Welcome Back to school for school year 2016-17!

Summer is not quite over, but we are all coming back to school.

Before I launch in what is in store for this year, I am going to post a lovely picture from a trip I took this summer. This is just a little pause, before we all get very busy learning.

 

     A cairn - a genuine collaborative sculptural installation in nature!

The school year is rapidly coming to an end.

Well - I think we have had another very good year. I have worked at incorporating more time for students to practice talking about their work and reflecting about the process. We are not perfect, but have made some progress in making this last step more of a habit.

As usual - I am very happy and proud of the students' work ethic, understanding and resulting projects.
We have gotten through the season of Art Shows, with much enjoyment and kudos for the Artists!

Here are some pictures from the last month.
Thank you for your support this school year.

Art is Elementary Show at City Hall, 24x PPS K-5 schools participated

Capitol Hill Art Show = Sucess!

Yay for the adults who worked hours and some hours and hours to make the CH Art Show a reality. Emily and Emily are the real heroes of this event, plus Erin and many others who devoted energy and time to setting up the show. Thank you.

Congratulations to the Students!!!!- who are the STARS of the show. Your beautiful work is honored!

Here are few pictures of the display.

Capitol Hill Art Show !

 

 The Many Colors of Capitol Hill

Student Art Show 
 CAPITOL HILL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Thursday, April 7th 6 -7:30 pm

Live student musical performances ~ snacks served 

 

Show season - for ART

Hi -please SAVE the DATE/s!!!!

We are entering the "Show Season" for art made at Capitol Hill School.
The largest show will be of our students' work - here at the school - ~1,000 pieces!

April 7, 5:00-7:30 Capitol Hill annual Art Show
Every student will have 2 pieces of art work on display, as our school is transformed into a huge Art Gallery. We will also have musical performances and refreshments. * (help needed to mount and hang this show, many hands make light work - please contact me)

This is a wonderful celebration of our students' creative efforts, so please come and admire your child's and their friends' work.

 and if that is not enough....
The Heart of Portland - a K-12 PPS district-wide show will be at the Portland Art Museum this year. Each school is invited to select 1 piece of art to display at that venue. 
The Opening Reception for that will be Monday April 4th.

and there is still more!

Art is Elementary - a K-5 art show of student work created in Arts Tax funded classrooms within PPS, will be held at City Hall - April 19- May 5th, 
Reception May 5th 3:30-5:00 
In this show, 5-7 pieces of student work will be displayed.


For these other shows, I will contact families via email to notify them of the opportunity offered to their child.

My problem and I am being honest here - is that I have way more stellar student work than I have off-site opportunity to show. The kids have done a wonderful job learning and persisting in the development of their work and it is truly the best I have ever seen!!!!!!

4th grade Kandinsky Improvisation

Report cards

Kindergarten - cut paper project, challenge of using only cut paper and NO drawing

Report card time has me paying special attention to the report card criteria:

• Overall effort (does the student accept the challenge and use the whole class time to work on their solution?
• Refines and completes works of art
• Creates through appropriate use of tools, techniques and studio space
• Responds and finds meaning when viewing works of art (students were only graded on this if they were individually asked to write or speak about an artist - and results were recorded).

I think these 3 are simple and cover the main components for being successful in a studio art class. The focus and work ethic is also something the classroom teachers depend upon and supports student success.

My impression is that more than 90% of my students are Meeting, or Exceeding the standards. Capitol Hill students are very open and willing learners.

I have a handful of students who work at the lowest level by choice. They want it done and over with.
That disappoints me as they are limiting their own potential to learn and grow. I gave one class a "lecture" on that last week- and as a teacher I know how effective that is! ha ha- probably not
But it helped me clarify my thoughts on how to communicate about this problem:

I told the students my story- I was always good at art, and was an art major in college, but also loved science-biology (still do, geology as well). People asked me if I was going to pursue art and for awhile my response was No - its too easy for me. Too easy had become uninteresting for me and I hoped for a engrossing career.
At some point I had a good teacher who engaged me and taught me the more complex side of art, some complicated processes, or to look for the less obvious solution. I was finally challenged and went on to more training and a life of learning and loving art.
Challenges make the topic interesting.
Two students raised their hands to share - Both talking about taking piano lessons, and how it was easy in the beginning but had gotten more "fun" as the pieces became complex like a puzzle to break down and solve.
Aren't they great!?

Around the Holidays students' minds are full of everything but school. They are excited and distracted, so that is why it is important as a teacher to not fight it, but to just go with it.

Almost every year I find an inspiration for some easy but worthwhile art project to go with the holiday or fill the gap. This year it was "Snow Bear." I used it with the Kindergarten and a few of the 1st grade groups. I really like it because it is simple but there are some big art concepts connected with the project.

I saw this really cute drawing of a polar bear on Pinterest - but wanted a story to introduce it- give it some context. I googled all my libraries with no luck, but found the book I wanted at Powells for $1.95! Pretty good. I went there on the way home and was all set.

So "Snow Bear" is a simple story of a polar bear cub exploring his/her arctic neighborhood, kind of like "The Pokey Puppy," getting lost in the process.
The illustrations are simple yet perfect examples of the use of cool colors.
I read the story, and then students were introduced to the color wheel- warm verses cool colors. They were also shown how colors are warm and cool "relative/compared" to each other, just like "tall" is relative to what you are comparing it to. This is yet another concept in art class where I tell the students "what I am telling you is true most of the time, but completely wrong at other times. Art contradicts itself often."
The color wheel is a great invention, as it is very readable and helpful on simple to complex levels.

Then the students were taught the simple way to draw the snow bear and asked to use cool colors in the background, and invent a hat for their head using "warm colors."
This project also contains a lesson on positive and negative space - but warm/cool was plenty to talk about with the Kindergarteners - I saved the positive/negative addition for the 1st graders :)

FYI