The Gift of Storytelling and Puppetry

Puppets allow children to tell and retell a story and while doing it allowing them to essentially 'play' with pieces of the story. Here are pictures of the kids in 3rd grade telling the myth of Persephone. The main story remained unchanged, yet I taught the kids ways to get creative in their retelling by adding humor, and changing some basic aspects of the way the story was originally presented.

Storytelling, drama and acting allow children to experience the emotions. In retelling the story in their own way, their own words children learn about composition and how each aspect of a story is a 'moving' part that could be manipulated at the creator's will. Doing more storytelling, drama and acting allow kids to improve their own storytelling abilities for they see the huge part emotions and gestures play in the telling of the story.
Children who are normally shy amongst their peers suddenly come alive. In their mind, the puppet is speaking; not themselves. Acting and playing another person's role unleashes us from the bounds we normally place on ourselves when shy.
In order to create a play, one must first envision it in the mind. Here Zeus and Hermes float in a 'cloud' above 'frozen' Earth.
Here the characters are in the 'Underworld'
One of the 3rd grade classes is on their way to writing a modernized version of this story to tell their younger peers. We will begin this week. Keep checking for updates.

I must thank fellow blogger and now far away friend, Sally Haughey from Fairy Dust Teaching for making me believe in the power of stories and narrative for teaching. Every parent of a young child should check out this blog......Amazing work!

Totems in front of the art room

These are amazing! And to think they are essentially oatmeal containers, glue, paint and paper. Please take a minute to come by the art room and view them in person.

Values to create a 3D looking face

In third grade children have been studying values. Values are variations of dark and light on a 2D art and can be used to create a 3D look. they began the unit by looking at a simple mug and finding and drawing it's values, as well as creating a value scale using crosshatch. For this particular lesson children had to touch the various 'mountains' on their face, choose a light source and figure out which side of each face 'mountain' would be dark, light and medium values.

We also talked about the idea of contrast and how contrast is often used in art to make the lights appear lighter and the darks appear darker. The artist below created a very deep contrast.

A taste of POP art (5th Grade)

Artists in 5th Grade were introduced to the artist Lichtenstein and POP art. We discussed the process in which artists might choose a medium or a subject. We also addressed how by creating works inspired by another artist we gathered information about this process and how we can follow that process ourselves in our own work or personal interests.

Smocks, smocks, smocks

Although we have informed all families in the fall about this, I must again remind all families to make sure their child have a large paint t-shirt in their child's cubby/locker. I cannot guarantee your child's clothes staying clean without a smock. To teachers, the children need to come into art already wearing their smocks so that we can use those 45 minutes making art. If anyone out there have extra shirts, please donate them to the art room. They will be put to use on kids who do not yet have smocks.

What I do with all those egg cartons?

I must thank all the Murch parents who have been dropping off recycled 'supplies' for the art room. Here is a sample of what I do with the egg cartons. I cut them so there are 6 cups per palette. Then use black, white, red, blue, yellow and brown......

Keep them coming!!

Quilts on the stairways (2nd Grade)

Please take a minute to come see the 2 quilts hanging by the 2 front steps in the main building.

Finished Totems (4th Grade/Finberg)

These are finished mixed-media totems from 4th Grade (Finberg). Children learned a great deal during this unit. They learned about 3d forms, how to make then, manipulate their size, they learned about using paper to create a furry, feathery or scaly look. They learned to sketch out their ideas before moving on and they also learned to change their ideas based on circumstances. Each one has their own personality. They will be on display around the school for about a week.

Congratulations ARTISTS....your work will be on display at The Department of Education

I entered various student art pieces for the DCPS Department of Education Art Show last month and we have 7 Murch winners!!! I am so proud! Murch has more work in the show than any other school. Each winner will be getting an invitation to the ribbon cutting ceremony which will take place on January 26th at 11am at 400 Maryland Ave SW. The work will be displayed at the Department through February. Congrats winners!!!

Winners are:

Leoniya Aksyonov

Connor Yu

Langley Custer

Abubaker Uqdah

Chau Bach

Julia Ansberger

John Keating

Kindergartners use their box-making skills and team spirit to make a town

This is the small town built by the kindergartners.

Each house was built by a 'team' of 2 people.

Children in teams took time to discuss color choices.
Making the roof was new, but with a little extra help they all were able to use 4 triangles to make a roof.

Look at this team work!

Totems ready to be posted around the school

Here are some of the few totems that will be placed around the school in the coming weeks. Two of the three 4th grade classes are a few weeks away from finishing their sculptures since we had so many of their art days off in the past weeks. To think these were made from oatmeal containers and see how far they've come. The kids love their totems.

The totems are glued together......(Hense the drips...they will dry clear)

This artist wrapped a snake around his container.