Groovy Shakers

Our 'Cultural Presentation' day is fast approaching! The children from PP/1 up to the threes in room 14 are decorating the shakers they have made in music. They will be using them during music lessons and during the performance.

We covered their rice filled containers with a couple of layers of paper mâché.

 Last week some classes managed to get their shakers painted and today they decorated them with a variety of materials.

At the beginning of the lesson I showed them the types of materials that were available - feathers, Pom poms, foam shapes, sequins, tissue and coloured papers. We discussed ways that the various materials could be used.

The children then planned their designs selecting from the materials available. The only direction was they had to use at least one of the paper ribbons they printed patterns on last week and not grab handfuls of all the materials without thinking of others. 

There wasn't a mountain of certain things so they were limited to about four of some things. For example they could have four big feathers or four alien stickers but not 4 of both. Luckily my stock order arrived today so these trays of goodies can be replenished for next weeks classes.

There were heaps of sequins and small feathers so there was no limit - besides being thoughtful and using only what you need and returning the rest! 

Part of the lesson is to be creative within the limitations of what is available and to share what is there.

We are also busy writing procedures explaining how to do paper mâché, so some children were finishing these off and will complete their shakers next week.

Some children completed theirs today. They are looking fab! 

I can't wait to see them all done. They will look amazing!

 

Lots of Lino

Today the children from rooms 25 and 3 started printing with fabric ink onto or lengths of curtain fabric. These will be used as backdrops for our Cultural presentation day and then turned into much needed curtains for the music room.

The children also had the opportunity to create a run of four individual prints for themselves on paper. These ones will come home at the end of the year. 

Once they had printed or were waiting for their turn to print the children began to write a procedure outlining how to make a Lino print.

To make the turn taking fair the kids grab a peg from my numbered peg station. When the printmaking station is free I call out the next number. This saves a lot of time where they would otherwise be waiting in line for their turn.

There are some great designs! They look fabulous together. I can't wait to see the whole lot completed!

More printmaking.

Our older children are also exploring printmaking. 

Following last terms incursion of an African drumming group, we looked at Adinkra cloth from Ghana. The symbols on this cloth all have meaning and are made with a combination of simple geometric shapes. The children used these ideas as inspiration to create their own symbols that have meaning to them. 

They are using Lino printmaking techniques, transferring their designs onto the Lino and carving away the negative space. 

These designs will be printed onto fabric to be used as backdrops for our upcoming Cultural Presentations where the kids will share what they've been doing in Art,LOTE and Music. After this event the backdrops will be made into curtains for the music room. 

Planning the design.

Transferred onto Lino. 

Carving CAREFULLY!!!! 

Using a bench hook,

Making sure our fingers are BEHIND the carving tool

and we are carving away from them.

Doing our best to follow the 'No blood in the art room rule' ;) fortunately only a couple of mishaps!

Artist proofs (first test prints to check if the printmaking plate is ready)

They are going to be great backdrops! 

Printmaking on the go.

This term the year 4s are doing printmaking. Today they have prepared their printmaking plates. Next week will be messy! I hope they remember to bring their art shirts or wear their old uniform shirts! 

Bottle for Botol

Boy this term has been busy and we're only a week and a half into it! There are lots of projects on the go but the one I want to talk about today is Bottle for Botol.

Last year I met Christine, young Australian of the year finalist for 2016.

'Christine Parfitt, 29 of Cottesloe has a passion for marine conservation and is undertaking a PhD in Environmental Education. She developed Bottle for Botol, partnering Australian and Indonesian students to reduce their consumption of single-use plastics. Her charity has worked with over 12,000 Australian students and 7,000 Indonesian students to raise awareness of the detrimental impacts of plastic on the marine environment. Since 2013, more than 100,000 plastic cups and bottles have been saved from release into the ocean, with numbers expected to be over one million this year.' (From Young Australian Awards website)

The Bottle for Botol programme sounded just right for our school, combining sustainability, Indonesian and Art. After meeting with Christine she was keen to have our school on board. Room 2 have been using this as a focus for their class work about Asia in geography. Christine came into the school and spoke to them and in art they are creating an animated film to introduce Pally to our Bali partner school.

All classes from year 4 upwards and some year 3s will participate in a competition to create a design one of which will go onto the stainless steel water bottles that will be sold later in the year in a fundraiser - more information about that closer to the time. 

 

To help us understand the need for the Bottle for Botol programme the children viewed a video about our water supplies and how we are able to drink clean safe water from the tap. We had discussions about why this might not be the case for all countries, Bali being one many of us are familiar with from our holidays. We dicussed ideas of sustainability and conservation as well as the differences between the flora and fauna of each landscape ( Perth and Bali) in order to develop the ideas for our designs.

 

The children will be writing explanations of why they chose the symbols and colours in creating their design in following lessons.

In order to select the most popular design to go onto the bottles there will be an online voting site where family and friends can support our school and our designs. I will post this information in the next week or so. 

If you are interested at having a closer look here is the link to the Bottle for Botol website. 

http://www.bottleforbotol.org/

 

Now I have the unenviable task of selecting the top few from each class so room 2 can help me come up with the top three designs for everyone to vote for online. ( I hate doing this bit because I know how much effort each child has put into their work and there are so many good ideas! )

Hoot! Wise words.

Some of the junior classes have made mixed media art works inspired by the owls that were at a recent Harry Potter fundraising event.  

We've been looking at how basic shapes can be used in drawing this term. 

The children looked at many different styles of owl drawings and observed the basic shapes they used. 

From these observations we made a 'recipe' for drawing an owl. Eyes, head, body wings beak etc and the types of shapes we could use for each part.

The children then drew their owl - in their own style! 

They explored chalky pastels to add colour and patterns to their owl.

Next they painted branches using thick paint and created leaves using collage paper, cutting or tearing their leave as desired. 

  For this project I broke out the glitter to add stars to the background of their work.  

  Last of all they glued it all together. 

Some classes had time to add a written component. We thought about the saying "wise old owl" and used speech bubbles to add a wize or clever fact. The year 2/3 and yr 3 classes transposed this to text using quotation marks and proper punctuation.