More shadow puppets...

Hi my name is Taria. Today we did shadow puppets.Miss Bridget helped out by starting it for us.we got to do anything we wanted to do. I did a witch woman/cat woman/ vampire woman/ angel of darkness woman.  Everybody else did something different, but creative.We also had to edit it by adding more stuff to it. We also had to cut it out and then tie pipe cleaners to it.  And then we can move it with sticks.  At the end we took a picturewith our puppets.Thats all bye.

Here's a link to the video we watched before getting started!

Shadow puppets

PRVIET! That’s HELLO in Russian. My name is Mason Houston and I’m 7 and a half and I go to the Oliver Holmes School.  My favorite part about art is that we do fun things like make puppets! Today we made shadow puppets . You  can use any material to make them! The puppets usually have joints and then you put them on sticks to make them move. You put them behind a giant piece of paper and shine a light on them to cast a shadow.

Today when I came into art I was working on a fortune teller. This is my own project that I’m working on. I’m using construction paper and markers to make it.

Dossvedanya! (BYE in Russian)


We started this project with me showing my photo album from my visit to China several years ago. I went to rural China to meet a female shadow puppet maker, and while showing pictures of her and letting the kids play with actual leather puppets she made, I told the story of how she had to learn the artform by herself in secret because when she was young puppet carving was only for boys. You can see a dragon puppet from China at the bottom of the photo above. Some of the kids were familiar with this dying artform because it was shown in the new Karate Kid movie!

mandala

My name is Ema and I just did a project that is called a "mandala". What you need to get is paper and paint. Then you cut the paper into an octagon. Then you put the paint on to the paper. Then you fold the paper eight times. Then you see what will happen. It will turn into a design. It's very simple to do. warning children under 3 can not use the paint.

Unseasonably hot, sunny days always make for difficult school days... by afterschool hours some of the kids are really exhausted and antsy. Add MCAS testing all week... yikes! Poor kids!  I had to throw in some shiny, messy, easy projects everyone could enjoy even if they walked in the door cranky or stressed out. We even had the lights out. I found this project here on YouTube, and showed the kids this video of Tibetan monks creating a sand mandala. It's never been so quiet in the art room! They really seemed captivated by that amazing process. I felt good about showing them how YouTube can be used for instructions, inspiration, and learning stuff - not just goats in trees and music videos.

P.S. I don't know where these age recommendations are coming from, but I love it.

Copper Foil at Holmes and Lee

Hey,my name is Giovana and today we used copper foil and we used felt. We made a design on the foil and it popped through the other side. I made a swirly design. I thought it was creative. The class made createful designs. After the design,we put paint on top of the design and we let it dry. Then we scraped it with a hard sponge. That's all for today.

The artists at Lee decided to wear their artwork!

Art is fun.

We learned on our practice piece that writing will come out backwards!

Hello my name is Takayla my favorite thing about art is that you show your creative ideas today we engraved on copper foil. We made design patterns with pencils by pressing into the foil.Try this at home its really fun.

"engraving"

     BY:NANCY PEREZ            3-15-12

The foil. It's sharp! We folded or taped the edges.

 Today in art  the 5th and 4th graders were engraving copper foil .It was really cool.What I had made was this person looking rite at the sky.At first I thought oh my god how am I going to do this?But by my side was ms.Bridget.And she really did help me a lot.She also taught us how to make the foil look really old.Like a old penny on the streets.We made it old by putting acrylic paint.To make the copper foil work you need to use a pencil or any sharp thing you want.Just make sure you don't press to hard or it mite go threw and will not work. Caution please be careful with the sharp ends kids under 6 can not use the copper foil.Anyways to days was really fun!I really like Art and i hope i could be just like Ms.Bridget.Thank you for reading my blog Nancy Perez out peace.

We put felt underneath, so we were able to push into the foil with pencils.

Pushing our design into the back of the foil, since we can't really carve into metal right now!

Painting over our artwork. We scrubbed most of it off once it was dry.

The Big Night!

It wasn't easy to find oneself in the crowd! 

"I found mine! That's my picture!!"

A portrait: Devon from Lee and Briana from Holmes. Nice poses, interesting composition, and different gazes!

The pieces of Dorchester finally came together!

We didn't get too many buddy matches - but portraits with old friends is fun, too!

A soccer game kept a few highly-anticipated meetings between buddies from happening tonight, but Quordell and Devon finally met, after wandering the crowd calling each other's names! DFSI did a great job throwing a great event, the fleet of volunteers did tons of work for us (with friendly smiles), and so many families came out to enjoy it. I even got to see some of the Lee girls step, the Academy kids did a killer Zumba number, and the youngest Holmes group sang! Here's a tiny clip. 

(Sorry so short! Don't blink!) 

Thanks to all the parents and grandparents who came by to marvel at the creations. We hope you keep up with the blog! See you soon!

Labor of Love - Putting it all together afterhours.

Last night a friend of mine helped me arrange and glue all of the kids' drawings onto a background. The background was abstract crayon resist painting done by the Lee Academy class - it was so beautiful it was hard to cover it up... but as you can see, we had a lot of great drawings to fit on! Looking forward to hanging this and setting up the kids' mini-neighbrohoods side by side. Let's hope for a nice turnout!

Last preparation for the event....

Today  we colored our self protrait. Our commmunity is finished.  We have trees and bulidings we have a giant school higher than all the places. We have cars and side walks and a bridge. We have a corner store.
I finished coloring somebody else's self portrait for them.
___________________________
Hi we did my portrait and some others did one more and it was noisey in here so we are going downstairs now and i like miss Bridget.

Cutting Like It's Our Job, at Holmes.

Up the sleeve and down the hair?! Some serious scissor skills.

Today's cutting posse - today's group cut out over 15 drawings!

Hi my name is Briana

Today we used markers, scissors, pencils, tape, and paper.

Ms.Bridget is a nice art teacher I will like to be a art teacher when I grow up .

Ms.Bridget likes to use paint, markers, scissors, Drawing, and writing. I will like to do that stuff too.
Especially scissors. She taught us tips.

The first step was chop chop chop.

The second step was keep your elbow in.

And the Third step was was go in for the trim, keep the stuff on the left.

We are in the final hours of getting ready for family night on Wednesday. The last task is to get every (enlarged) self-portrait cut out and pasted onto a background painted by Lee Academy kids. Oh yeah - and find the background painted by the Lee Academy kids. Hope we get some families and neighborhood visitors at our event! 

finishing touches on the Holmes School hood.

A city built in two weeks!

Here's an update on the Holmes School's half of the mini-neighborhood.

Art Buddies! A Lesson on "Snail Mail"

My dining room floor last weekend...

After several weeks of working on coordinating an exchange of letters and drawings between students at the Lee, Academy, and Holmes Schools, I've realized many kids are unfamiliar with the concept of writing a letter, "giving it away", and getting one back days or a week later. My clumsy "system" of exchange hasn't helped any, but this week saw some of the first real exchanges. I hope the delay caused by my insisting on matching kids up that I could actually imagine being friends pays off. Of course, the youngest kids, non-judgemental and so eager to make new friends, are ecstatic. I wish I had the camera running when I handed out mail to Holmes first graders today, from their buddies at Lee Academy. Here are some highlights:

If these letters are pending contracts, we will have lots of BFF's come out of this project.
Older students exchanged their photographic portraits, and the younger students each got a bracelet with their buddy's name written on it in addition to trading drawings. At the family night next week, they hope to find and meet their buddies. I'm hoping to have a mini "portrait studio" set up so pairs can choose to create a portrait together.

Meanwhile, 6 blocks away...

Artists at the Lee School began work on their own part of the neighborhood, on an identical base. We used a printed map from the web to split the area between the schools - students from all grades contribute. Some build houses out of cards, some used templates I made for triple-deckers, some were into creating the streets and land others would build on - and some have been adding details like road signs and street lights!

After another session of working on the miniature neighborhood, both schools will get to join their half with the other, at the family event next week!