Friday, November 18, 2011

Puppet Making!

Third and fourth graders made puppets using paper clay, acrylic paint, felt and embellishments.  Mrs. Hale's and Mr.s Belknap's classes made puppets to use to tell their original Abenaki Native American-inspired folktales.  Mr. McAllister's class made puppets from fairy tales.  


Working with paper clay

Puppet heads made from paper clay and cardboard

Acrylic paint adds personality! 

Artists show off their finished puppets.




Monday, November 14, 2011

THANK YOU Ski and Skate Sale!

Last weekend was our school's biggest fundraiser, the Ski and Skate Sale.  The funds raised from this sale are what make it possible for our students to have such an amazing elementary school experience.  Almost all families and staff are involved in pulling off this event.  Thank you to everyone for all of your hard work!  Our artists made these beautiful signs to show our appreciation.  




Turkeys!

We were asked to make some decorations for our annual Thanksgiving lunch.  Notice that not one student decided to trace his hand to make his turkey!  Artists were encouraged to use unrealistic colors to paint their turkeys. 































Tuesday, November 1, 2011


"Art teaches children to embrace the many different pathways that can be taken when solving a problem. Children discover the strength of their vision, and grow confident with their ability to make choices."





Friday, October 28, 2011

Not so Ugly Dolls!


 Fifth and sixth grade artists are creating original Ugly Dolls!  They are learning about symmetry in their classroom, so this project ties in very nicely.

We started by folding a piece of free draw paper in half the tall way and drawing half of a monster shape along the fold.  Then we cut them out and traced the monster onto colored paper.  We glued our ugly dolls onto black paper and used scrap paper and black markers to add simple details to the faces.

The next phase of the project is to make an Ugly Doll out of felt.  We traced the monster onto two sheets of felt, then cut them out.  We used scraps of felt to add details to the doll and then sewed the two pieces together with whip stitch.  We stuffed the Ugly Dolls with filling.

Each artist named his or her not-so-Ugly Doll and came up with character traits and a short story about the monster.


Here are the finished paper not-so-Ugly Dolls


































Students folding paper and cutting out symmetrical shapes. 



Students breaking my cardinal "no shadow puppets" rule of using the projector.  They are using their Ugly Dolls as shadow puppets on the official Ugly Doll website