Simplicity

This week Mrs.Roundy introduced us to an artist known as Joan Miro. 

He was known for using simple shapes, black outline and a basic color pallet (reds, greens, blues, yellows, whites) and he used a lot of organic shapes and lines. 

 Mrs.Roundy gave each student a piece of paper with different "Miro-esque"shapes and lines on it and a blank piece of paper to practice making some similar to them.

Next, they were given pre-taped pieces of paper to draw their shapes and lines onto with a sharpie. It was taped around the edges to create an instant frame once it was peeled away at the end. After they had finished drawing with the sharpie, they got to use water colors to paint their works of art.

They turned out beautiful.

Go Organic!

Mrs. Roundy has been teaching us all about shapes and how to define them. The students flew through her questions about what makes a triangle, what makes a square, etc. They are too smart! Then, she surprised us with new types of shapes...ones we aren't so familiar with. 

Shapes that we cannot necessarily name but have a starting point that eventually meets back at that point are known as organic shapes. Now let me tell you folks, these can be CRAZY.

The students were given a blank sheet of paper and a thick sharpie marker and were asked to make their own organic shape. Once they were done, they switched with their partner and were then given a thin sharpie marker. Now it was their turn to make this organic shape they were given into some sort of monster or creature. They turned their papers around until they saw the right angle they wanted to go from and then began creating:

Once they were done with the thin sharpie they could then color their creature with colored pencils and then name it. They came up with some very creative names!

"The Snakusuris" was one :)

 

The next time Mrs. Roundy visited, she brought back in the idea of geometric shapes (circles, squares, triangles) and the students created frames for their organic monster creations. She gave them a piece of cardboard and foam geometric shape stickers.

They then got a bigger, white sheet of paper, pushed their stamp on an ink pad and then stamped away onto their frame. After, we applied the frame to the back of their creature piece. They sure are shapely! (hehe)

We then incorporated writing, science and language arts by answering the following things:

Name

Habitat
How it moves

What it eats

Describe your creature using three adjectives.

This project brought in a ton of different content areas and was a lot of fun. Come check them out for yourself, they are hanging on the bulletin board outside of our class and in our classroom!

That Silly Leprechaun!

I'm not sure if you all heard yet but our room was attacked by a mean, little leprechaun!

It was St.Patrick's day, of course, and we were trying to plan out a way to trap a leprechaun while we were gone at recess. However, the little man over heard our plans, got angry and trashed our room while we were eating lunch! Thank goodness my awesome students helped me clean the place up. There was glitter everywhere, books were thrown all over the floor, our recycling bin was completely dumped out onto the floor, the markers had fallen all over the ground and so, so much more...

He was however nice enough to leave us some skittles :)

That day in math we sweetened things up a bit by graphing lucky charms. Each student got a pile of lucky charms, a graph and a data sheet. They graphed the different marshmallows they got and filled out the data sheet about which they had the most of or least of, added together how many stars, hearts and balloons they had (3 addend addition, woohoo!) and finally counted how many marshmallows they had all together. It was a pretty magical day!

Happy Birthday Dr.Seuss!

Who doesn't LOVE Dr.Seuss?

Here in Ms.M's class we just had to celebrate his birthday (and of course our love for reading) by playing a few games, reading some of his stories, writing about Thing 1 and Thing 2 and for some, eating green eggs and ham. YUM!

For math, we spun through Dr.Seuss characters and tallied how many times we landed on each. Then, we graphed our results and recorded our data on how many characters had the most, least or equal amount of spins.

Then, we raced to the Cat in the Hat by spinning through +10, -10, +5, -5, +1 and -1 options while making our way through a hundreds chart. The Cat in the Hat was of course located where 100 should be. This activity really helped them work on their +10 and -10 skills. Instead of counting 10 forward or backward by one, we learned that you can just move up or down a row. They also noticed that the tens spot changed by one number either way and the ones spot always stayed the same. It was a Seuss-tastic learning experience!

Later that day, I read them The Cat in the Hat and then they wrote about what they would do if Thing 1 and Thing 2 showed up at their house. Many had some very responsible answers saying they would "call the police" and that their "mom and dad always tell them never to let strangers inside." It was too cute.

In the afternoon we took it outside to enjoy the beautiful sunny day and sat in a circle while listening to Green Eggs and Ham. After, we sat in the shade of some trees and wrote Sam-I-Am a letter telling him whether or not we have ever eaten green eggs and ham and where we would eat them. 

It was a Seuss-themed day that left everyone smiling.

Introducing: Antoni Gaudi

This week it was all about the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.

Gaudi was known for his distinctive and funky style, his creations are like nothing you have ever seen! Here is a building he created:

Gaudi did a lot of mosaic work as well, which was the technique we got to take part in for our project this week. 

Mrs. Roundy showed us a famous mosaic salamander that was created by Gaudi. It is known as "el drac" (the dragon) and is located in Barcelona, Spain. 

The students then set to work in groups to create mosaic salamander posters. They each signed their name and worked so well together. One big part they needed to remember was to leave spaces in between the pieces of colored paper. The mosaic technique we were focusing on had spaces that set apart the pieces from touching. They turned out so great and are now proudly hanging in our classroom. They sure do brighten the place up.