Hi Families,
First, a quick highlight: artist and art educator Sarah Tiesenga joined Beye Discovery this past week. Sarah has recently taught at Stone Academy and Jones College Prep and facilitated Family Day programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Below are a couple photos from Tuesday, as Sarah met and conversed with the students. They shared interesting things about each other, such as favorite colors, foods and activities. Sarah's favorite color is purple, she loves pasta and enjoys drawing, painting, printmaking, fiber art, collage, paper art, sculpture and more!!! Welcome again, Sarah! Families, please scroll down (way down, since Jocelyne was camera happy this week) to see Sara's imaginative lesson from Thursday about time travel!!!
Also, if you would like to see Sarah's teaching portfolio with super
creative lessons, please visit the following link:
http://sarahtiesenga.com/section/240197_Teaching_Portfolio.html
On the Thursday before our snow storm, Nina introduced the first lesson in our unit on "transportation, energy, and movement" with an inventive project about car designs of the future (see previous post). This past week, we also:
1. researched and created papier-mache hot-air balloons and discussed the science that allows them to become airborne
2. made multiple paper jetplanes/gliders with a variety of modifications to test which designs flew the farthest
3. created life size silhouettes of each child who then filled their silhouettes with lines and shapes to convey rhythm and energy (inspired by the art of Gustav Klimt and the DVD "The Science of Disney Imagineering, Energy")
4. welcomed new teacher Sara Tiesenga who taught a super imaginative lesson on time travel!
5. studied the path of movement within Phillipe Halsman's surrealist photography and then created surrealist collages keeping this principle in mind (taught by Nina Rozes)
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| from left to right: Nina, Daysha, Cyrus and Lily |
Our papier-mache hot-air balloon project will be continued this Monday. Last week we began the lesson by using ipads to research hot-air balloon designs. The students soon realized that there were many variations on design, from the classic balloon shape, to farm animals, to Darth Vader and numerous other pop culture icons. We shared that Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, 2 French brothers, were credited with the first manned lighter-than-air flight in 1783. Their curiosity grew when they noticed that a shirt that had been hung out to dry (with a fire underneath) had billowed upward and appeared inflated. They first experimented with paper bags and fires made from various materials, however it was straw and wool that were used to create their "Montgolfier Gas". Experiments continued and balloon sizes grew. A sheep, duck, and rooster were the first passengers to ride in a tethered Montgolfier balloon during an 8 minute flight!
Last Tuesday, students had so much fun making paper jetplanes/gliders! We asked the students to repeat a single design several times and to create modifications to that design to see how each modification may impact flight, for better or worse. We were making predictions and testing in the Commons, to give us more room to conduct our experiments. Brody and Norah experimented with balloons attached to the rear of the planes and discovered that in this case, the force of their arm allowed the planes to fly farther than the air released from the balloons. Other modifications to the designs included the addition of paper clips or "woodsies" for added weight, additional folds to the wings and body, cuts into the rear of the craft, and hole punches throughout the body.
On Wednesday, students created life-size "rhythm and energy" drawings. To prepare, we viewed "The Science of Disney Imagineering: Energy" DVD and the work of Gustave Klimt to create a bridge between the science of our explorations about movement and energy and the 2-D representation of these forces. The students made some fabulous sketches during the DVD presentation, and these became a starting point/reference for their life-size energy and movement drawings. After watching the DVD, students were asked to share what they had learned about energy with the class: Here are some of their responses:
1. There are different kinds of energy
2. gravity will pull you down a slide
3. energy is transferred
4. friction will take some of the energy away (in the form of heat)
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| Leila sketching the tea cup amusement ride at Disney |
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| Emerson sketching the water slide attraction at Disney |
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| Dexter designing his own theme park attraction with snake theme |
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| Jessica with 3 examples of Disney theme park attractions: tea-cup, water slide, and roller coaster |
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| Nina likes to take notes too! |
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| Adain with his own theme park attraction design |
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| Dexter explaining his proposed theme park attraction to his classmates |
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| Another view of Dexter's theme park attraction |
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| everyone busy designing! |
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| Asa, a Disney Imagineer |
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| Emerson, Aidan and Dexter begin their energy drawings inspired by Disney's theme park rides |
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| Suzanne's drawing with lots of coiling energy! |
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| Dexter's rattlesnake tail with Aidan observing |
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| Jessica and spirals! |
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| Leila's coiling, energized lines |
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| Jessica, posed! |
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| Aidan at work |
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| Jessica's drawing with some "heart" designs by Nina |
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| Note the addition of high heels to Leila's drawing! |
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| Jessica, detail of lower leg and foot designs |
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| Daysha at work! |
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| Suzanne's completed drawing, full of energy and rhythm! |
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| Emerson with roller coaster/slide in his theme park attraction's belly |
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| Dexter's theme park attraction with rattlesnake tail (note the white lines indicating movement) |
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| Aidan's completed theme park attraction with dinosaur and roller coaster |
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| Emerson reviewing his work |
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| Emerson, almost done! |
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| Leila adding facial features |
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| Jessica's completed design, full of energy and rhythm!!! |
Sarah's imaginative lesson on time travel allowed the students to connect with this idea on several levels. First, Sara asked the students where they would go if they could travel to another time and place... to another galaxy, to the future or into a favorite story or book??? She then asked students to write about what they would see and do there. Next, students needed to consider the size and form of their time machines: could they hold it in their hand, wear it on their head or neck, or maybe sit in it? Sarah also challenged the students to add a kinetic feature to their time machines to further the concept of movement. Lastly, students created a visual document of their time machine travels using crayons and sparkly watercolor. In this lesson, students were storytellers, inventors, explorers and recorders of events! Thank you Sarah for such a super project!!! We can't wait to see you again next week : )
On Friday, Nina introduced Phillipe Halsman's surrealist
photography to study how the path of movement can be expressed within a 2-D image. Nina asked for volunteers to trace the path of the movement by identifying where the eye is drawn first and then where the eye is led, based upon the position of items in the photograph. For their project, Nina provided numerous images from National Geographic and fashion magazines for the students to create their own surrealist collage, keeping this principle
of movement in mind.
