Pumpkin Art, Literacy and Sharing
/Over the last few weeks we have been exploring different art media and techniques. Last week our artists combined multiple medias to create fall starry sky paintings. We started with pencil line drawings, then outlined our drawings using oil pastels. We used the oil pastels to make textured grass and swirls in the sky. Then we used blended tempera to paint our pumpkins. When the pumpkins dried we added yellow and white oil pastels over the tempera to create depth and portray the moon shining on the pumpkins. Lastly, we brushed watercolor across the sky. This entire process took almost a week. We talked about how adult artists often take days, weeks, or even months to finish an art piece. Persistence and patience are important skills in art, and in life. Please be sure to admire our finished art pieces in the entrance area to the Otters indoor classroom.
Our college buddies continue to visit us each Monday afternoon! Together students and college buddies have been exploring various genres. One week our college buddies helped us read new poems, complete word work with the poems, and add poems to our poetry binders. Another week the class did a choral reading of a scientific magazine. Then college buddies worked with Otter students to find children’s magazines that were the right fit to add to book baskets. Buddies discussed strategies for reading magazines including reading captions, headings, and diagrams. Otters also have multiple opportunities to read stories and graphic novels from their book baskets with their buddies. How lucky we are to be a community of readers with access to great mentors and teachers!
Not only do we have the opportunity to learn from our college teacher candidates, we also learn from each other on a daily basis. Students frequently bring in interesting news articles, photographs, or materials from nature to share with the class. In addition, students share their mathematical thinking and their writing pieces with one another. These informal daily presentations allow Otters to inspire one another as they gain practice in presenting information in a strong, effective manner.
Our Tuesday afternoon library visits have been busy and productive! Each week when we visit the local library we choose a book or two for our individual book baskets. We also select books needed to complete our classroom research projects. Our library card currently has 87 books out! Recently we’ve been checking out books about plants and salmon to aid us in our investigations. Today we also checked out several fantasy books to launch our Writer’s Workshop exploration of imaginative writing.
