Third Grade: September-October

My Third Graders have Art for a or a 1 hour session for more traditional Art and a 38 minute session for a Humanities Art class that integrates their Social Studies and Science with Art. This year the Common Core expectations of Math and Literature will also be integrated into their Art class.

Self Portraits 

To begin the year students did a self portrait. Recalling what they learned last year students created a self portrait to the best of their ability. I will be using their portrait to assess their growth at the end of the year.

Fall Trees

Third Graders created fall trees and sunsets after looking at the work of Gustav Klimt an Austrian Artist who I was lucky enough to see his work in Austria. We discussed how trees cast different shadows during the day and that the also vary on the time of the year it is.

Constitution Day

On September 17th the Third Graders were introduced to the Constitution. We discussed how this document is important to Americans. We talked about different symbols that might symbolize America or the United States. Students came up with the American Eagle, the White House and the Statue of Liberty. We decided to do a portrait of the Statue of Liberty. 

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

Last year Ms. Machida (retired Music Teacher) and I earned the DTE School of the Year for Arts Integration. In honor of us receiving this award we were given free tickets to a UMS performance. The performance our 3rd and 4th Graders saw was The Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. It was amazing. The images that are below are drawing the students did after the performance. The drawing mannequins were put in different dance poses. The background was inspired by Marc Chagall's American Windows which was used for inspiration for the performance.

American Windows were created to celebrate the country as a place of cultural and religious freedom, dealing with the arts: music, painting, literature, theater and dance.

Egypt

Third Grader students did a unit on Egypt. Students made shadow puppets, learned the hieroglyphs, created mummy cases and created an Egyptian self portrait. Students created shadow puppets to help them understand how and why shadows exist. While students created their puppets they wanted to do a play with them.