READY for RECORDER

As you may have heard, the third graders are learning to play the recorder!

Learning another instrument gives the girls a new outlet to apply their music-making and note-reading skills. Despite common opinion, the recorder was not invented as a parental torture device. :) It is a woodwind instrument dating back to the Middle Ages - and it can be played beautifully!

Click on this link to watch Michala Petri, a professional recorder soloist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlF7dJLt1PY

By now, all third graders have received their "take home and keep" recorder.  At-home practice is NOT required, but many girls love to experiment, create new songs, and play their favorites from music class.

Let your daughter teach you what she has learned about how to get a great sound!  She can explain and demonstrate the Rainbow Reminders!

Art_Dot Painting

Some of the girls' thoughts while painting: 

I thought about then original symbols and remember bet how they look so I could really make my story come alive. 

I thought about using complementary colors to make my designs pop out. 

I thought about what my mom talked about when describing her experiencing seeing aboriginal paintings in Australia. She said they were very colorful and the important symbols stood out. 

Celebration of Winter Birthdays!

      On a chilly morning in January the third graders enjoyed celebrating
their classmates' winter birthdays during an indoor recess.

Empty Bowls

The third graders are glazing their bowls for Empty Bowls. The Empty Bowls Dinner event is Thursday, February 15th from 5-7pm. It is a very popular community event, so sign up today! 

Art_The Perspective of Power

The third grades started the new unit sharing everything they knew about ancient Egyptian civilization. Then, they analyzed an Egyptian painting from the tomb of a man named Menna noticing how the style, symbols and story depicts the ancient Egyptian perspective as we understand it. They considered the systems of power and how it was very human centered.

Then, they were presented with artworks made by Australian aboriginal painters. They posited their perspective. Compared to the Egyptians’ style including fine lines, geometric shapes, size hierarchy of figures, symmetry, and power symbols, the aboriginal Australians used a dot method equalizing the figure/ground components. They are abstract and use symbols that express their relationship to the land. Another perspective difference is that the Egyptians prepared for the Afterlife while the aboriginal Australians honored their ancestry - a concept they call Dreamtime. The power perspective is much more land centered and community based in these paintings suggesting a shift to the concept “empower” instead.

The girls planned their own dot painting after doing some research using a contemporary art website www.kateowengallery.com. They are painting on large black paper using symbols they learned about or making up their own.

Here’s their start:

Art_Still Life & Shared Darks and Lights

The girls built their own 3D forms: rectangular prism, sphere, cylinder, and cube. Then they designed their own form combining shapes to build a pitcher or a vase. They arranged them to create a still-life in the style of the Italian painter Morandi. After doing a few studies of the shared lights and darks across the forms in charcoal and ink, they painted the still-life mixing tints and shades of acrylic. 

Morandi reference...

Building 3D forms...

 

Example of using value to create form...

Completed works...

Hour of Code

This week, your daughter participated in the Hour of Code.  “The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries” (hourofcode.com).  We use this as an introduction to the programming your daughter will be doing throughout the year.  Learning the basics of programming reinforces problem solving and logic skills.

In third grade, students had a choice of Flappy Birds or Mindcraft.  Both of these are challenging and serve as a great introduction to the Lego WeDo robotics and programming we do later in the year.

If you would like your daughter to explore more at home, use this link.  Please note, different activities run on different devices and are appropriate for various ages.