2nd graders Beginning, Middle, End Correspondence

2nd graders just finished up a collaborative literacy based project connecting their arts class to their current study of beginning, middle and end in writing.

Visual Storytelling met with writing skills to create a story and image that travelled from classroom to classroom and student to student. Each student built upon the work of their classmate and in the end, the image and story had a beginning, middle and end.

1st: Students created an imagined land and wrote the beginning of their story

2nd: Students received imagined land worksheets, with the beginning of the story written out, and created characters to dwell in
the imagined land and the wrote out the middle of the story.

3rd: Students finished the story, added props or details if needed and completed the imagined world image.

Lastly: Students received their imagined world back, with a full story written, and shared stories aloud in class.

Here are some images of collaborative work:







Look for these pieces in person at the Celebration of Learning, in the connections to literacy!

3rd Grade Scientific Illustrators

Student's combined their imagination, writing skills, drawing skills and graphic design work to complete Scientific Illustrator magazines.

I was particularly excited that one student took time outside of class to try out different combinations of animals in his journal. His mother even participated by voting on her favorite invented animal:




Here are some of the finished pieces!

1st Grade Haitian Inspired Flags

1st graders learned about Haiti and the earthquake that recently occurred there through PowerPoint images gathered from news sources. As a class we used visual clues within "before" shots of Haiti to learn about the country, it's economical state before the earthquake, it's sense of community, and the Haitian people.

Students had a chance to look at traditional Haitian art, and focused in on Vodou flags, learning about their ceremonial purpose, symmetrical design, and place within the Haitian art scene and commerce.

Students picked from a list of Haitian loas, or gods and goddesses, in order to create their own Haitian inspired flags that will be sold at a fundraiser to benefit the people of Haiti.

Here are some images of students working on their designs!