When a Trailer Park Campus Feels Like a Palace...

I was fortunate enough to visit a needy, rural school in Jamaica to donate some art supplies recently. Despite basic facilities, concrete and tin construction, no glass in the "windows", and desks which looked like they came from the 1800s, the teachers were implementing a rigorous curriculum and students seemed eager to learn. 

Teachers handmade most of their own teaching resources and seemed deeply committed to making the most with very little. The students were eager to share and be photographed. 

 

Our visit was sobering yet inspiring and reinforced my feeling that we at Lafayette are so very fortunate!!!

Miles of Chain Link Fence? Sounds Like a Blank Canvas to Me!

Ms Shapiro's 5th graders recently spent a few art classes creating some public art on our campus fences. We began by planning and looking at photos of other fence artists at work! On a recent spectacular fall day we created our own chain link fence art installation! 

 

Celebrating Spooky Things Art Room Style

I LOVE Halloween and all the juicy, creative tie-ins to our art curriculum, and I am just recovering from all the fun! It was such a blast that I didn't remember to record the moments to share but here are a few highlights I scrabbled together!

First graders examined African masks as part of a unit on using found materials to create art... then WE collaged mask art with shells, wood and rafia.

Second graders were creating charming box trolls for our fall festival as a part of their unit on how artists use facial expressions... thank you to the fair chairs for remembering to take photos!

Third graders learned about how artists use perspective in these spooky landscapes.

And 4th graders had fun with wacky dancing skeletons as we begin our work on the human body.

 
And me? I dressed as Frida Kahlo for our Halloween parade and was delighted when both 4th and 5th graders recognized who I was!

Guess who this member of my Day of the Dead mariachi band is?

The Reason for a Flower...

Ruth Keller's delightful book says, "The reason for a flower is to manufacture seeds!" Plants and seeds were the classroom focus last month in science. But as we painted large O'Keefe style flowers in the art room, 2nd graders also explored color value... how artists use tints and shades to give form to a flat object or to add light or shadow or contrast.

Playing pass the painting with Georgia O'Keefe

 

Day 1- Mixing tints

Day 2- Mixing shades

Finally adding a pistil and staymens with pollen

...and cutting and attaching our flowers

Dot Day 2015 Was Dotilicious!

On September 15, Lafayette joined millions of teachers and students around the world to celebrate creativity, collaboration, and the courage to "Make Your Mark!" A delightful, sunshiny day just made our outdoor campus feel more like a delicious celebration! 
Here are a few moments from our special day:

Sidewalk Chalk During Recess... a Great Way to Express How We Were Feeling!

No Walls in Our New Trailer Campus? No Problem!

Have Dots? Think Cookies:)

Negative Space Hand Dots

Dotty Cuna Indian Molas- Thank you Grade 2!

Our Spanish Teachers Show Their Dot Day Spirit!

Sharing Our Dot Day Attitude!

Celebrate Creativity You Say? 

How About a Custom Designed Shirt?

We Even Dotified the Fence!

Feeling Grateful As We Transform

Feeling grateful for Mr. Young preserving and rehanging our sweet LAFAYETTE panels, a labor of love by Lafayette's class of 2011.

 

Feeling grateful for a light-filled, functional, air conditioned art room and engaged, curious, thoughtful, creative students:)

Fifth graders classifying art by style and justifying their choice!

Feeling grateful for enthusiastic, warm supportive parents. And feeling grateful for our "tree-house" campus, where we will find new ways to make and hang art in our outdoor hallways and on many yards of fence which beckon like a blank canvas.

And finally, feeling grateful for the opportunity to watch Lafayette reborn... beginning with giant earth moving machines carving huge holes where our 1970s addition used to be and the promise of a crane next week, all right outside our art room windows... so much excitement!!!

Celebrate Creativity at the Visionary Museum!

A few weeks ago, Ms. Perll and I spent an inspirational morning in Baltimore at one of my all time favorite museums where one learns to expect the unexpected and find delight in the quirkiness of humankind!

Art work at the museum has been created by untrained artists who find their inspiration from within.

AVAM believes, "there is great power in not knowing what will or won't work" and they state, "as in science, ignorance often gives birth to genuinely new inventions...Discovering possibilities that others do not see is what visionaries do best."

Whirlygig and found object sculpture by Vollis Simpson

After viewing the museum, we had lunch with a spectacular view of this sculpture and federal hill. Here is the advice posted on the cafe wall:

I am hoping to keep the same sense of delight and wonder as we create art in our magical trailer "treehouse" this school year and watch our new school building be constructed in front of our eyes. What an amazing opportunity for learning and inspiration!!!