for.  These are posted on the bulletin board in the hallway.

These ‘thankful’ posters are intermingled with the tissue papered turkeys that the students worked on during Art on Friday afternoon.

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Seuss!!!

While we are awaiting the onset of our Reading groups (in a few weeks) we are going to be doing a literary study of the books by Theodore Seuss Geisel – also known as, Dr. Seuss.  We will do all sorts of activities around some of his books: writing, predictions, extensions, and artwork.  Some activities will be individual and others will be group based.

This week we have begun with the iconic classic, The Cat in the Hat.

We had an extended directed drawing lesson on facial features.  Students then created their own faces through their drawing.  Hats, in the style of The Cat in the Hat, were made and added to their portraits.  These are on our main bulletin in the hallway.

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Make sure you check them out when you come by for our Intake Interviews next week!