Welcome Back!

Phew, it's been a while!  The holidays are a crazy busy and FUN time.  I hope all you Rockland Woods families out there had a safe and fun winter break.  Now for an art update!

 First off, we have the work of a few very skilled fourth graders who just completed a lesson in creating depth within a landscape.  We talked about perspective and all the elements of a landscape: horizon line, background, foreground and middle ground and how to create the illusion of depth by varying the sizes of those elements.  (We also tried to go in rainbow order from top to bottom!)

Before winter break, 2nd grade learned a little bit about Native American culture and cranked out these awesome dreamcatchers.  They learned about what Native Americans ate, how they got their food, what types of houses they lived in and the legend of the dreamcatcher.

Fifth Grade has also been learning about Native Americans, and have been given the challenge to create totem poles out of recycled materials.  The students are working hard to cooperate within their 

groups, manage and delegate responsibilities, creatively repurpose materials and problem solve if things don't quite turn out right the first or second time.  This has been an excellent exercise for in a myriad of areas and I can't wait to see the finished result.  This is a sneak peak of two of the cutest recycled critters so far.

Embracing the winter weather, I had to include some snow-related projects - it's on everybody's mind anyway!  Second Grade learned about using shape and shading to create perspective in this arial view of a snowman (or woman!).

And first grade made snow families.

Before winter break, 3rd grade learned about contrasting colors and made woven textiles inspired by colorful Mexican blankets. We even attached them to a loop of yarn so the students had a wearable piece of art by the end of the project.

I leave you with a drawing out of one of our talented 5th grader's sketchbooks.  If this is what my students are doing in their spare time, I'm a happy camper!  So awesome when a student shares something like this with me.

Stay tuned - I'll share the totem poles as soon as they are done being constructed.  Otherwise - brace yourselves - February is supposed to bring us another heap of snow.  Stay warm and make some soup!