Happy Fall!

Happy Halloween  Fall! We don't celebrating holidays at Capital City but there are no rules against celebrating seasons! C.A.T painted pumpkins for our activity this week. Here are the 4 that were left behind.

DC Walkabout Tours

Touching the hsunted window at the Decatur House

As indicated by the previous post, my parents came to visit this past weekend.  My parents have visited DC many times so I have to get creative when it comes to finding new fun things to do.  This trip we went on the Haunted DC Walkabout Tour.  It was AWESOME! I highly recommend this tour.  We met down at Layfayette Square and met our incredibly charming tour guide who lead us by lantern light around the square.  He told us historical ghost stories about the movers and shakers who once lived on the square.  They have other tours as well (we are already planning on doing the scandal tour next time) so I definitely recommend them if you are looking for something different to do.  The tours are free but you are encouraged to give a tip to your guide. 

You can find more info here DC Walkabout.

Happy 100th post

Happy 100th Post, Learntoseeart! For the 100th post, I thought I would share our most recent art club meeting where my dad came as a visiting artist!  He did a small talk about architecture then let the kids design a facade of a building.  The kids were divided into groups (of their choice) and given the same lego pieces and same set of instructions.  The groups planned their facade, built their facade, then had to justify their design in a group critique.  It was wonderful!  Check out the fun pictures below.

Hard At Work

5th graders are hard at work with their personality box assemblages.  I love this project because it is so creative and messy.  The students are really taking initiative to create a design that represents different aspects of themselves.  It's great to watch.

Alexander Calder??

 No, these are not Calder sculptures, these are just two of the many wire sculptures being created in my 6th grade class.  Have I mentioned 6th graders are amazing? We are finishing up these sculptures then creating one final collage before the quarter ends.  What do you think?  I think they are beautiful and full of energy.

Don't H8

 

Capital City has some of the best students, they are amazingly compassionate and caring.  This is picture from National Coming Out Day where the kids were buzzing around all day thinking of ways to show that they respect ALL people.

8th grade Final Tessellations

8th grade struggled a little with tessellations.  Admittedly, I challenged them by only allowing them to create rotation or reflection based tessellations but this making the tessellation did not seem to be the problem- they had a lot of difficulty turning their shape into a person, place, animal or object, even though I let them use the same shape as the examplars (if needed).  They also struggled to finish although I gave plenty of classtime.  There were some successes though, here are a few of the best.

It Gets Better

Tomorrow CCPCS is acknowledging National Coming Out Day (Oct 11) which coincides with National Anti-Bullying Month.  There are so many great resources out there with the It Gets Better campaign but here is a video clip of one we will be watching as a school. We will also be making stickers to remind ourselves to show respect to everyone, even people we think are different.

Did your school acknowledge National Coming Out Day?  What resources did you look at with your students?

Ink Painting workshop

 
 This Thursday we did an ink workshop with art club!  Here are some of the supplies we used- bamboo brushes, cups for ink, India ink, ink painting examples, and Japanese alphabet sheets.

Next we explored at least 3 different types of brushstrokes: thin, medium, and wide.

 

We then did 3 different experiments: a quick study in Japanese lettering, exploring wet-on-wet painting techniques that create abstract designs, and finally making monochromatic representational paintings using precise brushwork.  Once they did the mandatory explorations, they were able to make a painting of their choice.  It was a huge success!



Rule of Thirds

8th grade is doing an expedition combining math principles and art processes.  We first created tessellations (engaging in a discussion of symmetry, geometry, and measurement), now we are exploring math through the lens of photography (pun intended!).  We are learning about the compositional concept known as the rule of thirds.  We are starting tomorrow by taking a series of photos using and not using the rule of thirds.  Once the pictures are taken, on a separate day, we are then going to use befunky.com to create fun and creative photos.  Here are my examples:

Can you guess which ones use the rule of thirds? I actually like the one that doesn't use it best...

Wire Action Sculptures

 



6th graders are beginning wire sculptures.  We started by brainstorming action words (diving! dancing! cartwheeling!), then thinking of what qualities would make an interesting sculpture (original pose, unique action, limbs apart from body), followed by sketching, critiquing, and finally some wire exploration.  I saw some great sketches, I can't wait until they finish them.

FM Update

Free Minds has been blowing up lately!  I went to a Free Minds fundraiser (pictured here), Free Minds did a "Poetry in Motion" event at Howard University and Write Night was last week.  Lots of new people came out to support the burgeoning poets. Even if you are not in the DC area, you can support the young men of Free Minds by leaving a comment on the FM blog:

 http://freemindsbookclub.wordpress.com/

FM dream team

Here is one of my favorite poems by DC:

Torment
In the inside I'm deformed
Out of order
Wishing I could be reborn
This pain that follows me
This trouble, always acknowledging me.
Trying to find a way out
But every time I look,
This pain hide my escape route.
From my head to my feet.
Numb me, o I can go to sleep.
My eye's are open
But I can't see
'Cause the pain is on my face blinding me.
It hurts, it stings, it' sore, it burns.
It covers my future
It dims my light
The pain that I receive.
From living this life.