Category: Art Programme

The Japanese Footbridge, in the Style of Claude Monet

We used oil pastels and recreated an important piece of Monet’s famous garden in Giverny … his Japanese Footbridge.  We looked at prints of a variety of his paintings of the bridge (which were painted at different times of the day) to notice the different lighting. We also looked at several of his water lily paintings.

Claude Monet was a leading member in the Impressionism painting movement which developed in France in the late 19th century and which was based on the practise of painting out of doors spontaneously – en plein air 🎨

We then used either green or blue tempera disc paints to do a wash over the whole picture. These lovely art pieces are gracing the bulletin board in the hallway outside of our classroom.



















Arts Alive – “Out of this World” – what excites us …

For this biennial event, from the Burnaby Art Gallery, we started by reading a storybook called, “Dream You’ll Be”, by Joseph T. Garcia.  We had a few discussions on things that we like and those that excite us – maybe exciting enough to pursue as a career.

Students then did a ‘draft’ drawing of their ‘exciting thing’ before making their ‘good’ copy.  The grade two girls prepared the canvas (the required size by the BAG of 18”x24”) with paint.  They were given black, blue, purple, and white.  This was their result …




After all the students completed their final planet Saturns (what excites them), the grade two boys glued them onto the canvas.

Now it looks like this …

I will deliver it to the Burnaby Art Gallery next week.  They prepare all the art pieces, from the classes at schools who choose to participate, for proper display. We will all be invited to the Grand Opening Night.  I will let you know when it is.  It is usually in April.

I will share the students’ “artist statements” via an email.  They were very thoughtful in what they chose and how they said it.

Antarctic Delivery 🐧

We have had a very exciting week! On Monday we received a package sent from the South Pole! It was an extremely cold package and had air holes punched into it …

In the package was a penguin!!

She came along with this letter from an ‘Admiral Drake’.

There was also a journal and a carry bag.


The penguin, named Pringle, began her home visits on Monday evening with Calla.  On Tuesday morning we heard all about Pringle’s visit when Calla shared her journal writing with us. The visits have continued this week with Samyar (Tuesday) and Rose (Wednesday). Tonight Pringle is spending the night with Patrick. Each morning, after a visit, the student reads their journal entry and shares the pictures they have drawn.  We will be continuing through the class list so that everyone has a chance to have Pringle visit them at home. Please help your child enjoy these visits by assisting, where necessary, with their writing and pictures.

In our classroom we have also got a lot of other penguins who have come for a visit.

We also have a lot of journals, from previous classes of Mrs. Temple’s, who have been lucky enough to have had visits from Pringle.

With this package also came the novel “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”.  We read a chapter each day.  So far Mr. Popper, a house painter from a small town who has a fascination with everything from the Antarctic, has received a live Adélie penguin from an Admiral Drake. He has named this penguin Captain Cook.

We will be spending the next several weeks learning about several different species of penguins – there are 18 different species – and doing many different activities, both scientific and, of course (😉) art based.

Stay tuned.