Edgmont 5k Poster Contest

Last week, we had our school 5K, which is amazing in and of itself--1st through 6th grade student ALL complete it--and we had a great poster contest to advertise the race as well as help get kids excited to run.  All in all, I think we had over 30 individual entries.  The theme was "I think I can..."  Students were to complete the phrase however they wanted.  They we so wonderful, I thought I would show you some of the winners:

 

This one is great because our school mascot is an eagle.

May 2-May 12

Come one, come all to the 

Edgemont Elementary 

Art Show!

On display now, until May 12th in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade hallways, as well as in the library.

More Taco Fish!

 

Leave it to my 5th graders to come up with something crazy like this!  Taco fish are the greatest thing since sliced-bread, I decided.  So easy and so fun.  I am a big fan of simple projects that make kids feel successful.  And this is definitely one of those projects.  

We gave each student a small ball of clay and had them roll it out into a 1/4" thick pancake with rolling pins.  Then, they placed a wad of newspaper in the middle and folded the sides around it like a taco.  They squished the top together to make the fin and flattened one side for the tail.  Next, we added eyes, fins and other things as well as texture. 

Kindergarten Farm Rabbits

Last week, the kindergarten students went to visit a farm, so we talked about different animals that they would see there and learned how to draw a few.  This is the first of the bunch: rabbits.  Drawn in pencil and then chalk pastel.  I love how much character each one has! 

Apollonian Gaskets

 

This was a project that my substitute started with my students right before I got back.  It was so much fun.  She introduced the lesson by showing them the video on this link, (TOTALLY worth watching!!) and then set them loose.   When I got back, we fine tuned the  drawings and then learned how to shade spheres to add a little more interest to their drawings.  They we so great at shading the spheres.  I never remember being able to do it this well when I was that old.  Way to go kids!

 

 This is the example I showed them to make sure they understood that each sphere needed to be shaded using the same light source.

6th Grade 1-point Perspective Names

 

As the 6th graders learned about the Renaissance, I felt it was important for them to learn that it is thanks to the Renaissance that artists have perspective as we now know it.  We looked at drawings of buildings pre and post Renaissance and compared them to photographs.  It was easy to see the vanishing point in the photographs and clear that the post-Renaissance artwork had figured it out.  So, because puberty-age children are totally into themselves we drew our names!  What could be better?

Recycled Book Landscapes

 

This is one of my favorite project that we have done so far this year.  Once again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it came from my 2nd graders.  We talked a lot about communities this year and they just loved learning about landscapes.  So, we needed to get creative to make something nice.  Remember the city-scapes?  We took that idea one step further and painted pages from books first.  it was sort of a fun discussion to talk to the students about recycling, tearing up old books and drawing on the pages and when it is ok. and when it isn't. 

So, first we textured the paper with crayon rubbings, then painted watercolor  washes and let the paper dry.  Then we used that paper to make our landscapes.  Last, they outlined the shapes with sharpie.  I think the thing that helped make them so successful was talking about background, middle-ground and foreground.  Then we told the students to  start with the background and work down the page.  The never cease to amaze me with what they come up with.