Cursive Name Art

Some of the 4th/5th grade classes during this short week are working on a fun, quick, little project using their names written in cursive. 

The first challenge is to use the window's light in order to create a mirrored version of their name. 

Most of the students turned their symmetrical name art into creatures.  Zack's is a fierce and scary bug.

Adam turned his name into a garden! Spring has sprung!

Mushroom Forests

Kindergarten (5K) and first grade students created mushroom forests using multiple mediums (materials). 

The first step was to paint a brown piece of paper and a green piece of paper. They used paint combs to make the brown tree trunks, and sponges to paint the green grass and tree tops. This was messy and fun and two two papers turned out the same! Some of the classes (depending on the weather) got to go outside and look at tree trunks to explore the different bark textures.

Next, they cut out their tree trunks, grass and tree tops. They glued these all onto a piece of background paper. 

Finally, they created mushrooms using red and white model magic modeling clay and placed their mushrooms onto the forests pictures.

These can be found hanging in and around the classrooms at school as we welcome spring's return! 

Sunshine

Because on those warm sunny spring days- we can all use a little extra fresh air. Sidewalk chalk is an easy way to bring art time home! Keep you eyes out for deals on chalk at local retailers.

(I agree Katie- I love art, too!)

Weaving

Team Treasure was introduced to the art of weaving. They were given a variety of materials to complete their weaving. Their weavings showed their individual styles. The students caught onto the process of weaving right away and they really enjoyed the process!

Famous Artist Unit: Picasso

We have continued our famous artist unit with learning about Pablo Picasso. We talked about his interest in drawing symbols of kindness and peace and how proud he would be of Wilson for working on our acts of kindness!

After looking at Picasso's painting "Hands with Flowers" the students created their own! 

Some students worked on tracing their hands and adding flowers with paint or tissue paper. 

4th and 5th grade students worked on sketching a hand. They quickly noticed how tricky this task was but after a few drafts of their hands in their sketchbook, their progress was incredible! Here are a few of the sketches from their sketchbooks: 

Their final projects ranged quite a bit since they had the choice on what materials to use as well as what exactly that hand they drew was holding. Here are a few: 

Finally, some 4th & 5th grade students transformed their art into digital art pieces!

Artist of the Month

Eli Pavlik

Eli is a first grader in Team Create. Art is Eli’s favorite subject! His favorite type of art is drawing and coloring with crayons. He especially likes to draw penguins, ocean life, and Lego people.

Other than art, Eli also likes to play on the playground and do the monkey bars. Congratulations Eli!

Famous Artists Unit: Kandinsky

Our next famous artist of focus is Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky is best known for his artwork called Squares with Concentric Circles pictured here:

This piece of art work can be mimicked in countless ways, and can inspire even the youngest artists. Here is what some of our young artists have been working on!

The students have worked on defining "concentric" through what they see in Kandinsky's work and what they notice when creating other concentric shapes. 

Circle Stamping- Kindergarten and first grade students used various recyclables as stamps, experimenting various sizes and using "size" vocabulary such as smallest, smaller, medium, larger, largest.

 

 

Some kindergarten students practiced cutting following lines of circles to stack a LARGE, MEDIUM, and SMALL circle.

Some students worked on free drawing circles (and other concentric shapes) with oil pastels. A tricky part of this project was for the students to fold the paper into six  (or more) even squares.  Some students chose to use circular rules to make perfect circles. Finally, they added more color with watercolor paints!

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One of the 4/5 classes created collages out of all things circle to take a different twist on Kandinsky's work. 

Youth Art Month Event

This Sunday is our Youth Art Month event at the district office. It is from 1-4 pm, free and open to the public! 

The art from Wilson Elementary as well as all of the other West Allis- West Milwaukee schools has been hung, just waiting for the big art show! 

Congratulations to all of the hard working young artists whose work is on display!