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Maori Pattern Prints
In my last post I shared my school's tradition of the Foreign Film Festival, as well as information about the movie our eighth graders watched and the follow-up art project. I want to continue in that...
View ArticlePerformance Assessment and the Arts
We often see student eyes look up when an arts teacher arrives in a classroom. We notice how quickly students quiet down as that art teacher starts the class. And we wonder why as the class progresses,...
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Islamic Pattern Prints
At our yearly foreign film festival my 6th graders watched the movie Children of Heaven (Iran) 1997.In the movie Ali takes his little sister Zahra's shoes to the shoemaker to be repaired, but loses...
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Cutting the Arts? Why Cut a Critical Link?
One of the first things that goes, in a down economy, is sports and the arts. Both of these are vital to children and both ride on the economic health of the school and its system. The arts, I have...
View ArticleIndicators of Quality Arts Integration
In speaking with another educator today, our conversation turned to how we would know that a quality arts integration program was being implemented in schools. Some of the indicators of quality are the...
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Ode to Self: Whimsical Plaster figures inspired by figure drawings and Niki...
A primary focus for my 8th grade curriculum is self. I like to give my students opportunities to explore a variety of materials and to create two and three dimensional work in the process of self...
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Handmade Batik fabric pillows (without the hot wax!)
I am currently finishing up a batik pillow project that I do each quarter with my sixth graders but I have done this with students of all ages. We begin by researching the art of batik and the...
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Becoming 2-D Designers: Izze can, oil pastel compositions
I am currently working on a design unit with my fifth graders. I started the unit by sharing a catalog from an exhibition I saw at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum a couple of years ago, called Design...
View ArticleProduct Designs for a Sustainable Future
The next phase of our fifth grade design unit is to develop new products which are sustainable in some way. We begin by thinking through the list of designs we saw in our Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum...
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Scaled-up Self Portraits
My district curriculum map for 8th grade has a focus on self. The students like self portraits but sometimes it is fun to bring in a twist to the typical head shot version.For this project the...
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