Connections, Connections

To celebrate completing our latest read-aloud, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, we created our own pretend Metropolitan Museum of Art right in Mrs. Jarvis’s classroom.  In the book, Claudia and her brother run away from home and live in the MMA.  While they are there, they connect with a mysterious angel sculpture, hunting down clues to find out its story.

Today we invited two marvelous artists to share their work with us. We saw a variety of types of art and heard the stories behind them.  We learned that artists practice a long time, often beginning at a very young age.  Mrs. Jarvis explained how instrumental some of her family members were in helping her develop as an artist, for her elementary school did not have an art program.  She allowed us to look at some of her work from long ago and compare it to some of her work recently.  A student asked Mr. McFarland how long it took to create one of his sketches, and he shared a quote that a sketch might take “five minutes plus twenty years.”  What do you think that means?  Does it match our growth mindset thinking?

One of my favorite moments was hearing that the inspiration for one of Mr. McFarland’s works was Euclid!  He brought in a very old geometry book and explained the thinking path that led to the gorgeous pastel we were viewing.  Not only is math everywhere, but how wonderful to know that our passions in one area of study can benefit another area.  Connections!

Finally, we each browsed through art books hunting for a work of art that connected to our own heart.  We wrote about why we loved that particular piece.  Stay tuned to the student blogs to read all about it!

Thank You, Mrs. Jarvis!

Our wonderful art genius volunteer, Mrs. Jarvis, created t-shirts with the elementary students to end the year.  Each student drew memories of the year, and Mrs. Jarvis combined them into a class design using a portion of art from each student.  Then each child printed his or her own shirt with her.  Here is a close-up of our “Great Adventure” t-shirt design, and here we are on Field Day enjoying our class t-shirts!

Marty Kelley Visits DES

Hee, hee, hee!  Baa Haa HAAAAA!!!!!!  Ho, ho!  We will remember Marty Kelley’s author/illustrator’s visit for a long time, for he filled our brains with KNOWLEDGE while keeping us laughing the whole time.

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We’ve been applying his tips to our writing already.  We’re especially working on putting lots of effort into the revision stage as he does, marking our paper all over with our fresh ideas and changes.

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We loved how he showed us every step he goes through to produce a book.

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What a hoot!

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He even drew one of the student’s ideas!

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We’ll be first in line for your next book, Marty Kelley!

Check out his website and see if you don’t laugh on the very first page. I did!
Marty Kelley’s Hilarious Website