4th graders are still sewing!

After completing bird pillows students started their quilt. Each student is designing a quilt square which we will put together into one big class quilt. The theme for the quilt is "what we like about school"! Students have learned how to sew in buttons and have learned several different types of stitches including the running stitch, the overcast, and the back stitch.

Flowers from sixth grade students

My sixth grade class gave me flowers for Valentines Day! We enjoyed them in the art room! Thanks 6th Grade!

Printing with sponges.

A mothers birthday gift.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Service and Saint Francis Seraph School choir. Students sang "Open the Eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you"

Preschool Artists

Last week in preschool art we followed a recipe and made salt dough! Each child helped to add ingredients and mix the dough. Students then rolled balls of dough and then flattened them into pancakes. The students had wraps for lunch that day so we compared the thickness of a pancake vs. the thinness of a tortilla wrap. Next students used cookie cutters in heart shape. We talked about the heart being a symbol of love and sang "open the eyes of my heart lord, I want to see you"

Today we painted the hearts, students were very focused and had a great time! After the children painted their hearts we used heart shaped sponges and cardboard pieces to paint hearts in row with lines around them. Please see the pictures below!

5th grade Community Builders

Fifth graders love to build and create dioramas! The assignment is to create a diorama of a place that is needed or of service in their community. The students were asked to think of a place that would be good to have in their community. Students came up with all kinds of great and thoughtful ideas such as; a homeless shelter, an ice cream shop, a restaurant, a "Pet Vet", a basketball court, football field, and an "army place". This is a great project because students had a choice of working in small groups or solo and most of the kids chose small groups and they are cooperating beautifully! It has been so quiet as the students have been busy painting, creating, and building and did i mention getting along!!! We are having a great time!!! More pictures to come as the dioramas continue to develop!

4th grade sewing

Sewing us a big project for fourth graders! The students practice responsibility with handling and keeping up with needles. As part of the unit each student must incorporate a button into one part of the project, learn a running stitch, use appliqué techniques, close a seem and create a pattern for sewing. You will see a few of the birds students made and some of the Quilt squares as they are completed. Thanks for stopping by!

A few of the books we are studying in art class

-Duke Ellington- by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrated by Brian Pinkney

-When Marian Sang- by Pam Munoz Ryan
Pictures by Brian Selznick

-Ella Fitzgerald The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa- by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrated by Brian Pinkney

-Dizzy- by Jonah Winter
Illustrated by Sean Qualls

2 Harlem Renaissance Books

-Rosa- by Nikki Giovanni
Illustrated by Bryan Collier

-Fly High, The Story of Bessie Coleman- by Louise Borden and Mary Kay Kroeger
Illustrated by Teresa Flavin

A book I love because it highlights so many African Americans that we rarely hear of and the important role they had as inventors....by Kareem Abdul Jabbar -What Color is My World? The lost History of African American Inventors

-Twelve Rounds of Glory- a book about Muhammed Ali

-George Washington Carver, The Peanut Wizard-


More photos to come of projects we do integrated with these books

Tar Beach Quilted pillows

By students in fourth grade. We studied quilts of the Underground Railroad that contained symbols that led slaves to freedom. Then we read the book by Faith Ringgold called Tar Beach Following that students created quilt squares which will later be displayed together as one collaborative piece.

Tar Beach inspires students to sew something that flies!

By fourth graders

Bird Pillows

4th graders hand sewed bird pillows! The assignment was to create a pattern of a bird, cut the pieces out of felt and then appliqué the pieces together! With Angry Birds being so popular now the trend among the students was to do an angry bird pillow. This project segues into the next lesson. We will study quilts of the Underground Railroad and what the signs and symbols represent. We will read Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold and create quilt squares that will be sewn into a class quilt.

kids LOVE this project! More photos to come.

Jah's Eyes

Done on paint sticks:-) fun!