Category: Theme Activities
Like trees, every artist is unique …
We looked at a variety of famous artists and their work. I chose several different prints that had one thing in common – each contained at least one tree. We had a great discussion about the similarities and the differences of each artist’s style. We also discussed realism. Students then created their own art piece with the criteria that they include at least one tree. The work was completed with waxed crayons. These are on the bulletin board in the hallway and included below.
Van Gogh Sunflowers
We began with a look at Van Gogh’s artwork, with a special look at his paintings from his time in Arles in the south of France. We then used oil pastels to re-create his vase with sunflowers. Afterwards we did a blue tempera paint wash over top. They are on the bulletin board in the hallway.
100’s Day!!
We had fun doing ‘hundreds’ of things this week.
Division 7 is “Just Hanging Around …”
The ‘inspiration’ …
We did a directed drawing lesson. Students then traced their pencil lines with black pencil crayon. We had a shading / colouring lesson … students used mostly waxed crayons, with some pencil crayon additions.
The whole ‘colony’ together …
Poppies in the style of Georgia O’Keefe
We created our lovely small poppies for our Remembrance Day wreath. The outer rim are our traditional poppies, and the inner ring are from a design created by Robin Roberts, an Indigenous artist of Tsimshian, Haida, and Squamish ancestry. It will be presented at our Remembrance Day assembly tomorrow morning.
We then had a directed drawing lesson on a single poppy filling a huge paper, much as Georgia O’Keefe did with much of her artwork. Students went over their pencil lines with china grease markers and filled the centres with oil pastels. The petals were painted with red tempera paint. Once dry these were cut out and glued onto green construction paper.
Going Batty 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇
We did a directed drawing lesson on a bat in flight. The students then reproduced their bats onto their construction paper. We had a lesson on outlining, shading, and highlighting areas to show texture (the bat’s fur). Students completed their work with waxed crayons. They added in items that would be seen in the Autumn.
Our Powerful Family Memories
We have begun the school year by looking at our families and learning about the many varied types of families. We enjoyed “Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge” by Mem Fox. This is a lovely story about a very young boy whose family lives next to a senior’s home. Wilfrid Gordon knows all the people, and is friendly with them all, but his favourite is Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper because she has four names, too.
One day he hears his parents talking about how Miss Nancy has lost her memory. This sets him on a quest to learn about memories and to help Miss Nancy find hers.
After reading the book we discussed memories and what makes some of them more powerful than others. Here are their responses:
Parts of Plants We Eat
As a wrap up for our plant unit, we got into House groups and worked as a team to cut, sort, and glue pictures of plant based foods into the groups of the parts of the plant that they came from.
It was two chaotic afternoons, but these are the finished results.
More Plant Experiments …
This afternoon we did preparations on a lot of different experiments …
We did pairs of plants in pots which we will be treating differently …
One will get water, one will not …
One will get sunlight, one will not …
One has roots, one had its roots removed …
One has leaves, one had its leaves removed …
We ‘planted’ some avocado pits (seeds) …
We put seeds in three containers, one each with soil, sand, and clay … we will await the outcome. (picture to come)
These are the plants we used …
We are still awaiting our beans-in-bags to sprout. We are thinking it hasn’t been warm enough, or sunny enough, on our windows … we are still hopeful 🤞🏻🤞🏻