Ecosystems

We've been at working making 'ecosystem mobiles' the last few weeks. We'd been talking a lot about ecosystems in recent weeks, looking at what ecosystems having common with 'community', a key concept in our program, and also how the gardens we are growing are part of larger ecosystems.

Students then created their own mini ecosystem mobiles. After looking at the work of Alexander Calder, and thinking about how like an ecosystem, a mobile is a type of art where the pieces interact with each other, students got to work, creating a version of an ecosystem of their choosing: lots of oceans, but also some forests, rainforests, swamps, deserts, jungles, farms, gardens and even a pond!

Happy MLK Day

"You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love..."
-MLK


Drawing of Martin Luther King Jr. done by one of our Kinder students in his journal last week!

Seeds are growing!

We were really excited to get back to school after winter break; new projects await, and a chance to check our seeds we planted before we went on vacation.

As we expected, they sprouted over the break - students were very impressed with the results! Spinach and corn seemed to grow the most in the 'mini greenhouses' we made out of plastic bags in the windows, but nearly all of the seeds showed signs of growth. Next step is to move the seedlings into small cups to live in the windowsills for the next month or so before we plant them outside in the ground.

I also had students fill out an 'evaluation', basically a series of simple questions about our classes to give us feedback: what they like, don't like, do they look forward to the class, what other kinds of things do they want to learn, so on and so on. I was pleased to see how many of them wrote about the seed project and gardens, they really seem pumped on doing the gardens this spring.


3rd graders Marco and Kristina check out how much their seeds grew over winter break!

We also started our 'ecosystems' project. Students are learning about ecosystems - what they are, different types of ecosystems, etc. They will then connect this knowledge to their own gardens they will created this spring - investigating their ecosystem, trouble shooting problems, learning about how interrelated things in nature are - as well as what they have already learned about 'communities', and the similarities between ecosystems and communities, a connection they have already picked up on.

For our first 'ecosystem art project' they are making mobiles of an ecosystem they will choose and research - we are also learning about the work of Alexander Calder and other mobile artists. They seem pretty excited about it - more updates on it as we progress!

Journals

Students are back from break and back to work in their Living Histories class. A few examples of our Hamilton elementary kinder's journals today:

Sowing Seeds

Christmas break is fast approaching, and the students are showing it! This week was a tough one to harness their focus, but we were able to get them excited with our final project for 2009. Armed with packs and packs of seeds, plastic bags, and coffee filters, Living Histories’ students started their first seeds of the 09/10 school year!





I like starting seeds this time of year; mild Southern California winters mean we can start planting the in the ground even before spring becomes official. Literally ‘planting the seed’ in their heads before break is a great way to get students thinking about all of our spring garden projects to come when they return to school.



The project itself is fairly simple; we use wet coffee filters to host the seeds and then place them in plastic sandwich bags that go in windows. Students get to pick several types of seed they want to start, writing the name of each plant on that bag so we know what is what when planting time comes.





I always love watching their reaction to this project - for many, its one of the first time they have ever seen a seed, and it’s crazy to watch their expression as their mind races to figure out how such a small thing can grow into a plant! They love comparing seeds with their classmates, noticing the different sizes and textures. When we get back, they will also be charting which seeds have started and which haven’t, how big some art - creating a graph to compare and figure out if there are varying conditions (water, sun exposure, etc.) contributing to the differences; it’s a great segway to introduce concepts of the scientific process and it’s connection to art and creativity.





We have also been using the idea of ‘recipes’ a lot thematically lately (see earlier posts on them creating ‘recipes for a good community’), so in addition to the planting, students wrote or drew out ‘recipes’ for growing plants.







They are VERY excited about this project - already checking the seeds daily and asking if they can take the vegetables and fruit home to eat them! I am hoping we have some impressive results when we return to class in two weeks. We’ll have to contain ourselves to growing indoors for about two months, but I am already in talks with school principals on locations for our gardens this year, with high hopes that they can be big enough to yield enough food for students to use in cooking and nutrition lessons, and perhaps even to sell in an entrepreneurial/business project as well. Much more to come on all of this - keep checking back for updates!

Happy holidays!

More Picasso portraits

Students have been completing their Picasso portraits this week - loving how these are turning out! I’m always fascinated by how they go about creating an image of themselves.

For this project, students are building on what they have learned about how symbols, shape and colors can be used to express feelings or ideas. They then connect that to abstract art,looking at examples of Picasso’s work. They are then given a few copies of a printed image of their face, and asked to ‘reconstruct it’ to express some sort of feeling. Our older students have been doing writing to accompany their pieces; too small to photograph well, but they are really interesting and a great exercise in helping them to conceptualize what it is they are creating.

Here are some examples from 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Longfellow:

Picasso portraits

Last week students were hard at work on their self portrait projects. This is one of my very favorite activities - students love getting to work with their own image, and it’s a great lesson to emphasize the ongoing theme of identity and self that we have been working with the last few weeks. We lead into the lesson by discussing notions of abstract art, how colors and shapes can convey a feeling, and how we can use those tools to express how we feel about ourselves. We then look at some of Picasso’s abstract work, thinking about how he stylistic choices conveyed feelings and ideas. From there, students dive in on their own images, creating a version of themselves as they see fit.

Below are some examples from 1st graders a Hamilton:

An afternoon in the park...

This week was a bit of a catch up one for us; students had a chance to finish up projects from their first three weeks of school (portfolios, identity collages and animal symbol masks), and we threw in a fun fall and Native American inspired activity for some diversity as well.

Today was Back to School Night at many of PUSD’s campuses, which means the after school program has to relocate for the afternoon so teachers and custodians can get the rooms looking nice and neat and clean. At Longfellow, we ended up at a local park, and decided to hold “Living Histories classes’ there. Bringing paints to the park on a day I had Kindergartners is either evidence of my ‘hardcore art teacherness’ or a lack of sanity. Maybe a bit of both.

But the project was wonderful. We had the students first do leaf rubbings, then paint the leaves, which they loved. I got the idea from Geninne’s Art Blog - I thought leaves she painted and such a great idea, and figured it was a project our students would enjoy. So far they are loving it - can’t wait to get these hung up in our room and let the older students have a shot at it.

Photos from our day in the park below: