I am featuring Annabel's work because she chose eight different Native symbols for the border of her dream catcher. She colored in between each symbols completely to finish her work neatly and with care. Annabel usually finds ways to put her own spin on projects while still meeting the goals of what we are trying to learn. I always love to see what she will come up with next!
Annabel's class made dream catchers as part of our school study of Native American art and culture. Each student had to string the center of the dream catcher and then select a minimum of four Native symbols to represent them on the border.
I am featuring Annabel's work because she chose eight different Native symbols for the border of her dream catcher. She colored in between each symbols completely to finish her work neatly and with care. Annabel usually finds ways to put her own spin on projects while still meeting the goals of what we are trying to learn. I always love to see what she will come up with next! As part of our whole-school Native American unit kindergarten looked at weaving made by the Navajo. This tribe traditionally lived in areas in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Students viewed images and discussed the shearing of a sheep (haircut!), carding wool, dying wool, and what a loom is. We looked at examples of Navajo weaving and noticed that there were always shapes with straight lines. I gave students one large diamond tracer, one small diamond tracer, and a ruler. They planned their own Navajo-inspired design. We limited our paint colors to those the Navajo might have been able to make: orange, red, brown, and yellow. The following week we outlined our designs with thin black lines. It takes an incredible amount of brush control for students this young to paint a straight thin line- and this year's group did a great job! I love all the unique designs that were created from three tools and five colors of paint. Mrs. Warner works with students through her position with Minnesota Reading Corps. She is also a member of the White Earth Ojibwe. She graciously agreed to share some of her experiences with Native culture with our students. Mrs. Warner brought in two dream catchers that were made for her children by an elder from her tribe. We discussed how the dream catchers are made from natural materials and how the tribe believes they ensure peaceful sleep for the owner. The highlight of Mrs. Warner's visits was the time available for students to ask questions. Topics ranged from whether Mrs. Warner's family lives in a teepee (kindergarten) to an overview of tribal government (4th grade). I cannot thank Mrs. Warner enough for sharing her time and information with us. I wanted to share a few of our winter figure paintings from Mrs. Arnold's class. In an earlier post I showed students working on the gesture drawings that were the under-drawing for these paintings. Each students selected one action pose to add clothing, a background, and details to. These paintings are large - 18" x 24" - so we worked on large areas first with large brushes all the way down to teeny tiny brushes for things like a single snowflake. These paintings were a fun way to practice the proportion of the human body, review painting techniques, and showcase the skills fourth grade students have built up over their years at Kennedy. Featured artists (from top to bottom): Gabby M. Jazzmine H. Matthew D. Lily D. Around this time every year I like to focus on a different region of the world or cultural group for artwork in all grades. This year we are exploring different types of Native American art. Second graders have been working on totem poles. They looked at images of actual totem poles, watched a video of carver David Boxley, and watched a small portion of a pole raising ceremony. We discussed the connection Native Americans feel to nature and animals; and how this connection helps an artist chose the animals or characters for a totem pole. Students had to complete a plan with three animals that they felt represented them. These plans then came to life with paper and paint in the following two classes. In addition to learning about Native American culture, we are using math skills when we draw and cut symmetrical shapes for our poles. I can't wait to share our finished hallway display in a couple weeks! Most kindergarteners start the year drawing all the objects in a picture on the same ground line or floating in blank space. Through a variety of projects I try to encourage them to think about how they see things in the real world- that the size of objects can change as the move further away and that objects can overlap. This project introduces the concept of landscapes having a back, middle, and foreground. Students drew mountains and a sky in the background. Huge mountains look small because they are far away. Our castle is placed in the middle ground and is medium sized. The moat and plants are in the foreground. They look larger because they are closer. We even have a student walk a little way down the hall to test if this art trick is true is real life- the student looks smaller, but they didn't really shrink! In the picture there is also overlap. A castle overlaps the back and middle ground because it is in front of it. A horse or dragon might overlap the castle. Learning all these new things about showing space in your art is a lot more fun if there is a princess, a dragon, and a daring knight involved. |
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