Thomas Bland Sculpture of our Guiding Principles

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Best Start to School Ever!

Hello Maple Glen Parents,
Is it really October?  Whew!  This year is already moving so fast.  I hope your family has adjusted well to the new school year.  I have made many adjustments having six kindergarten classes!  We also had over seventy new students transfer in to our school so there are many new faces.  I will be sharing the children's lessons with you on this blog.  Please feel free to contact me if you ever have any questions or concerns.

Most sincerely,
Ms. Siminski

Kindergarten-The children have been learning about the many kinds of lines that artists use.  They learned about the artist Jonathan Lasker who uses only lines in his artwork!  Next, they drew a cityscape after reading Harold and the Purple Crayon by:  Crocket Johnson.  Harold used many different kinds of lines to draw his city.  This week we are watching a movie about the many different jobs an artist can have.

First Grade began their year tracing all kinds of maple leaves.  We colored the lines of our leaves with a thick stroke of color.  We reviewed our painting procedures as we added color to our leaves.  You can see many of our paintings displayed as you enter our building and outside of the art room. We learned that our school is called Maple Glen becuase there are so many maple trees around our school! 

Second grade began their school year reviewing lines and shapes as the foundation for drawing.  George Rodigue's "Blue Dog" was our subject matter.  Oh how we all love Blue Dog!  The children 's artwork is on display outside the art room. 

Third grade began their school year learning about book-making as an art form.  I shared several examples of different kinds of books with them and then they created a pocket, accordian book to hold  their individual pages.  Their pages are hang tags.   They will write about their third grade art experience throughout the year and bring their books home with them on the last day of school! 
     We've already starte our second lesson.  We are studying Jonathan Callicutt.  He is an American, comtemporary, artist living in Georgia.  His work is very patriotic and mixed media.  We studied the September 11th attack during its eleventh anniversary.  This day is history to our children. You and I remember the day all too clearly. 

Fourth grade began their year learning about the French artist Claude Monet`.  We have studied his water lily paintings.  I remember my absolute shock when I saw my first Monet` water lily painting.  It took up on entire wall in the museum.  I was amazed!  Our water lily drawings have been rendered in crayon.  I purchased some Mixed-up-Color crayons a few years ago.  They allow us to really give our artwork an Impressionistic look.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Alexander Calder's Mobiles grd. 1


Oh, what a busy year it's been!

Hello Maple Glen Families
One of my goals this year was to keep my blog updated and I did well until mid-winter!  This year is the first time I participated in Indiana's Youth Art Month.  Bev Staub, art teacher at WWES, was the coordinator for YAM this year so my services were called to the forefront!  It was a wonderful experience for the five students I entered in the event and I'll participate again.  It was also very time consuming but a good time was had by all!  Pictured are the five students honored to have work displayed at the Indiana State House.

First Grade:  Aubrey Hume-Her study of Wassily Kandinsky-lines, shapes, and color.
                    Hanna Dykema-Her study of Indiana artist Johnny Gruelle and beginning weaving
Second Grade:  Allie Wickham-Her study of George Rodrigue's "Blue Dog".  Allie won second place   over all in the elementary division!  Congratulations again to Allie!!!
Third Grade:  T.J. Smith-His study of Wayne Thiebaud
Fourth Grade:  Reagan Motsinger and her study of Batik and the techniques used to apply wax to fabric.

I am soooo proud of all of you!





Ms. Siminski

First Grade Texture Lesson



First Grade Texture Lesson

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Texture in Art, Our texture owls turned out so cute!

First Grade just completed a new lesson about texture.  We had our texture hunt a several days ago and now here is our artwork.  I'd like to thank my art comrade, Katie Collier, for sharing this lesson with me.  I absolutely love it and the kids did too!  Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Professional Development

January 3, 2012
I really enjoy professional development days, I really do.  I learn so much about things I'm interested in and often times things I'm not particularly interested in but benefit from knowing, for example:  how student fees are allocated, logging onto the district's web site to pay for your lunches, etc.  My favorite professional development days are spent with the other elementary art teachers in the district.  Today was one of those days!  My mouth actually salivates when I see some of the work of the other teachers in my district.  I love seeing the different lessons they teach and how they display their student's artwork.  Katie Collier's son actually made chandeliers from pizza rounds and paper towel and toilet tissue rolls.  She has them hanging in the hallway outside of her room.  They are great!  Katie's displays have a real whimsical touch to them.  I can't stop smiling when I see her bulletin boards.  I love the art language Bev Staub uses when she explains things to her students and to us, her art peers.  It is clear how deeply she understands the concepts she wants her students to understand.  I learn so much when I am with my art comrads.  My heart actually sings!