Kinders are exploring color mixing and primary/secondary colors. I sang a song about fruits and vegetables: "Five a day, eat five a day,we all know it's the healthy way. Fruits and vegetables, they're okay! The healthy way is five a day."  Fruits like grapes keep us healthy!  We traced a baby food jar lid to create some grapes. We used overlapping to create space. The circles were traced with a black crayon. We looked at photographs of grapes on the vine and talked about how the vine needs a fence to support it. They used brown and green crayons to add their grape vine. We used watercolors to paint our grapes red and then blue. "I made purple! I made purple!" exclaimed many of the kindergarten artists. 

To finish this project, we painted the background yellow. I showed an image of a color wheel and introduced complementary colors. Using the Smartboard, we drew a line across the color wheel to find purple's complement: yellow! Complementary colors make each other POP! 

Project from Whitney Elementary's Artsonia page.

To create these colorful landscapes, 3rd grade artists used a black oil pastel to draw rolling hills, rounded mountains, and a sun with concentric lines around it. We showed distance by overlapping the hills and mountains. We reviewed the warm and cool colors and the artists had a choice: warm or cool colors for the sky and the opposite for the land. Cool colors created a night sky, warm colors made it a daytime sky.The final step was to outline with the black oil pastel again, as the chalk pastel gets the outline pretty messy. These look beautiful in the hallway next to their circle loom weavings! So many bright colors!

Lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. 

Using simple lines and shapes during a direct draw, 1st grade artists drew Leo the Lion. After adding a horizon line, they drew at least 4 details to create the setting for Leo. Many students chose to add details like hills, rocks, plants, trees, rivers, and birds to show that Leo was outside. A few others placed Leo in the circus, the zoo,  school or at the mall! Once 4 details were added, artists outlined with Sharpie and created texture using texture plates. We added color using crayons and tempera cakes. I love how each artwork is unique! Great job, 1st Graders!

Art project inspired by Mona Brookes' book Drawing with Children. 

Kindergartners are exploring color mixing. For this project, we drew a lion together using lines and shapes. As we drew, we talked about the different types of senses that lions have (sight, smell, taste, touch - whiskers!, and hearing.) They added white for the eyes and teeth and a red mouth. Next came the paint. We painted the lions yellow and looked  at a photograph of a lion to see all of the different kinds of colors in a lion's mane. One of the colors we saw was orange. Our goal was to add a little red to the mane to create some orange. This was a challenging task because red is such a strong color! Some of the lions look like they just had a little snack:)

Project inspired by Whitney Elementary School's Artsonia page. 

I wrote a Great Minds Grant for a 2nd grade field trip in connection with their STEAM project: animals and their habitats. The Davenport Schools Foundation accepted my grant proposal and funded the Putnam Museum admission cost for 46 students! The Putnam Museum also provided admission subsidies for close to $100! Buffalo Elementary PTA provided funding for the bus transportation. Thank you, Davenport Schools Foundation, The Putnam Museum, and Buffalo PTA for making this fun day possible!

We left Buffalo around 8:30 am and headed to the Quad Cities Expo Center for Bald Eagle Days. 

Before our 9:30 am show, we were able to visit some of the vendors at the expo center.  Big Run Wolf Ranch was there with 2 wolves, a skunk, and a porcupine!

We saw the birds that would be featured in the Bald Eagle Days show. 

We saw a fox snake and kestrel up close. 

And finally the show! First we watched a short movie about Bald Eagles. We learned about their nests, where they live, and how they were endangered but are making a comeback. Did you know that Bald Eagles don't get the white feathers on their head until they are four years old? And they can fly at 10,000 feet in the air? 

The naturalists had falcons and owls fly from their hand to perches located throughout the auditorium. 

We had lunch in the balcony. 

At 12:15 we watched the movie Tiny Giants  in 3D! This movie followed a scorpion mouse in the desert and a chipmunk in the forest as they encountered different dangers and prepared for changes in their habitat. 

The Putnam employee who gave us our 3D glasses said that we were the best-behaved school group he's had! Way to go, Buffalo!

After the movie we viewed the Mammal and Big River, Black Earth Exhibits.