Wednesday, January 9, 2020

12/9/2020

Painting in Pod B

Everybody in Pod B painted today! Perhaps inspired by our Zoom discussion with Dorothy last Friday, Gigi and Lane worked on portraits. During our Zoom, we learned that the artist worked for 3 months on the Michelle Obama portrait. Lane may have this to heart, as she has been returning to the portrait for 3 days, adding details once the base layer of paint is dry. She's not quite done, as she intends to a some finishing touches tomorrow. Palmer worked on a painting of a stegosaurus (Do dinosaurs have portraits?).

Nora took a different approach to the portrait experience. She started with a thin brush and blue paint, saying, "I thought I would do a portrait. I think I will just do the bones." She mentioned that she would like the bones to be white, so we pivoted to black paper with white paint. As she worked on the white bones, she said, "I'm adding the veins. The veins are little. Do you see how thin the veins are?" She also added a "butterfly leaf" to her black and white painting.

One strategy that we use at the easel is to have shapes drawn on the paper. This encourages children to think about how the will use and possibly fill the paper. We often find that children's subsequent paintings become more complex after this experience. Papers with shapes were available today, although Cannon was the only one who used them. Here's a look at his process.

Cannon chose a paper with circles on it, which made him think of the planets. "I'm starting with planet earth." He paints most of one circle with blue and green. "It's going to be white at the bottom for the penguins at the North Pole. Or the South Pole." He worked on an orange sun and paints a another circle mostly red. "This is candy cane Mars." As he used blue paint around the circles, he said, "This is outer space." Painting the smallest circle grey, he noted, "Pluto is the baby one. Pluto is the color of dust."

Mystery Reader!

Marguerite and Will Clarkson read for us today. Will, who will turn seven tomorrow, read "Pete the Cat Saves Christmas." We laughed a lot and loved the story. After that, Marguerite read a book about getting ready for kindergarten. The book made going to kindergarten sound wonderful, although some of our classmates are clearly more excited about the prospect than others! Thank you, Marguerite and Will!

Pod A

Digital Drawing

Today we spent some more time working with the drawing tablet which allows us to draw on the computer. First we experimented with drawing on and around portraits of ourselves. We also had the opportunity to pick a favorite animal from the Google images. We didn’t get to save every file because the program actually crashed a few times! But we’ll continue to have the tablet available in the classroom.

Fletcher said, “It feels like I’m sewing. Because I’m going up and down, up and down. It’s like a crayon, it’s making it super dark. (Drawing on top of his portrait) Where’d Fletcher go?” Then, he drew a house for a cat, inspired by our feline visitor outside (see below). He said, “I’m going to name him Monty,” inspired also by his kitty at home.

Oliver drew over his portrait, saying, “Even my teeth are blue. Even my shirt is blue.” He spent a lot of time mastering the technique of selecting different colors using both the digital pen and the mouse, and, rather than select an animal, drew a helicopter on a blank canvas.

Aida had the idea to draw a “hutch” for a little rabbit eating carrots. She said, “Buns love carrots and cabbage and beets, lettuces and turnips.”

Grace had fun discovering all the different features of this program. She requested a fox for her animal picture. As she worked, she said, “In the background it’s gonna be all pink.”

Andy drew lots of bright, primary colors around his portrait. He said, “I’m in space. I’m next to the sun.” Next he created a rainbow lollipop for a koala.

Race Car Construction

Aida: This is a parking lot where the cars are. Maybe we need a road. (She lays out cardboard roll) Maybe we need some rocks to hold it down. (She adds rocks). What if we add some tubes, so the cars, like, go around? (She places PVC pipes and demonstrates how cars pass through)
(Fletcher walks up)
Fletcher: What is it?
Aida: It’s a road for cars.
Fletcher: That’s so cool.
(We begin to retrieve all the cars from the parking lot)
Aida: It’s a race, okay? Here’s the finish line. On your mark…
Oliver: What’re you guys doing?
Aida: We’re making a race for cars.
Oliver: I wanna try it. (He tests out the tubes)
(Aida and Fletcher begin to race)
Aida: Which one’s going to win? Ohh, you won Fletcher!
Fletcher: Again, again!
(They race)
Aida: Your car won again.
Fletcher: Because I am fast.
Aida: What do you think of this, Fletch? (She shows him some changes they could make to the road, like a tunnel, and he agrees)