2nd Grade Fire Safety Poster Winners

The Fisher 2nd grade winners are Maggie in Bowie's classroom, Vanessa in Stansberry's classroom, and Gabriela in Reuss' classroom.

The Woodbury 2nd Grade Classroom Winners are Rafael from Ortega's homeroom, Cesar from Garza's homeroom, and Abbey from Harris's homeroom.

3rd Grade Classroom Fire Safety Poster Winners

At Woodbury elementary 3rd grade classroom winners are Priscilla in Stanton's homeroom, Elizabeth in Oviedo's homeroom, and Mattea in Byer's homeroom.

The Fisher 3rd Grade classroom winners are Austin in Mrs. Trickett's room, Trevor in Mrs. Lenz's room, and Joel in Mrs. Pollpeter's room.

4th Grade Classroom Fire Safety Poster Winners

The 4th Grade Classroom winners at Woodbury are Taylor in Mrs. William's homeroom, Cecilia in Lankelma's homeroom, and Tania in Mr. Placencia's homeroom.

The 4th Grade classroom winners at Fisher are Iliana in Mrs. Christensen's room, Amador in Mrs. Duff's room, and Rubi in Mrs. Freiberg's room.

Jaime from Mrs. Reuss' class is the City-Wide Second Grade First Place winner, and Dawson from Mrs. Bowie's class is the City-Wide Second Grade Second Place winner.

Diana from Mrs. Byer's class is the City-Wide 3rd Grade First Place Winner, and Cari from Mrs. Duff's class is the City-Wide 4th Grade First Place Winner.

The students in 2nd-4th grade have been busy making posters for the Fire Safety Poster contest. The theme this year is “Smoke Alarms: A Sound You Can Live With.” This fits with the Fire Department’s goal to make sure all the children of Marshalltown are protected with Smoke Detectors in their homes.

The results are in, and my Woodbury and Fisher elementary students did quite well!

In this post you can see the display at the Fire Department of the City wide winners. Also pictured is Lilly Bracy from Fisher, who is the top prize winner of the overall city-wide trophy. Congratulations Lilly! You can see her poster at the top-center of the City-Wide winners display.

Kindergarten Animal Drawings

Here are animal drawings by Brooke in Daugherty's, Keelyn in Oetker's, and Khloe in Egger's Kindergarten class.

More Animal Drawings

Here are animal drawings by Kaylie and Marcus in Mrs. Sienknecht's class and Oscar and Shawn in Mrs. Nunn's class.

In the book, “No More Monsters for Me” by Peggy Parish, students learned that monsters do not make good pets. In response to that, the students drew either the pet they wish they could have, or a pet they do have. We talked about using shapes to draw the animals. During this activity I asked the students to start considering the space behind and around their pets. I encouraged them to think about the setting for the drawing, and to fill up the whole paper.

Here are examples of Pet drawings by Caleb and Lily in Mrs. Pepper's class.

Even More Monster Drawings

Monster drawings by James and Rafael in Cahill’s homeroom.

More Monster Drawings

Here are monster drawing from Alexis in Romero’s homeroom and Melissa in Irwin’s homeroom.

I read the book, “No More Monsters for Me” by Peggy Parish to all the kindergarten and first grade classes. The students were very frustrated because I wouldn’t show them the pictures in the book. Half way through the book we stopped, and the students drew their own idea of what the Monster should look like. After reading the book and looking at the pictures, we discovered that kindergarten and first grade students have much more imaginative ideas about monsters than the illustrator, Marc Simont does.

In this lesson students learned that a story can build pictures in your brain, and that the pictures can be further developed by recording them on paper. They also learned that an illustrator does that for people, but that their ideas are not the only possible ones.

In this post you can see example moster drawings by Arlen in Nevarez’s homeroom, Brian in Estrada’s homeroom, and Iris in Jacobson’s homeroom.

Tutti Fruity, after signing autographs and smiling for the camera, talked to the students about Self-Portraits. The students looked at Self-Portraits by artists like Kathe Kollwitz, Vincent van Gogh, Grant Wood, Elizabeth Louise Vigee le Brun, Chuck Close, and Jacob Lawrence.

Tutti Fruity showed students his self-portrait that he drew with pencil and crayon; the same materials the students are using. When we looked at his portrait, the students realized that he likes to play soccer. He even signed his artwork, like a real artist might, in the bottom right-hand corner. It was nice to see Tutti Fruitty, and I hope he comes to visit again this school year to teach us another Art lesson.

This year, with the addition of Kindergarten Art, both the Kindergarten and First Grade classes are entering their first year of art classes. At first some students struggle to understand that an art assignment involves working on a creative problem. The creative problem in this lesson is to share something about yourself by drawing a picture of yourself doing something you enjoy.

Some students took this assignment to heart and added a lot of details. Other students were a little scared to even try and draw a face. Still other students simply colored for the enjoyment of making color appear on their paper. Watching and talking to the students as they draw is how I collect data to see what each student needs to help them develop drawing skills, become a good art student, and exercise their creative thinking skills.

Tutti Fruity Visits the Art Room

Tutti Fruitty, an artist and a very good friend of mine, has been stopping in the Art Room at both Fisher and Woodbury to visit the First Grade and Kindergarten classes. He is a very colorful, dynamic artist who uses dry media, like crayons and pencils. Today, while at Woodbury to visit Mrs. Estrada's First Grade Class, he posed for some photos. It was not very hard to talk him into posing for the camera. He loves to have his photograph taken!

Here are some examples of Native American Indian inspired Job Sticks by some 3rd and 4th grade students at Fisher.

Because our time in the Art Room is so precious, we need to follow procedures to help class run smoothly. On the first day of Art I will ask each student to write their name on and decorate a popsicle stick. Each class will store their sticks in a cup. When I need a student helper, I will pull a stick and ask the student to do a job. This procedure also helps me to learn student's names.

The photos to the left are of a stick I decorated several years ago. It is decorated like an American Indian game stick. In class we will be talking about American Indian game sticks, and how our name sticks are like them.

It is always good for us to think about the similarities between the art we make in the art room and art made by an artist or a particular culture. The Iowa Core Curriculum emphasizes how students need to learn about people all around the world. Students need to learn that other cultures are very different from us in some ways, and very similar to us in other ways. By better understanding the nature of people and cultures around the world, when students grow up and graduate, they will be ready for jobs in a global market.