Nature Art at Camp Kawartha

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Mama Cormier

….environmental messages from our grade 5s

Last week I spent 3 days in the Kawarthas with 59 grade 5 students. The days were filled with great learning opportunities about the environment, survival practices from the past, games played by indigenous peoples and songs sung around the campfire. Most of the activities were outdoors and involved scavenger hunts, archery, night hikes, fire making and a game of survivor amongst herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. During free time the students could continue playing outside or pick up one of many games that were available to them in the lounge.

Every meal, students took turns setting the tables, serving the food and cleaning up, including washing the dishes using the large industrial dish washer. There was lots of food (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack) and no one needed to go hungry. The kitchen was impressed with how much salad this group ate.

After supper two of us were responsible for organizing hour long activities for the students to participate in before the evening program began. I took on the role of planning an art lesson. During the day I had students pick up things from the ground to use in a nature collage. Days before the trip I cut up about 80 pieces of cardboard to use as our background material and I brought bags of magazines and pieces of assorted papers.

I instructed the students to come up with a piece of art that gave some kind of message about protecting our environment from global warming or saving wildlife from poaching and/or loss of habitat. They were free to use any of the materials that I brought and the things that they found in the forest. The students were completely engaged and came up with some very interesting works of art. Here is a sampling of their creativity.

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A Few Days Off

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Mama Cormier

….from blogging that is

Tomorrow I’m driving 2 1/2 hours north east of the city to go camping with 60 Grade 5 students. We’ll be sleeping in cabins but we’ll probably spend most of our time outside. I’ve got my long underwear, two pairs of boots, three pairs of mittens, scarves, extra socks and woollen hats packed and ready to go.

I’ll be driving with one other teacher. I’ve got my snow tires on and I had the transmission fluid topped up yesterday. After I pack up the car in the morning I have to stop and get gas before I head out to school. Once at school I have a couple of classes to teach in the morning and then we’ll load up the buses with the kids’ luggage and get the kids settled into their assigned seats.

It should be an interesting 3 days and 2 nights. Hopefully we won’t have a lot of kids coming to our cabin in the middle of the night because of home sickness. The fact that they have to leave their cabin, in the dark and in the cold will probably deter most students from making that trek.

I’m not sure that there will be any WiFi or internet connection so I probably won’t be posting any stories until I get back on Saturday. Besides, I think that we’re all going to be very busy during the day and early evenings and will probably be too tired to do anything but sleep later on.

See you Saturday. Wish me luck!

Camp Kawartha Outdoor Education Centre

A Challenge – Doing Their Best

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….but it wasn’t quite enough

Today we drove to the east end of the city to participate in the Girls’ Soccer City Championships. The sky was overcast but for the most part the predicted heavy rain held off. It was humid and during the second game we experienced a brief light shower. Earlier in the day the two teams that we would face off later played against each other. The team that lost challenged us to play if we didn’t win our first game.

Unfortunately our first game was difficult. The team we played against was our toughest competition to date and we lost 3 to 0. It was our first lost of the season. An hour later we played the second team to determine who would come in second. We were pretty evenly matched. In the first half no one from either side scored. In the second half they scored first and then we scored. The game ended in a tie and went into overtime. Have I ever told you how much I hate overtime, especially ‘golden goal’. The first team to score would win. The girls fought hard but it wasn’t to be this year.

You’d never know from the photographs that the girls were disappointed. Their sadness was brief and they walked away knowing that they had come a long way just to get to the city championships. We, their coaches and parents, were very proud of them. Bravo girls!

29 Faces Challenge – Day 26 to 29

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….the grade 5s are trying their hands at drawing realistic faces

It took a lot of encouragement from me but I think they’re starting to get the hang of it.

Fantasy Collages

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….grade 5s created these wonderful works of art, inspired by Dali

The assignment was to paint a simple watercolour landscape with a foreground, background and horizon line and then have fun cutting out pictures from magazines and newspapers and create a fantasy piece of art. The goal was to create a piece that told a story and hopefully some writing will accompany each piece of art in the near future.

Hung Over 120 Pieces of Children’s Art This Week

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..90 of them were put up yesterday

I teach about 110 students art and I feel it’s important that every child’s work should be displayed. This week I knew it was time to take down some of the older work and replace it with newer assignments.

In grade 5, I taught the students about the colour wheel. Even though I’ve taught art as a prep coverage subject for only the last two years, when I had a grade 5 homeroom I always did my own art. So for the last 14 years, the colour wheel was always been an important aspect of my art program. This year I decided to change it up a bit and instead of giving them a prepared wheel that they added colour to, I had the students create their own wheels and I encouraged them to be somewhat creative while remaining true to the colours and placement of the colours.

Once the acrylic paint dried I had the students take it one step further and add a splash of Zentangle designs to their wheels. Zentangle is an art form using structured repetitive patterns to create beautiful images. It’s like doodling but more carefully applied. Here are a few examples of their amazing work:

The other 90 pieces that I hung yesterday were inspired by Picasso’s Peace Art. Here’s a sneak preview.

I’ll post the lesson in the next day or so. Have a great weekend!

The Pure Joy of Discovery

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…the expression on his face and the surprise in his voice made it all worthwhile

For the last week, and more I’ve been pulling prints with the grade 4s and 5s. Today all the 3s and 4s in the school were away on field trips and I had the luxury of working with the 12 grade 5 students that were left behind in one of the classes. This class has been particularly challenging just because of the shear size when combined with the grade 4s and because they are very social and chatty.

I decided to work with the chattiest of the bunch and those that were the furthest behind with their printmaking. Not surprising most of the six that I worked with were boys. I set up a printing station in the hallway and while I worked with small groups of 3 the remaining students were working on a drawing activity that required quite a bit of concentration.

This is the activity that kept the other half of the class busy while I worked with the printers.

This set up worked fairly well. The students that I worked with in the printing area were very excited about the whole printing process. My only regret is that I didn’t take pictures while they worked but I found I was very involved with the students and needed to keep a close eye on the their progress. The temptation to cover the walls, floor and each other with hand prints was too great. Luckily none of that happened.

My greatest joy came when I heard the oohs and aahs of the students as they pulled the plates away from the paper or their fabric. One boy in particular was especially surprised at how well his print turned out. It was probably the most focused he’s ever been in art class and it paid off. All the students today loved this activity so much that they gladly stayed behind to help me clean up and there is a lot of washing up when it comes to printing.

Sometimes, when an activity is messy and time consuming, teachers are reluctant to attempt it. The finished products, however, and the pride of accomplishment that the students feel make it all worthwhile.

Next week I’ll take some photographs of the finished projects and post them for your enjoyment.