Teacher:
		Barbara Mail Art

Through a series of open-ended projects children begin to develop self-confidence in their ability to express their thoughts and feelings about themselves and the world around them. Projects become increasingly more complex, more challenging, and more time-consuming as the students move up in grade level.

The first semester, one of our goals will be to produce artwork for a show featuring all of Green Woods’ students, scheduled to take place at the Millard Children’s Gallery at the Woodmere Art Museum in January 2010. As always, the art projects will be used to support the development of creative thinking and problem solving while striving to enhance the learning taking place in the academic classroom.

In the younger grades, our projects will often derive from the sharing of wonderful children’s literature. Beautiful picture books will gently guide us through learning about shape, line, color, and other elements of design. Weather permitting, we will spend time honing our observational skills by drawing leaves and trees right outside the art room.

Portraits of all types: symbolic, abstract, in the style of famous artists, just to name a few, will dot the landscape of middle school. Our goal is to become more familiar with the language and elements of art and the work of some famous artists. We will begin to develop a comfort level with color theory, various media, and more advanced techniques.

The wonderful thing about teaching art is that the acquisition of knowledge becomes visible almost immediately. The information being shared with the class gets incorporated into the students’ projects in a multitude of ways. That is what makes each work of art unique.  It always amazes me to see how far the kindergartners have come from the first day they entered the art room. Some of the students can barely write their names that first day. In order to hand back started work, I play a game akin to handwriting analysis. By the end of the year, I can truly see budding artists, as their ability to see things as they truly are and, more importantly, their ability to interpret what they see, becomes the foundation for years of learning. Ask any kindergartner what a tree at the Schuylkill Center looks like, and they will tell you it doesn’t look like 2 sticks with a cloud on top, and it usually doesn’t have a big hole in the middle. It looks like many different things but it definitely doesn’t look like that!

Kindergartners ended the year by taking paper and clipboards outside to look at and draw the beautiful and varied trees around us. This is an exercise we will do from time to time in the fall and spring so keep watching for those tree drawings and see how they change as observational skills continue to develop. It’s truly amazing! Some of the classes worked on projects related to their displays for Museum Night. For kindergarten and second grade, it took the form of ocean themed “postcards” that were for sale, as a way of raising money for the Gulf oil spill animal relief effort. First graders made tadpoles, frogs, and turtles using lots of green and brown polymer clay, and grasses made from straws wrapped in tissue paper, for their “pond” display. The first graders also spent a part of the spring making a large mural about their study of the rainforest. Second graders finished woven yarn pillows and a quick piece about their feelings. They also did some sensitive observational drawings outdoors. Third graders worked on portraits in the form of paper mosaics. These portraits will be displayed in September, when school opens, and then sent home. Third graders ended the year doing a series of observational drawings of birds’ heads from bird mounts borrowed from the Schuylkill Center’s vast collection. We studied the differences between the beaks of predators, seedeaters, and nectar and insect eaters. Students experienced working with hard and soft graphite drawing pencils for the first time. Fourth graders worked on bird pattern drawings and finished up their lovely woven pillows. They also did some interesting black and white paper collages based on an amazing book entitled “Round Trip” by Ann Jonas. The papier-mâché masks, and props (trees and a giant golden feather), that they completed while working with visiting artist, Jeanne Jaffe, were absolutely amazing. “The Quest for the Golden Feather,” performed by 4th and 7th graders on Museum Night, using the masks and the props, was funny and quite entertaining.

Fifth graders had a great time making dragon marionettes. The wide variety of materials used by the students made each one unique, and we all learned a lot about the structure, balance, and movement of marionettes. Sixth graders did a lovely series of insect and arachnid pen and ink drawings with an amazing amount of detail. Eighth graders made abstract sculptures to use as table centerpieces for their graduation. The centerpieces held flowers made from recycled plastic water bottles… finally a purpose for all that trash and boxes of wood scraps! Seventh and Eighth graders ended the year doing pastel portraits in the style of Modigliani, with characteristic elongated heads and necks, and evacuated eyes. Our first experience with pastels was messy but the results were truly beautiful.

At Green Woods the creative arts play an important role in our integrated curriculum. To learn more see Integrating Science, Language Arts and the Creative Arts.