Last Thursday we did a great activity with our Division 2 buddy class.  We heard the story – Where The Wild Things Are – and saw the short video, as well.  Then, divided into two groups, we worked either in Mrs. Iverson’s room or our room.  We created some great – scary looking – monsters using chalk pastels on black construction paper.

Check out the bulletin board outside of our room and the one upstairs by Mrs. Iverson’s room.  Both boards have a variety of pictures from each of the classes.  Here are two of our students’ work:

I think that they look great.  I hope you agree!

We have been reading and enjoying a lot of the books by Dr. Seuss this past two weeks!!  We began with “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” which was the first book that he wrote.  With an aim at being better at observing (and using imagination) we took a short walk down Pandora Street to see what we could see.  Back in the classroom students drew something ‘real’ that they had seen and then had to turn it into something ‘unreal’ or imaginary – similar to the way the character in the story exaggerated his observations.

With ‘The Cat in the Hat’ we had a directed drawing lesson on how to draw a human face.  Students learned about the correct placement of facial features and the proportions of these features in relation to each other.  As the first in our series of drawing lessons I think that the students did a great job!!  We added the great hats to finish off the art pieces.  Our drawing lessons will continue each week throughout the school year.  By June the students will have a fine collection in their portfolios.

We will continue with our Seuss theme throughout next week.  Many of the stories have been simply read by me during our daily Storytime after lunch – with others we have done activities.  We are currently finishing up our versions of ‘Yertle, the Turtle’.

I am sure that all the mothers enjoyed receiving their lovely clay rose today.  We had a lot of fun making these.  It was a great experience for the students to work, once again, with the clay.  Many visitors to our classroom raved about how beautiful they looked.

I hope all of you had a lovely Mother’s Day!

In a continuation of our study of the Impressionist Masters, we looked at several “still life” paintings by Paul Cezanne.   Students then chose one of them to emulate in their own masterpieces.

We have these mounted on the back right-hand side wall of the gym.  Hopefully when you were at the Fine Arts afternoon or evening performances you had a chance to see them.  The students created the basis with oil pastels and then used paint to fill in the rest of the backgrounds.

I think they look lovely.  I hope you agree.

Division 5 has been learning about Vincent Van Gogh.  Earlier the students re-created art pieces inspired by Van Gogh’s “A Starry Night” which are on display outside of the classroom.  We next made our versions of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”.

These art pieces (Sunflowers) were created using the same technique as “A Starry Night”.  After a directed drawing lesson, students used oil pastels to make the table top, vase, and sunflowers.  They then used tempera paint discs – in the complementary colours of blue (turquoise) and orange – to complete the background.

These lovely Sunflowers will be put on display at McGill Library for the month of May!!

Division 6 (Kindergarten) will also have some of their art on display at the library.  They have created Rainbow Fish – inspired by Marcus Pfister’s storybook – using CD’s and other art materials.

I hope you get a chance to get by McGill Library during May to see the students wonderful works of art!!

On Wednesday, April 24th Divisions 1 and 5 got together to spend a fun afternoon making clay ‘pinch pots’.  Students took their slab of clay and formed it into a ball about the size of a baseball.  They then pushed one thumb down into the middle of the ball.  Using their thumb and fore-fingers they pinched around in a circle to create a well in the middle.  Students were instructed to ensure an even thickness on the sides of the pots and that there were no cracks in the clay.  They learned that a little water goes a long way with clay – too much will end up with a dissolved ‘cookie’.

Once students had created their ‘pots’ they used the ‘scratch and attach’ technique to change their pots into the animal of their choice.  These are currently drying and will be fired in the school kiln later this week.  Once the clay has had its first firing students will use tempera disc paints to add colour.  These will then be coated with acrylic medium to seal them and make them shine.

Students had a lot of fun working with the Grade 6’s and 7’s!

I was very impressed when I went to the Opening Night earlier this evening.  All of the chosen art pieces – from the various participating schools – were wonderful!  The Burnaby Art Gallery, as usual, has done a great job of displaying the artwork.

I met up with Colton, Mykaela, and their mom who were also enjoying the displays.  As part of the formal speeches for the ‘opening’ all of the children who had artwork in the display were invited to the front to receive a warm round of applause – and to get their photos taken.

I was happy to see (and hear) so many people making nice comments about all the Rosser art pieces.  I met up with some teacher-friends of mine and they were very complimentary towards our students’ work.

Everyone who created art for this exhibition should be very proud of themselves.

I am sure you all saw these wonderful self portraits last night at the Student-Led conferences.  They form a very appealing wall of creativity in our classroom.

Through a directed drawing lesson students learned the proper positioning of facial features.  It is a common tendency for young children to place the eyes way too high on the face.  In actual fact they are centred in the middle of the face – from top to bottom.  Eyes are not seen as round objects but are more almond-shaped.  For proper positioning and sizing 5 eyes would fit from end to end across the face – of course, we only have the two!!  The eyes should be in positions 2 and 4 (if we measured out 5 eye spaces).  The tops of the ears are at the same height as the eyes and the bottoms of the ears line up with the mouth.

To become more accurate at the proportions in their drawing takes a great deal of time and practise.  We will be working more on these drawing lessons in the next few weeks.