"Kindergardeners"

The garden has had many workers this week. And maybe the most enthusiastic are the shortest ones, who helped on Friday! They are excited by wearing work gloves and using garden tools. I love teaching a student how to use a shovel, a hoe, or a broom! If you're looking for a meaningful gift for a child, take note!







And the tulips are in bloom! Tori was one of the fifth graders who came out to help spread out the mulch on Tuesday. Check out the newly planted Starburst Magnolia among the red tulips.

Campbell's Labels Pay Off

Logan is one of the many students using the new sewing machine in the art room. Mr. Wilson's sixth graders have been great volunteers to bundle Campbell's labels to send in to the company. So it makes sense that they be the first to try out the new Brother machine.

We have an old machine in the art room that we inherited from the Home Ec. department. But the old one is kind of finicky and has hard to remember, complex threading. We had "banked" about 13,000 Campbell's labels. I knew that there was something that we would need some time when we had a large number of labels banked. One day when I had rethreaded the old machine about 15 times in an hour, it dawned on me that we could get a sewing machine with the labels. I ordered it online and two days later it was on the sewing table in the art room.
Thanks, Past and Present Sixth Graders!

Stained Glass in School

Middle School students made these stained glass designs and placed them in the lobby windows.

Mustang Gardens Sprouting

The first flowers of spring are blooming in the Mustang Gardens. Delicate blue scillia are blooming right in front of our copper sign. We've put up some temporary fencing to keep little feet from trampling the new tulips that are coming up. There should be many blooms appearing next week!
It looks like many of the perennials that we planted last year have made it. We can still use some more. If anyone has pampas or other decorative grasses, we have a place to plant them.
We have a recent donation by Logan McConnell's grandmother, Cindy, who works at Gemini. The Gemini organization donates $250 to a charity of the employee's choice. We will soon be receiving a red bud tree to plant in the east flower bed. This tree will be planted in memory of Brady Stortz, our original inspiration for planting the Mustang Gardens.
We will also be receiving new lettering "North Winneshiek" to be mounted on the east wall of the building. You will be able to identify us in the dark! We'll plant that decorative grass below the sign. The lettering is being made by Brian Peterson at Letterwerks, a corporate Friend of North Winneshiek at a very reasonable rate.

Fifth Graders at the Sewing Machine

In the past two days, more than 22 pillows have been sewn in the art room. Fifth graders began a couple weeks ago, making drawings on fabric. We cut strips of printed fabrics to frame the drawings.
Yesterday Marty Kirk, grandma of Tory, a fifth grader, brought her sewing machine to the art room. With her patient help, we taught all of the fifth graders how to do a straight stitch on the sewing machine.
Macayla and Lexie finished the last two pillows this morning.
Happy dreams, Fifth Grade Seamsters!

First Grade Fashion Models

First Dyed

Here are the results of the first graders' tye dying project. All of the students brought clothing or fabric to dye. We used the plastic bag method. Each student folded, twisted, or rolled their cloth. Then they wrapped rubber bands tightly around the cloth and placed it in a zip lock bag. Then using red, yellow, and/or blue dye in squeeze bottles, each student applied color to the cloth. The bags were zipped shut and kept overnight. The next day students rinsed their dyed cloth and removed the rubber bands.
When the clothing and cloths were dried and put on displayed in the cafeteria.

Pre-K Choices

Here are some art made by PreK students today. The little dish is white earthenware clay, painted in spring colors with tempera paints. It is hard to get that first dish to have sides that go up. Caleb did a great job. Two other choices today included Dot Markers and painting. There were egg patterns to trace around or students could draw or paint the subjects of their choice. All of the colors looked great.
You can see that there are many levels of involvement in their art-making. Some make the same thing over and over. Some make one thing and some make many things to take home. Some never want to take anything home. I always wonder why they don't want to share their art.

Dye for Art

Some students have tie dyed t-shirts or decorated them with fabric markers. The dye is powdered dye that can be mixed up with water to add to a plastic bag, where the tied shirt is safely keeping the dye off of hands and clothing. The dye stays on the fabric for 24-48 hours. Then the shirt is rinsed and dried. On Friday, we will be doing this with all of the First Graders!

More Middle School

Drawing from life or from a photo of a real object are skills that take practice. Using the Right Side of the Brain is attained with much concentration and overcoming the left side of the brain.

Working like artists....

These middle school students have chosen a variety of media and subjects for their latest art projects. The tissue paper stained glass project is the last of the assigned projects for middle school artists.
We have limited room and tools for working with wood in the art room. If anyone has scrap wood from a building or remodelling projects, we could use it. We have a wood burning tool, carving tools, hammers and nails. There isn't room for the table saw or a large jig saw, but wouldn't it be nice!

Cats in Hats

To celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday and the success of our students during Read Across America week at North Winn, every student from kindergarten through fifth grade made a hat. The simplist were decorated headbands. The most complex were hats very similar to Mr. Dugger's. Every student was proud to wear a hat that he or she had made. Here are a few!

No Artist Left Behind

My first note to Parents and Friends:
Last week at this time, I was sitting in a beautiful room in the Chicago Hilton with about 30 other art teachers from around the country. I was at the National Art Education Convention. Mona in her blue aviator glasses was in the window of one of the stores I walked by each day on Michigan Ave. Can you find me in my sunglasses reflected in the window?
The session was about the Choice-based Art Classroom --something I had heard of, but never investigated. The session was led by two teachers from different parts of the country who have adopted the arrangement for their kindergarten through eight classrooms. The room is divided into Studios. Each day after the teacher makes a brief (5 minute) presentation about the subject of the day or an artist in the news or a review of how to do a certain process, students go to the studio of their choice to begin working on the project of their choice! Students have been instructed in the appropriate use of all of the tools and materials in each studio. Some students may work on an art project for many weeks; others will work in 3 to 4 studios per class period.
Aha! Something I could do to get more authentic art work from my students and provide them with more true artistic behavior. The jiggle for the group of teachers is "Teaching for Artistic Behavior." I have always wished that my students would not wait for me to tell them how to make their art. But I have been enabling them to depend on me for their artisitic decisions. It is time to give them the opportunity to make good and bad decisions.
We are beginning to move things around in the art room this week. We already have quite a few of the cabinets and boxes rearranged to get all of the Fibers in one corner of the room. We are also beginning to organize a Research area with books, filing cabinets and art prints. Next week we will be getting all of the painting and drawing materials arranged into two distinct studio areas. After those, there will be a Clay/Sculpture area. We will also try to find room for meeting to discuss at the beginning of our classes and to view work at the end of classes.
We may have piles of boxes and draws around the art room for a few weeks. I have a HEAP of things to learn about how to do this. Isn't it amazing that after teaching for more than 29 years, I have something new to learn?