Ready Set - December

Ready Set, December is here.  Last week I was crazy busy trying to tie up all the loose ends in the classroom to prepare for the starting of such a fun month for the students.  It seemed like all we did was visual art projects that tied into other areas of the curriculum but I am sure that the students were unaware of all the learning they were doing. I am not sure if you are like me, but I have been marking and collecting the students work since September and it is now a bigger pile than the laundry I have each weekend. lol
At the beginning of the week I decided it was time to have the students make a portfolio to keep all their work in.  I like to have opportunities to assess as much as I can so I decided as a cumulative activity to finish up our unit on Geometry, that the students would decorate portfolios with portrait art.  I found this incredible step by step art activity that has the students create a Picasso masterpiece.  It was amazing and the students worked on describing figures, shapes, identifying congruent figures and mirror images. Here is some of their work.  Yes, it is grade three, I know it is hard to believe with how extraordinary they are turning out. I will post finished products this week.
http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/artist%20Picasso

 



So if you have been following our blog, Kaitlin and I talked about how much we like to go in to our school on the weekend to get ready for the week to come.  It is quiet and you aren't waiting in line by the photocopier to get things done, and everything is at your finger tips without hauling it all home for the weekend.

Our school is doing a Christmas door contest, where each class has to decorate their door with pictures/ graphics, of the student's work.  The success criteria for the contest was as follows:

1. The slogan or title should be interesting and catchy.

2. The graphics reflect the learners in the classroom.

3.The door decorations are suited to the intended audience.

4. The message invokes an emotional response in the reader.

5. All elments are well organized and eye appealing.

So I decided because we are focusing on Snowmen this winter season, (check out our snowman writing activity in the previous blog) that I would incorporate snowman into our door.  We decided to do the snowman that are looking up as the graphic visual art activity.  I fell in love with it on pinterest and thought it would be fun and easy to do. http://apexelementaryart.blogspot.ca/2011/12/from-apex-memo.html I liked that it made me wonder, what are they looking up at.  So we brainstormed together as a class things the snowmen could possibly see.  I then showed them the youtube "Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?"  So as a class we decided we would model our answers after the book by Bill Martin.  I then thought it would be cool if students walking by would have to predict and or inference what the snowmen were looking at.  So we made lift flaps of the answers each student came up with.  Here is how it looked at the end of the day today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lift flaps are on the bulletin board just outside the classroom door.  So as students walk by they can lift and read the ideas our class had.  I showed the variation we used for one of the special needs student in my class. We had her choose from some real life pictures of what the snowmen could be looking up at.  She is a visual learner and likes non fiction pictures over fiction.

 

On the inside of my classroom this weekend, I decided to go with a chimney for Christmas.  I am a huge fan of the Grinch.  So decided to have the Grinch standing next to my chimney.  I am going to have the students write - true meanings of Christmas on hearts and we are going to pin them on the Grinch till it makes his small heart grow ten sizes. I am planning to hang stockings from the mantle, one for each student and will fill them with a gift on the last day. 

 

 

 

 Does anyone have a real cute idea for a stocking craft that I can do with my class? 

 

HOPE EVERYONE HAD A GREAT FIRST WEEKEND IN DECEMBER!

 

Christine