Week of 2/10/2025 - 4th and 5th graders - Week 2

 This week 4th graders worked on their art submissions for Outside the Lens's media arts show Voice Out - this year their theme is "Change". Students had a table talk about what the word change meant to them. Some said quitting baseball and moving to basketball, changing the world to have people produce less trash, being more kind and so on. We then did a quick write on a white board of all the words that come to our mind while hearing the word change. Next, students, used a Google search to come up wit 2-3 simple drawings of the words they wrote.

Once done, each student took a photo of themselves with their face showing, hands in the shape of a heart etc. and we used the website remove.bg to create a transparent background and add a solid color. Students then imported this photo on Google Chrome and used the different tools available to create illustrations from their white board. Here are some examples - it was interesting to see how each student interpreted the same word in different ways to create their work! 

5th graders finished deigning their work on Tinkercad for their 3D printing - after receiving student feedback on what they can design, I gave the option of designing either a pendant or a trophy using just 3 forms. It was nice to give students options this year. I will print their works for them and they will have the option to paint it using acrylic paint! Stay tuned!

5th graders also started their weaving lesson. This is one of my favorite projects to teach as I am able to bring in so much of what I learned while pursuing my Masters degree in textile design! We look at fabric, discuss what weaving, warp, weft and a loom is and how there are weavers around the world to weave cloth. I show students weaving examples from Ghana, India and Mexico!

Each student was given a cardboard loom and a long piece of yarn. They learned how to loop the yarn around the notches to add the warp on the loom. Next, they threaded a needle, knotted the yarn around the needle and on the bottom right warp. They used an over under movement to weave their yarn. Once there was just a small amount of yarn left, students tied a knot and cut off the weft. They then repeated using a different piece of yarn. We will continue working on this next class to finish.