Leaf Exploring and Creating

brushing a leaf with acrylic paint for printing

first graders proudly show off their leaf collages

leaves that had been stencilled with oil pastels

a collage made by a second grade student

The leaves we gathered and pressed in old library books were ready for our artwork on Monday morning. We compared the leaves that had been pressed with the leaves that were just left in a paper bag for the week to see how they dried differently. We took our pressed leaves and made mixed-media collages with crayon rubbings of leaves, acrylic paint leaf prints and stencils, and oil pastel stencilling. The idea and inspiration for this lesson came from a recent workshop that I attended led by artist Robin Whitfield.

One child noticed that we could smell the leaves better after rubbing them with crayons underneath our paper. We speculated that this was probably because some of the leaf cells were being "smashed-up" to release small particles into the air. Another child observed that using a black oil pastel during stenciling a leaf on the paper helped to reveal the tiny veins on the actual leaf. Several children noticed that some leaves worked better than others for printing and rubbing and that some leaves had more interesting shapes for stencilling.

Computers and Quilts

We tied up all loose ends end and put the binding on our exploration into the underground railroad, quilts, and Black History. Yesterday, Mrs. T. and I used the computer lab to teach searching and computer navigation skills by using a website about the Gee's Bend quilters from Alabama. We learned about archives and archival sources by clicking through photographs of the Gee's Bend community taken by Arthur Rothstein in the 1930's and 1940's. Their lives were very different from ours!

Then, we pretended to be curators of our own museum through an interactive portion of the website that allows the user to create a virtual exhibit. Finally, we designed our own symmetrical and asymmetrical quilt blocks with another interactive feature on the website.

All over St. Therese, "learning quilts" adorn the hallways. Have you seen them?

Underground Railroad Quilt

The literature connection project that third through sixth graders have been working on for several weeks will be on display on Friday, February 27th, at St. Therese's Black History Month Exhibition. We worked hard today to finish our quilt blocks incorporating symbols of our knowledge about the underground railroad. I hope our parents and other teachers will appreciate how each block is unique and offers the viewer a different window into history.

I found out today that students at St. Therese have a name for Mrs. Tarleton and me to describe our "team-teaching." We are "Mrs. Towen." I love it!

Also, I was honored to accompany Mrs. Misenar, the "art club," and St. Therese parents on a field trip to Brown's Fine Art and Framing in Fondren today. Here are my photos from the exciting, intimate, and engaging learning experience:

Visual Art and Drama in the Library

Fourth graders worked on their individual quilt blocks that must incorporate three symbols of the Underground Railroad. Next week, they will finish these projects and write paragraphs about their blocks, how they designed them, and the symbols they chose.

Students in Reader's Theater club consulted each other and worked together to design a story from three random nouns. We played a game called "Story Court," in which participants had only a few minutes to develop a story with a beginning, middle and end. The story was told (and acted out) to the jurors and the judge (Mrs. Owen, of course). If the story did not have the necessary parts, the students were given a sentence of guilty and were made to do something crazy and silly for their peers. The students enjoyed the guilty verdicts as much as the not-guilty verdicts!

I am continually amazed (and entertained) by the creative, talented, and energetic students at St. Therese. They keep me on my toes as a teacher, make me smile, and cause me to wonder who and what they will become in this life. I believe great things are in their futures.

Simple Gifts

Yesterday's literature connection lesson for third through sixth grade students came together serendipitously. The week before, I found a PDF for making a hot-dog booklet of the words to Simple Gifts to commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama. I showed it to Mrs. Tarelton, and she got excited about bringing out the xylophones to let the children play the melody. I did some research on the Shakers, the religious community from which the song emerged; she did some research on the song itself. This is how the lesson came together:

• First, students made their own hot-dog booklet. They practiced following step-by step directions using math vocabulary such as horizontal, vertical, and fractions. Even though this seems like a simple process, it is more difficult than it looks for some students. Students who had never made a hot-dog booklet before said, "This is tight!"

• Second, I explained who the Shakers were and are and put the song in context. If you want to learn more, visit the website for a documentary about the Shakers by Ken Burns.
  

• Third, we read the words of the song aloud from the booklet and discussed why this song might have been chosen for the inauguration. The students had some very good thoughts about the mention of freedom and simplicity in the song. One student thought that the words "turn" and "turning" signaled how President Obama would like to "turn" the country around through his leadership and through a rise in civic responsibility. We also asked what it means that the 160 year old words and song are still relevant to us today and shed a unique light on our society at this time.

• Fourth, Mrs. Tarleton presented a music lesson on the song. She discussed three composers: Joseph Brackett, the Shaker elder who originally wrote the song in 1848, Aaron Copland who set the melody in Appalachian Springs, and John Williams who recently used the theme in his Air and Simple Gifts (YouTube video) for the inauguration.
  

• Fifth, we listened to a five minute excerpt of Copland's Appalachian Springs. When the string basses come in, my eyes always fill up with tears (four times yesterday!) What a "simple gift" it was to listen to this familiar music with children and see signs on their faces that their souls are also moved. Some students were motivated to want to dance when the trumpets and trombones make their regal entrance. Some students took their xylophone mallets and conducted the entire piece from their chair.

• Sixth, Mrs. T. led a discussion about the musical elements in the Copland excerpt and how the composer changed the melody with different instruments, tempo, embellishments, and dynamics.

• Finally, the children learned to play a portion of the melody on the xylophones. Those who can read music, had the music to read. Those who could not read music were able to follow Mrs. Tarleton's wonderful instructions.

Many elements combined to make our 50 minute lesson on Simple Gifts "tight." We integrated history, current events, music theory, music appreciation, literature, book making, and creative thinking. Simple Gifts is such a memorable tune. I hope that when the students hear it in the future, they will remember some of what they learned about it at St. Therese.

To close this post out, the photo collage below is a collection of classroom work about the inauguration from Ms. Devenney's first graders and Ms. Bentley's fourth graders.

What simple gifts will we share with each other as we move forward in this country during these uncertain, yet hopeful, times?

Illustrating our dreams

January is a time for dreaming. It is the beginning of the new year. It is the month in which we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and re-read his "I Have a Dream" speech.

First and second grade students did some dreaming on Tuesday. First, we looked at how different illustrators had imagined and created drawings/paintings/collages to depict different parts of Dr. King's speech. Then, we took some time to close our eyes, and look inside at our own dreams for what we want to do with our lives. Through pantomime, the students shared their dreams with the rest of the class and used their bodies to make their dreams concrete. Finally, with crayons and pencils, we illustrated our dreams.

At St. Therese, we have future moms, cheerleaders, firemen, police officers, presidents, navy men and women, doctors, and dancers. We will make a difference in the world, won't we?