Field Trip!

Yesterday, I was invited to go on a field trip with our ESE teachers to the Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens. This trip was special because it was the VSA Arts Festival. The VSA Arts Festival, a nationally recognized program, that provides hands-on art experiences and the chance to view original works of art to over 2,300 children with disabilities, ranging from mild to profound disabilities, over a four-day period and utilizes the time and talent of nearly 1,200 volunteers. Public school students from the surrounding five-counties Exceptional Education/Student Services (EESS) program rotate through eight art stops in the Museum's galleries and gardens to create hands-on art projects, view The Cummer's art collection, listen to live musicians and storytellers, and learn about art appreciation. The event permits all students to participate in the creative process at their individual level of ability.

Our students were wonderful! Not only were we well behaved, but our students created wonderful works of art! It made me really proud to be their art teacher. As they were working, I kept hearing students say things such as, "You taught us this!" "My artwork looks this good because of you!" Wouldn't this make any teacher proud of their students?

Maud Lewis Cats

For probably one of their last projects, second graders are creating a painting / project that resembles work by Maud Lewis. Maud Lewis is a female artist from Canada. She created folk art with images of cats, cows, and boats. We are creating cat pictures. We are learning about:

• Balance


• Symmetry


• Painting


• Collage


• Overlapping

First we paint our background one color, either yellow or green. Then, we dip our brush in purple to create our branches. Next, once our art is dry, we then use construction paper to add flower, leaves, and petal to our background. Then, we use oil pastels to draw our cats and add any additional details. I can't wait to see how these turn out!

Spring Flowers

Whitehouse Elementary has begun creating flowers for spring. In honor of Earth Day, we are using recycled plastic water bottles. We create them by cutting off the bottom and then cutting petal. We use tempera paint to create our different colors. I know that this is a popular lesson with a lot of art teachers and when the retail store Anthropology recently created these flowers for their window displays, I had to do it! It is a great lesson for 2nd grade and up to learn about conservation, how to paint, using colors in real life, and about form. So far these are turning out great! I'm not sure what I will do to put these all together. ....I am think about chicken wire and turning these into wreaths....

Here are the pics from Anthropology: