Life imitates art.....

No, Michael has not gone wild in art class!....more to come on this lesson....and, please take  note  of the matching sweatshirts!...:)

Summer!

au revoir for the summer! practice your creativity...keep an open mind...and be kind!

we are READY, 2010-2011 school year.....

Here we go!....welcome to another year in the studio! Your place to practice right brain thinking, creative problem solving, imagining, visualizing and self expression!....welcome to all of my new 3rd grade artists...and welcome back to my 4th and 5th graders. I am looking forward to another year of working with you to find your creative voice. My hopes and dreams are that you will come to class with an open mind, and an open heart! See you very soon! Ms. G.

putting silly bandz to a good use......

I was watching a piece on the national news about a week ago. It was reporting that the extremely popular 'silly bandz' kids have been wearing have been banned in a number of school districts around the country; the reason being that they are considered to be a huge distraction. For those of you who might not know what they are, they're rubber bracelets that come in various shapes:planes, stars, hearts , the alphabet, etc. that you wear around your wrist. As a teacher, I have not found this to be the case at all. In fact, a bunch of my third grade students have put them to great use! We have been learning about color for the last number of weeks, and just completed a project around warm and cool color families. A bunch of my fabulous artists came to class yesterday and showed me they had sorted theirs into warm and cool color families!.....now, if THAT doesn't warm a teachers' heart, I don't know what would! Letting me know that they are carrying all that I bring to them out into their world is such a gift.......

art is....

we have begun!

   Founders artists have already begun to exercise their creative muscles with a short drawing assignment. They chose playing cards that had questions on them such as: "what if people lived in the ocean and fish lived on land?", "what if everyone was magnetic?" and, my all time favorite, "what if a dragon was your next door neighbor?". The great art education theorist, Maxine Greene, said something at a conference that continues to drive my perspective about how I teach.  She stated that "it is necessary, for greatness, that children be capable of imagining the world could be other than it is".  Creativity endures as one of the most powerful tools for change whether your 'medium' is art, engineering, social activism, law.

   Gerry Spence, the 'winning-est' lawyer in the United States, says that creativity is the key to greatness in any field....so....flexing those right-brained muscles are good for you, no matter what you grow up to be!

   Artists are constantly saying to themselves "I wonder, what if?" and these student artists are no different. They are drawing, what the world might look like to them if these "what ifs" were true!

   Please pardon our plain looking studio...we are just getting started!