Masterpiece of the Month for December

This month our Masterpiece of the Month winners are Jacob Mills and Hannah Looper.  Artworks are chosen based upon originality / creativity, neatness, and adherence to the topic requirements.  Jacob did a self-portrait using only his own fingerprints. Hannah designed a watercolor Impressionistic painting based on Claude Monet's Water Lillies landscape painting.

Native American Art

The last couple of weeks we have been creating Native American-style artworks.This is all part of our culturally diverse curriculum.
Some of us created Native American-style bowls with patterns, as you can see below.

Others of us created a beaded pattern on Native American-style bracelets, with each color representing a characteristic about our own personalities.

As you can see, we are having a blast learning about the Native American culture! 

Colors, Colors Everywhere

This week students are studying all about colors and color schemes.  In kindergarten, students studied the book "Why is Blue Dog Blue?" by George Rodriguez (the artist who created Blue Dog).  The students then drew their own "blue" dog and evaluated their own artwork using a smiley, normal, or frowny face card. 

Colonial Period Art

This week, students in 2nd grade enjoyed making Colonial-era Hex Signs. These signs were originally brought to our country from the German and Dutch immigrants in Pennsylvania.  They were decorative additions to barns and other buildings. They were supposed to bring good luck.

Fourth graders learned about Colonial portraits. They got to draw and watercolor paint portraits of their own.

Colonial Period

This week students began their unit on the Colonial / Early American Period of our country's history.  We have two students from our local university (Mid-Continent) working with students several days per week. This week they are helping 3rd graders build log cabins, design American flags, and create Yankee Doodle "caps" (as shown in the photos below).

Students are responding to Colonial Period drama by performing Readers' Theater plays and then designing props that would go with each play.

  

Masterpieces of the Month for September!!

This month's Masterpieces of the Month were presented by Drew Hayden and Draven Thomas.  Congratulations, boys!! Their artworks showed creative use of shapes.

The 2013 Annual Mayfield/Graves County Gourd Art Festival!!

Many students from Central and other surrounding schools visited the 3rd annual Gourd Arts Festival sponsored by the local Art Guild.  Students enjoyed exploring the various booths with locally-handmade gourd art, creating their own artworks using gourds, paint, and hot glue, and watching or participating in the Gourd Derby Race. What a fun Saturday for all!!!

Impressionism Come to Life!

6th grade studied the Impressionist KY artist Paul Sawyier today.  We then created his famous painting of the Old Covered Bridge with Flower Peddler, using our bodies as real-life Impressionistic art.  What a fun drama activity!!

Emotion "Masks!"

In 2nd grade this week, we have been talking about costumes and how masks are a part of costumes in plays.  We used our faces to demonstrate emotion masks using the story of "Pinnochio."

Responding to Drama!!

This week students in 3rd grade enjoyed watching a play based on Johnny Appleseed, called "Appleseed John - Ragdoll Come to Life."  They then wrote the BME of the play and drew pictures of their favorite characters wearing costumes and explained why they chose that particular character.

 

This week was all about the INSTRUMENTS!!!

As you can see from the photos, we have really been enjoying playing those instruments this week!!  Younger students got to learn all about the kettledrum and found it to be a rather interesting instrument.

  

     The 6th graders got to play and experiment making various rhythms using only the pitches/notes of F, G, and A.  They played their rhythms on keyboards and xylophones to a John "Cougar" Mellencamp song, "This is Your Life."

 5th Graders watched a YouTube cartoon video of the orchestral piece "Peter and the Wolf." They then got to play various instruments to represent each of the characters as I read the story aloud.

  Of course class would not be complete without an evaluation, a self-evaluation, that is!!  Students got to grade themselves on their musical performance for the day.

    ANNOUNCING OUR FIRST EVER "MASTERPIECES OF THE MONTH" WINNERS!!!!
JAYDEN HESTER AND JASON GRIGGS!!!  CONGRATULATIONS!!  Artworks are chosen each month according to originality/creativity, neatness, and adhering to topic guidelines. Their picture will be featured in the Family Life section of "The Mayfield Messenger."