February 21-25

Kindergarten- The kindergarten children have been constructing their quilt blocks like the ladies of Gees Bend, AL.  This week we will put some of those blocks together to create a large paper quilt bulletin board!  this lesson is about lines, patterns, and creativity.

First Grade-The children have finished painting the faces on their stick puppets.  This week they will finish their puppets by adding ears, tails, and clothing.  (All those items that are added on to complete their puppet.)  Each class will write a play that includes all the puppets that were created.  These plays have a crazy mixture of puppets but they make sense!  I am always surprised by the children's ideas!

Second Grade-Second grade has been learning about masks from around the world.  We are specifically talking about the Bembe' masks of Africa.  We have drawn an image of our mask that we want to make and we have practiced some clay techniques using Play Dough.  This week is the week we will model our mask out of red, ceramic, clay.  It is almost more excitement than we can handle!  While we are waiting for our masks to dry, the children will watch a video about the kiln and what happens between the time they hand me their wet, cold, masks until I return their mask to them a light orange and nice and hard.  I hope this helps them to understand so much of the process they do not get to see.

Third Grade is weaving, weaving, weaving.  Their goal each day is to weave as much as possible!  Some children are nearly half finished!  Their finished pouch will be large enough to hold the new DSI-XL.  Not to mention many other treasures!  Very cool!!!

Fourth Grade has completed their self-portraits and they turned out wonderful!  I am so proud of their work!  They will be displayed soon!  We are currently working on a brief lesson involving the art of building a beautiful building, architecture!  They saw a short film about Frank Lloyd Wright and leanred about his famous "Falling Waters".  They were introduced to I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, and Antoni Goudi.  Their assignment is to draw an image of our school which is built in Frank Lloyd Wright's craftsman style.  Mrs. Sofiya Inger, our guest artist, will use their renderings to create an image of Maple Glen in her completed piece of art.  This is so exciting and the children's drawings have been amazing!