Belated December posting...It's begining to look alot like Winter!!!

So sorry, this was my December post that was suppose to be posted prior to break and due to unforeseen illness I was not at school to share it with you.  Enjoy!

We have had so many wonderful things going on here at the Rock.  We usually do this time of year!! We have really been busy trying to get some winter works made and up in our halls before we leave for break. I am so excited to see winter coming to life in our halls at the Rock, it helps to bring about joy and excitement within the kiddos. We are closing up on the work we are doing on our projects and we are putting our portfolios together to bring home.

Our Big Thank You went over well and we delivered around 650 letters to the troops. The Bert Show has also been getting letters back from the troops to share with us on the radio.  Some of the kids have been telling me they are hearing on the radio! We have a teacher here at the Rock whose son was recently deployed to Afghanistan, so the Big Thank meant a little more this year as we were sending one of our very own Rock family members into the world to help make, keep, and fight if needed, for peace within other countries and always for  our own. So, A very BIG THANK YOU to him especially this year, leaving his family at this time of year and to his parents for raising such an honorable and selfless son. We love and miss you, come home soon!!

Our art that has been at the Collins Hill Public Library have come down.  I am however, wanting to keep those works for a little longer, just in case I think some of our friends work is deserving of the county art show in the spring. I am scheduled for the Collins Hill Library to have another display in the month of March and look forward to finding new artists who are working hard and making marvelous works so they too can join in on the art showing fun that we are amping up around the Rock this year.

Art Club has been exciting... We have created our Visual journals and the kids are filling them up with all kids of drawings, writings, clippings, paintings, pictures... they are painting a 16 X 20 canvas with acrylics, and they all have completed a ceramic vessel on the pottery wheel this week. We are going to paint our pots and put them back in the kiln to fire and finish. Only two more meetings with fourth graders and then fifth grade Art Club starts.

Look here for a few of the things we have worked on for our Winter art projects.

1st graders- Created penguins, we were practicing our ovals and circles and then our patterns too. We discussed how we can use geometric shapes to create anything, it is all a matter of how we put them together. (Sorry it's not orientated properly, for some reason I couldn't get it to stand up, he must be tired!)

2nd grade- Some second grade classes were working hard on learning the patter needed to weave and we used that pattern to help us weave our paper weaving.  This was a one day preview of the cup weaving that was to follow.



1st graders worked on learning about Paul Revere and his amazing silversmith skills. We learned the parts of a teapot and then practiced with play doh on how to make the parts and learned how to produce the final product!



4 grade levels discussed the importance of line in art and in our world around us, we reviewed lines and talked about how we could use those to create designs and patterns that would help to separate spaces for us. This was when we jumped into our world of Zentagling! This is a fifth graders example, out theme was Rock Springs 5th grade graduating Eagles, Class of 2013!

Kindergartners had a great time getting into the fabric and button bins, they also enjoyed the tearing of their snowmen. We were working on tearing skills first, then we were able to use stamping, drawing, cutting, and gluing to top off our snowmen!

Some Kindergarten classes were short of time due to schedule changes, so they created a simpler version of the snowman above, these too were fun and the students enjoyed it!

This fifth grader enjoyed the freedom of exploration of materials. Mainly concentrating on fabric and paper but she did a great job of completing a work of art based on the theme of Winter.

3rd grade worked on the completion of their first snow portraits! These were fun and the students had the scrap box at their finger tips, tearing and cutting to compose a beautiful portrait. Our goal was to use as much of the space as possible to illustrate our emotion we might show if it were to snow!

2ns graders used some coffee filters and took off to the scrap box also, freedom to choose and create a snowman of their choice. We had snowmen dressed up in costumes, snowmen drinking hot cocoa, snowmen doing all kinds of things. This project was also fun and was awesome for the students to get to express their own ideas creatively.

some 4th but most all fifth grade classes enjoyed working large, 18 X 20 actually. We created a background of our choice and then created our birch trees by painting with cardboard. Our principal for a day also was able to enjoy seeing these in process.

Viewing snowmen from a different perspective can be fun!  So we learned. Our halls were all a glow with these beautiful perspective creations revolving around a snowman. When the class voted and choose a snowman work of art they were excited, but scared after I told them not your everyday snowman... a snowman from the above!

Kindergarten learned about how things that are far away are closer to the top of our paper, things that are closer are near the bottom.  They also learned about how the things that are closer a larger in size. Here is a nice example of a snowman in the foreground that is near the bottom and larger and a snowman placed in the background that is closer to the top and smaller to create a sense of depth and reality.

These are a few of the creations we have been working so hard on. I am excited to see the new year come and even more excited to see it start! See ya back in January!

Thanks, Thanks, Giving Thanks....

During this wonderful time of the year, we take time to say thanks to and for all the things in our lives that make our lives as fabulous as they are. There are so many things to be thankful for.  I am for one so thankful for all of the Rock Springs Family  that help to make where I work a most amazing place everyday. I definitely say there are days I am spending more time here than at home with my own family and so it is nice to be spending that time somewhere so wonderful. I am also thankful for the amazing artists we have here at the Rock. I have several friends who are working hard this year to be featured in some very special art shows. We have several throughout the school year and this year we are looking forward to a few new ones along the way. On that note....here are some of the projects we have been working on.

Halloween Dress Up Day- We Take advantage of the day and have students to model their costumes and we have times drawings starting at 3 minute and the time gets shorter with each model during the class period.

3rd grade drawing.

2nd grade drawing.

Torn Turkeys are always special and help us
to work our fine motor muscles.

The pilgrims were brave and set sail without
knowing where they were headed. We celebrated this
and discussed the first pilgrims and their voyage
and the first thanksgiving.

There is nothing like a shape Turkey at
Thanksgiving! He's got all the parts
of a turkey, and a few extra colorful feathers too!

What are you Thankful for?
Well we made a pace setting and added our favorite
Thanksgiving feast foods and sentence telling
what things we were most thankful for.

Who doesn't love a good Mayflower?
Celebrated using a paint brush without using water to clean it!

 

I am so happy to see our art work up at the Collins Hill Public Library. Collins Hill Public Library I have collaborated for the month of November. Together we are looking to make sure students understand the importance of art and reading! By teaming together we are hoping to grow new supporters for not only the public library services our county provides but also to grow an awareness of how important the arts are for those growing minds and developing readers and writers of tomorrow. After all, they need vivid imaginations and clear understanding once those books they read no longer have pictures! Who’s to say we might not have a future writer or illustrator right here within our midst! Many of our student's artwork are featured at the Collins Hill Public Library for the month of November. Please, take the time to support all the students featured. This is also an opportunity for our Visual Arts program at “The Rock” to get noticed as well. By putting our work “out there” we remind all who see it, that every student can excel and for some it isn’t in the general classroom, but in the world of art and all that it has to offer. Please, go by any time during library hours during the month of November to help us celebrate our artistic successes here at “The Rock”! Below find the address and hours of operation for your local Collins Hill Public library.

455 Camp Perrin Road  Lawrenceville, GA 30043-2408
Sunday 12 pm - 5 pm


Monday 12 pm - 8 pm

Tuesday 10 am - 6 pm

Wednesday 12 pm - 8 pm

Thursday 10 am - 3 pm

Friday 10 am - 3 pm

Saturday 12 pm - 5 pm

Also, Fourth grade art club started up and while we had very few who are participating from the fourth grade this year. We have a few talented students that are really starting to get into the artistic spirit that the club has to offer. I look forward to having some of their work up and out for all to see but also look forward to having them do somethings we don't usually get to do in class because of how many students we have here at the Rock in each class. We painted papers in fun and fantastic ways. We used those papers to decorate the outside of our very own art journals that we made ourselves. We folded many kinds of art paper to include in the middle of our books.  Lastly, we bound our books and headed for the Thanksgiving Break with Art Journals in hand!

We have been busy! To top it off we ended the week on having our special guest the Principal for a day in the art room with us! Have a beautiful and fabulous holiday break.

FALLING into the Best Practice....Showing Gratitude....THE BIG THANK YOU!

In honor of our troops, we show our patriotic colors this month here on the canvas for The Rock. As fast as October arrived it is on it's way out. Here in the art room at The Rock we have been busy and seems we continue to be. As a follow up of our September Celebration of International Peace and our support of this event, we are filling buckets around the world by sending our love and appreciation through letter writing inside of homemade cards to soliders stationed around the world. Same as last year we are working to create a world of Peace and learning to get along in the world of diversity we live in.  Learning to support and share and understand others, as we hope they will us. We are joining up with the Q100 Bert Show and helping them reach their goal that every solider that has been deployed from thier homeland should receive a heart felt hand written message.  So, in art this week and next we are creating those cards.  We are sicussing the importance of gratitude and sharing and showing it to those who help us in our lives and the lives of others. After this discussion we discuss card making and then off they go to create a cover for their message.  Their classroom teachers will take those cards back to their classrooms and ask their students to then go through the letter writing process to fill the inside with messages that will hopefully brighten the day or a man or a woman who had dedicated themselves to preserving our freedoms. Below you will see that class in and class out there are piles of students working to make these cards with meaning. I will drive down to Atlanta next Friday to drop off these cards to be sure they get to where they need to be for our messages to be delivered!  Thanks to The Bert Show for seeing the ned and leading us in a beautiful and meaningful way to fill that need.

Campaign Give Thanks started this week!

The cards started piling up!

Kindergarten stops to make smiles for soliders.

We are so thankful for all our US Troops do for us here and abroad.  We hope our message of appreciation does for our troops what it has done for us!

Art-tober is here!

So glad to be in the Fall officially. It is nice to feel a breeze and start to see the beautiful colors of the autumn we have been loning for during the hot months of the year!

We have be very busy here at the Rock. September started off with Pin Wheels for Peace. A great display this year again!  A shout out to my troops from Pack 511, who helped to place each Pinwheel with love in the yard here at school.

Kindergarten had been bust learning the rainbow and the color order. First grade has studied 2 artist, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns and created artwork inspired by them. Third graders have been working on the contour lines of a sihlouette and making cityscapes with Van Gogh inspired skies. Fourth graders and fifth graders have been working hard on stained glass designs and learning or reviewing the color families. Look here for some photos of the what's happenings in the art room over the last month!



Kindergarten Rainbow Prints





Kindergarten ROYGBIV Color and Cutting






1st- Flags- Line Review and Paint brush control



1st- Alpha Art- Jasper John Inspired



1st- Warhol Hand Printing with everyday things



2nd- Stained glass-Studying complimentary colors,
tints, shades, and ruler usage






2nd-Stained glass



3rd- Van Gogh inspired cityscapes

4th- Stained Glass-Color family review and printing basics





4th- Stained Glass-Color family review and printing basics





5th-Stained Glass- Printing Review and color to come



 As you see we have been very busy. I appreicate your continued support and remember not to wear your best on art day! Coming up is the Annual Fall Art Fundraiser. I look forwar dto seeing all these beautiful works of art on mugs, trivets, clocks, and keychains, and the many other options that Original Artworks has to share.



 





September, Are those artists I see?

As the colors in the trees outside start to change for the season ahead, we find ourselves in the throws of it all.  I write quickly today just to let you know that Progress Reports are not coming home Friday, September 7th as previously stated, rather they will be sent home on Friday the 14th. This is a school decision, not mine.  However, there are some new procedures we are learning with the new grade book system and we are trying to get it right before we send home information to you, but bare with us as we prepare for our first grades to be portal ready. Lots of questions are getting some answers and so we need a few more days to be ready for the grade send off while we await those answers that are still needed for clarification. If your student has a N or U will receive information from me regarding this.

We have pinwheels in the making and in fact we are excited to welcome back several boy scout troops again this year to help make an amazing display for our school lawn again this year.  Pictures to come of this exciting international event next week along with some pictures of our art progress. Mess making in the art room is the best job... I can't say for one day that I wish I were doing something else with my time! Kindergarten just worked on ROYGBIV and some "magic" shape cutting exercises. First grade has been studying Andy Warhol and his silly prints of everyday things. Second grade is reviewing geometric, organic, and free form shapes and learning how to properly use a ruler for drawing straight lines while learning about tints, shades, and compliments. Third grade is starting the year with Vincent Van Gogh and creating their Starry Night or Sunny Day Cityscapes. Fourth and fifth grade are working on Stained Glass windows and printmaking and will be covering several color families along the way as well. I look forward to featuring some or our art making and some or our finished projects soon.

August- Back in the Apron...

As I sit this morning to update this blog I find myself doing it for the third time. So, you will find it short and sweet as I am not sure I can type it all again to only find disappointment when I click the Publish button.


The first few weeks of school we used to reacquaint ourselves with policy and procedure and we also found ourselves drawing,coloring, and writing about the past school year in our sketchbooks. This was great for easing us back into the swing of things. Today we move to the messy madness of art. After the celebration of the life of a young girl that was lost to a short yet determined battle with leukemia, I come in with a clear head and a determined heart to make something amazing and memorable happen in my life and the lives of others, so today we make art memories in the name of fun and for the memory of all that have gone too soon. Hoping every child and young person can always look back on their lives and have something positive to make them smile from their memories. Stay tuned as pictures will be coming of us making those memories and so is Pinwheels for Peace, as we will take on this fabulous project again this school year in September, please look back at past posts from last year and enjoy some of our Magical Peaceful Pinwheels Whirling in the wind... Best to you till then.

Summertime, Summertime, Sweet Sweet Summertime...

I have really enjoyed the summer with my own children.  While hot at times and totally overwhelming at others, there were so many time that there was nothing but pure joy upon my face and in my heart.  I have also looked forward to school and being back in my regular routine and seeing all my friends.  As I have spent many hours thinking up and looking for new projects and adventures for us to take in the art room together this coming school year.   I have come in a few times to help me get back in the swing and get my room put back together from the summer clean-up.  Our school looks amazing by the way, so say thanks to your custodial staff as you come back to school, they like to know we notice.  Ms. Hawkins, Mrs. Childers, and Mrs. Mosley, have spent lots of time getting things ready for our new year to start as well. So when you see them make sure that you let them know you are grateful for their efforts too.  All that said... I am excited to see your faces and hope to post up a pic or two from the summer in the coming days, so stay tuned for summer updates!

Mrs. Everett