Winding Down but Still So Very Busy

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..even though there are only 5 days left with students there is no slowing down

Yesterday we had our big annual outdoor extravaganza. Every class sang, danced and/or played musical instruments on an outdoor stage that the parent council rented for the day. We had a dress rehearsal in the afternoon and every class sat on the hill and watched the performances as they waited for their turn to go on stage.

In the evening the students stayed in classrooms and waited to be called to go on stage. It was very well organized and all 14 classes and two choirs completed their presentations in one hour and fifteen minutes. The weather this year cooperated. We couldn’t have asked for a better evening. The parents loved it and the students wished that it had gone on longer.

Today we started rehearsals for next week’s farewell assembly for the grade 5s. After school my friend L and I ran around to get the food organized for tomorrow’s tea with the students who bid on “High Tea with Mrs. C and Ms. C” at the silent auction a few weeks ago. I offered Tea with Mrs. C last year and it was so successful that my friend L wanted to go in on it with me. We decided to make it extra special and have the tea at L’s house where her very British mom could help us with the table setting. I just had these two photos sent to me. The table is ready for tea.

On the weekend we’re celebrating Father’s Day at our house. The ‘kids’ (my children, not the students) are coming over on Saturday for a BBQ. My husband is anxious to try out his new charcoal and propane combination grill. We’re also invited to a retirement party on the same day but it is just across the road so hopefully we can find time to drop in for a bit. On Sunday I’m hoping we can find time to visit my Dad in Oshawa.

Next week there will be more rehearsals for the farewell, the assembly itself that I’m emceeing, the grade 5 fun day and the school’s play day. On Wednesday evening we’re having our staff party (yeah!) and then on the last day of school there’s one more assembly. Somewhere in between all that we have to clean our rooms, order supplies for next year and store our computers and electronics in a safe place for the summer.

Fun at the Fun Fair and My Seven Minutes of Fame

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Mama Cormier

….every year the parent council at our school hosts a Fun Fair for the children and the community

The big difference this year was that I was asked to help promote the sale of wristbands by agreeing to be dunked in the dunk tank if sales reached a certain level before the actual Fun Fair. Well, apparently a record number of wristbands were sold so I was destined to ‘go down’.

This year a photographer from the local community paper showed up and wanted to photograph me and some of the other fun activities that were taking place that day. I wasn’t too concerned about appearing in the paper because from past experiences I know that many photos are never used and sometimes no photos are used to cover a story.

The Fun Fair took place on Saturday, May 30th and I was literally in the dunk tank for only seven minutes. When all was said and done I actually enjoyed the experience and didn’t think twice about the photographer who took photos of me. The ones on this page were taken by one of the parents on my iPhone.

On Thursday, as I was leaving the school, MP ran over to me to tell me that she just got a call telling her that my photo had appeared in the paper. I heard from two more people later that evening that they saw my picture. Unfortunately I don’t get that paper in my neighbourhood so I’m hoping the someone will send it to me.

As for the rest of the Fun Fair, everyone seemed to have a great time. The weather cooperated for most of the day. Towards the end the heavens did open but the fair was coming to a close anyway and people moved to the indoors where more activities were taking place. It looks like the fair was a huge success and even though it’s not meant to raise a lot of money, a lot of money was raised.

Mother’s Day Cards – Kindergarten Style

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Mama Cormier

….there were plenty of gifts made for moms in the kindergarten classes last week

I wanted to come up with a nice piece of art to put on a card that the children would be excited to give to their moms. I decided to to teach the children how to draw simple hearts and flower line drawings using paint. When the paint dried they could add more interesting detail using black (or coloured) markers.

When the children were happy with their creation they could use the entire piece and glue it down onto a sheet of card stock or they could have their favourite section trimmed to fit onto a card. Some of them took it a step further and actually cut up their shapes and then glued them down individually.

We wrote a message on the board for the children to copy in their own hand to add to their cards to create their original Mother’s Day Card. What do you think? Of course I’m biased but I think they’re fabulous.

fins

Owls, Owls and More Owls – Part 2

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..after printing several owls each child had to choose one for the library wall and another for their chalk pastel tree

From the beginning of this assignment I told the children that they had to have at least two good owls; one for the Forest of Reading wall in front of the library and another one to glue to another piece of art.

I wanted each student to experience using chalk pastels. After a quick lesson on how to blend the colours and how to draw a somewhat realistic branch I gave the children a choice of black or dark blue construction paper. The concept of creating a realistic looking branch was a little foreign to some students and I had to encourage them to look out the window and study the trees outside.

A few students decided to have a family of owls sitting in their tree. One student accidentally glued his owl upside down on the branch and decided to call him an owl bat. I love the variety of owls that were created, from very realistic to very whimsical. Enjoy!

Kindergarteners Rock When Painting to Music

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Mama Cormier

….painting to music is energizing and allows you to be loose and free with your lines and application of paint

Last week’s assignment for the http://www.carlasonheim.com/yearofthespark/ was presented by Lynn Whipple. We were instructed to draw and paint a floral arrangement using a variety of pens, pencils, markers and watercolour paints while listening to music. Here is my finished piece after listening to Astor Piazzola’s El Tango.

I decided to try and re-created this assignment for my kindergarten class. I chose five varied pieces of music and did up a quick sample before heading to the kindergarten class. I had a stuffed rabbit in the library so I did a quick drawing to music and left some of the painting to do later with the children. Here is my finished sample:

In class I reminded the children how colour can affect our moods and that music does the same. I demonstrated how music can affect how you draw and make marks on paper. I told them that they could draw anything that they wanted (there were flowers in the centre of each table) or they could simply make marks and shapes to the music they heard. They were given pencils, coloured pencils, crayons, chalk pastels and markers.

They each chose one tool and when the music started they began drawing. After one minute I changed the music and told them to change their tool. We did this for five different pieces of music. When they were happy with their drawing we added watercolour to the mix. Some of the children saw shapes and animals in their pictures and added colour accordingly. I put on a quieter piece of music for this last part. It was fascinating to watch them. Some children clearly picked up on the concept and moved their brushes to the beat of the music and some actually stopped when there was a pause in the music and continued when the music started again.

There was so much joy in the room. Not one student wanted to stop early and many of them wanted to experiment with the dripping paint. I love these pieces so much that I am going to frame them and put them up in the main foyer of the school. Here is a sizeable sample of work done by four and five year olds.

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I sincerely hope that some of the parents will mat and frame these pieces of art. If any piece of art work is worthy of saving this is it.

Architects Do Design Cities and Curvy Buildings

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..the book, Young Frank, Architect, inspired our art lesson in Kindergarten

Two weeks ago I reminded my kindergarten class of the book we read in the library. The book was Young Frank, Architect by Frank Viva and published by MOMA.

The story is about a young boy named Frank and his grandfather, also named Frank. Both Franks are architects. Young Frank builds chairs, curvy buildings and models of entire cities. His grandfather tells him that architects don’t design chairs, buildings should be straight and architects design one building at a time and cities take a hundred years to develop. Young Frank is discouraged and he doesn’t want to be an architect any longer. Old Frank decides to take Young Frank to the museum, the MOMA, so that he can show his grandson the buildings that architects design. In the end it is Old Frank who learns that he was mistaken and he apologizes to Young Frank. The book ends with briefs bios about Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry.

The art lesson introduced the kindergarteners to collage and city landscapes. They were reminded about foreground and background and were taught how to create a night sky with stars and a moon. Students were encouraged to cut out at least three high rise buildings and make windows and doors in different shapes. It was up to them whether they wanted to create straight or curvy ‘Frank’ buildings. The shapes of some of the buildings are delightful. It’s amazing how much their scissor skills have improved since last September. Enjoy!

Put a Beak on it!

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..another great art idea from Carla Sonheim that I introduced to my kindergarten art class

You may recall a post where I shared some art that I did with scraps of paper. By simply adding a beak, eyes and feet you can make fun bird shapes. I turned them into cards and small framed gifts that I gave to friends and family.

A couple of weeks ago I introduced this concept to my kindergarten art class. They made a very simple tree shape with 5 to 6 branches and then on each branch they glued a scrap piece of paper and then drew on the details to create their birds. Here are some of their creations.

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Happy Penguins

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Mama Cormier

….tell kindergarteners that they can dress up their penguins and they instantly become ‘happy’ penguins

We started our project by painting our background with ribbons of watercolour. The only restriction was ‘no’ black or brown paint. While the paint was drying they drew and then cut out their penguin bodies, eyes, beaks and feet. This pretty much took up the entire first class.

In the second class I showed the class how to draw an ice flow so that it had some dimension and then I instructed the students on how to put everything together. When the penguin was glued into place with all parts intact the students then had the option of making hats, scarves and sweater from some scrapbook paper that I had.

The inspiration for this assignment came from Deep Space Sparkle.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Mama Cormier

…..my love of art oozes from my pores

I guess my love of art and colour is as obvious as the nose on my face. Not only do I teach art, I also talk about it, a lot, in library classes. Today I read a wonderful new picture book by Ashley Spires called The Most Magnificent Thing.

Image courtesy of: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Am9jGlb1L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

As with most good stories, this one had a moral or lesson attached. The children picked up on it pretty quickly. They came up with: …..never give up, take your time, don’t get angry, walk away and come back to it later, etc..

I talked to them about some of my art that I wasn’t happy with and how ‘walking away from it and revisiting it later’ and looking at it with new eyes really helped me come up with a new painting that I really liked.

At the end of the class one of my grade 4 students who rarely speaks to me walked over to me and very proudly stated that ‘the Earth without art would be Eh!’ He told me that he just made that up. Clever! I see a t-shirt in his future. Don’t you?