Here Comes Santa Claus ... and St. Nick!

Happy St. Nick's Day! Students celebrated with a visit from St. Nick himself today as part of our Christmastime festivities.  Students around the school helped participate in creating Christmas-themed door decorations, as well.  At Hill Street, fifth and sixth grade students helped to create a festive Christmas tree in warm and cool metallic Sharpie.  Third grade students will help decorate the North Park art room door on Monday! Read on for details of our various art activities this week.

**Many thanks to parent volunteers Mrs. Stratton and Mrs. Hakala!  It was a great treat having you in our classroom!**

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners learned about pattern this week before creating 2-D gingerbread houses full of colorful patterns!  Students made designs using construction paper, scissors, glue, paint, crayons and glitter glue.  Popular patterns included candy canes and peppermints, but students also created patterns with different colors, shapes and lines.  This was a very fun and festive project!

First Grade

First grade, having already completed their snowmen paintings, learned all about texture this week!  First, we explored different textures, from feathers to cotton balls to tissue paper and even burlap!  Then, students created unique texture collages by gluing different items to a background.  Students took turns, meanwhile, creating a clay ornament (with a unique texture of its own).  Next week, students will paint their ornaments and add finishing touches to their snowmen in time for Christmas!

Second Grade

Second grade students continued to work on a colorful Christmas tree collage project.  Students concluded the painting of their backgrounds and then pasted colorful tissue paper scraps to a white paper.  Next week, we will cut the white paper into various triangles and paste them to our backgrounds! Then, we will glue on sprinkles of white "snow" -- otherwise known as the small dots left over from a hole puncher.  What a fun way to be resourceful!

Third Grade

Third grade students concluded our Winter Birch Tree landscapes by peeling dried salt and tape from our papers in order to reveal unique texture and white birch trees, respectively.  Then, they used Sharpie to create the texture of peeling birch trees before finally applying shadow to the trees using watercolor.  What a fun process with a genuinely beautiful result!

Fourth Grade

Fourth Grade students put the finishing touches on their Tints and Shades Nativity project.  These projects are a beautiful reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.

Fifth Grade

Fifth graders also wished to spend a few more minutes wrapping up last week's project, Snowmen at Night in chalk pastels!  Then, we learned about artist Gustav Klimt of Austria.  Klimt made vibrant colors using actual gold along with paint.  We began Klimt-inspired trees, along with a metallic Christmas tree door decoration.  Well done, fifth grade!

Sixth Grade

Sixth grade concluded their "Op Art" Christmas trees this week.  First, they finished using Prismacolor markers to draw voluminous trees and swirling backgrounds, which have an optical illusion effect of movement on a viewer.  Then, students cut tops or bottoms from their drawings (without sacrificing the trees) and pasted onto a black background.  They used Q-tips to apply white snow falling or settled on the ground, and they wrote their names in reflective, metallic Sharpie.  These drawings, done in complementary colors, are very fun and lively!

Seventh Grade

Seventh grade students reviewed knowledge of warm and cool colors, as well as the different feelings different colors can evoke.  Then, they created an oil pastel and watercolor resist Christmas tree painting.  Using only straight lines and geometric shapes, students' paintings bear a resemblance to striking stained glass.  Great work, 6th grade!

Eighth Grade

Eighth grade extended their knowledge of real and implied texture this week creating real texture with tooling foil designs of a Christmas theme.  Students then began gluing these designs to a background of implied texture created in metallic Sharpie.  Artworks are backed on paper in Christmas colors.  Check back soon to see these projects in completion!

Eighth grade also shared their Red Glass visual model projects with parents and students this week!  The project was a great success and allowed students to demonstrate sophisticated understanding of the text both visually and verbally.  Special thanks to Ms. Bradley and Ms. Watkins for driving this project and helping students to understand the connection of the arts to all subjects.