PABLO PICASSO IN 3-D

Dear Parents,

This week we continued to study Pablo Picasso's work.  We learned that Picasso produced at least 50,000 works of art and 1,885 paintings.  He along with Georges Braque invented cubism, a form of painting that featured simple geometric shapes.  He is also known for making collages - gluing previous unrelated things with images.  No other painter or sculptor was as famous while he was still alive.  

After a class discussion we made our own 3-D Picasso faces.  First we traced a profile template of a face, then we drew a "U" shape around it, added oval eyes, eyebrows, hair and lips.  The children then painted on the features.  We then cut it down the middle,  taped a paper towel roll onto the back, and Voila a face is born!

We finished off the week by baking delicious alphabet cookies. Mmmm, were they good!

We then made a graph of all the alphabet letter cookies we made.  We counted out each letter and then added a cube to the graphing chart.  We now understand that we use graphs or charts to compare the amounts of items, such as which have the most and which have the least.

We have now completed our studies of the following artists for the art show:  Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Hugh Fisk Lane. Next week we will  be working on our free form sculpture.

Notes from Yuting:

Purple (紫色Zǐsè)  was the new color we learned this week and the

children were excited to try out the purple handbell.

The children also listened to the Mandarin version of "Go Away, Big

Green Monster!" by Ed Emberley. "The Big Green Monster has two big

yellow eyes, a long bluish-greenish nose, a big red nose with sharp

white teeth..." From listening to this story, the children reviewed

colors and our head's features. Each time they shouted "Go away!" (走开

Zǒu kāi), a facial feature of the monster disappeared.

Here is the video to the Mandarin version of the book:

https://youtu.be/HEkON4PJweU

Other areas of interest in the classroom:

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

ViINCENT VAN GOGH'S BEDROOM

Dear Parents,

This week we learned all about Vincent Van Gogh.  We now know that he lived a long time ago in 1853.  When he lived artists painted dark pictures but Van Gogh loved bright colors and he painted pictures that looked different at that time. No one even wanted to buy his paintings, but his brother Theo convinced him that he was a wonderful artist.  Theo even helped him buy art supplies to make his paintings.  Van Gogh spent most of his money on art supplies.  He lived in a little tiny room that had only a few things in it because he didn't have enough money to buy anything else.  
                    

We looked at  pictures of Van Gogh's bedroom.  He had his paintings on the wall, his bed, a chair, and a table.
We then asked the children, "How many of you have more things in your room?" Inspired by Vincent van Gogh's room we decided to create our own bedroom.  First we folded and glued paper into the shape of two walls, and then we painted the walls and the floor. We also shaped clay into a bed, a table, and a chair.  After the clay dried the children painted the furniture.  Finally, we glued on a picture of each child sitting on the chair. We placed a pillow and a blanket on their bed.  The results were spectacular!  

 

We will continue learning about different artists and creating their masterpieces. The art show will be held on Sunday, April 2, 2017 where we will display your child's art work.  The children can hardly wait for that day to come.

Some fun areas in the classroom:

We have learned 22 letters so far this year.  The last letter we learned was "V."  Some of the words  the children came up with beginning with that letter were: violin, vet, vaccine, violet, vase and volcano. 

Notes from Yuting:

Here's what we did this week in Mandarin--

We usually play the colored handbells while singing our "Hello Song". But, when we played the bells this week, the children got to choose the color they wanted by saying "Wǒ xǐ huan ___ sè" (I like ___ color). We also learned to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in Mandarin.

Here is the link to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". 

https://youtu.be/y-UUu9gAaEYPlease bring in several layers of clothes to be worn on the playground.  It gets very cold outside but the children love to play in the playground.

We had several children out sick this week and we wish them all a speedy recovery.

Love, 

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

ART IN BLOOM!

Dear Parents,

We had an amazing week at school.  The children worked so hard preparing for the art show.  On Tuesday we had a special visitor, Barbara Marder, a local artist and my art teacher as well.  She talked to the children about Fisk Hugh Lane. He was an American artist who was known as a "marine painter/sea scape artist.

Barbara Marder gave the children a lesson on drawing a sailboat. The children did a phenomenal job following directions and creating a masterpiece painting.  Wow, have they grown!  
The children spent three days on this project.  First, they sketched the sailboat and then they painted it.  Finally, they watercolored the sky and background.  They even added clouds.  Ask your children what the secret way to make clouds is.

                                        

We celebrated Caroline's 4th birthday with a delicious ice cream cake and party hats.  Thank you to her family for the delicious cake and treats.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE!

Notes from Yuting:

This week we read "Who Ate It?" by Japanese Children's book illustrator and writer Taro Gomi. The children had fun finding the food hidden among the animals in the pictures. They also got a chance the review counting, as each page has one more animal than the previous one. 

Since there are elephants on the second page of the book, we also reviewed The Elephant Song.

https://youtu.be/emVYCDY6Y5E

Elephant, elephant,

Why is your trunk so long?

Mom says a long snout is beautiful.

https://youtu.be/emVYCDY6Y5E

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Yuting 


 Fun in the playground:

We also had a visit from  Puddlestompers, a nature exploration program.  The lesson she taught the children was about birds, nests, and eggs.

We look forward to continuing our art theme by creating Vincent van Gogh's bedroom next week.

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara