The Arts – Page 2 – Mrs. Black's Class Blog

Cartooning/Writing/Drama Project 2

Margaret BlackNovember 11, 2015November 11, 20152 Comments

In mid-October, students in Grades 2-6 participated in a cartooning workshop, with illustrator Jermaine Smith from Freeze Kid's Comic Books.

Mr. Smith guided students through the process of drawing several cartoon characters.

Afterwards, students in our class used what they learned to create eight-panel comic strips.

Some students shared their work with the class, using our classroom document camera.

Here are some of the finished comic strips:

The next step in our project was to turn some of our comic strips into plays. Students organized themselves into groups of three to six, chose one of the comic strips created by a member of their group, and used it as the script planner. They then worked collaboratively to write a play, create props, rehearse, and present to our class, as a drama activity.

This is what the plays looked like...

The Banana Robbery:

Halloween Terror:

Clayton's Potions:

Voldekatypotter:

Supergirls:

Ninja Boy VS. the Vampire:

Students really enjoyed working their way through this integrated unit, which generated marks for them in visual arts, writing, the learning skill "collaboration," and drama.

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

3-D Pumpkin Art 2

Margaret BlackNovember 7, 20152 Comments

Our most recent visual arts project was intended to help students create depth in a piece of art, and replicate the gradations of colour that appear when objects are lit from above.

Step One: Mrs. Black brought three pumpkins to class, arranged them so one was in front of the other two, photographed this grouping, converted the photograph from colour to grayscale, and projected the image on the SmartBoard.

Step Two: We discussed how the positioning of the pumpkins created a sense of depth in the photo. The smallest pumpkin appeared to be in front of the others because it was lower in the photograph, and covered portions of the other two. We also observed the way light from above created gradations of gray on the pumpkins' surfaces. This was much easier to see in a grayscale rendering than in the original coloured photograph of the pumpkins, or by looking at the pumpkins themselves.

Step Three: Students tried their hands at creating three-dimensional renderings of the pumpkins, in pencil. They used shading to replicated the lighting effects they observed in the photograph... lightest gray on top, medium gray in the middle, dark gray on the bottom portion of the pumpkins and in the shadows they cast on the table.

Step Four: Using pencil, students transferred an outline of the pumpkins to black paper, and then traced over it with white glue. This created surfaces onto which soft chalk pastels would not adhere during the final step of the art project.

Step Five: After the glue had been left to dry overnight, students watched a video demonstrating how to blend soft chalk pastels:

Afterwards, students began to colour the pumpkins they had outlined in glue. For reference, a coloured version of Mrs. Black's pumpkin photograph was projected on the screen.

The results were simply stunning!

These pieces of art will be heading to the next Ramona Fall Fair!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Third Annual Wildlife Food Drive! 1

Margaret BlackSeptember 19, 2015October 13, 20151 Comment

Each year, our class engages in a variety of projects that fulfill curriculum expectations, while providing outreach that benefits the school, community and beyond.

Our first community service project is a campaign to assist four local wildlife rehabilitation centres with food gathering for orphaned wildlife that will be overwintering with them.

Orphaned animals need to be provided with the food they will eat in the wild, to ensure proper nutrition and so they know what to look for after they are released.

The goals of our project are:

to encourage students from Kindergarten through Grade 8, plus school staff, to collect acorns, pine cones, maple keys, apples, sumac, chestnuts and black walnuts for the animals
to inventory the food we collected
to prepare food for shipment to local wildlife rehabilitation centres

Our food contributions will go a long way toward sustaining and educating baby animals throughout the winter months. These are pictures that were sent to us last year, showing orphaned animals enjoying the fruits of our labours:

AV-raccoons-acorns This week, students in our class created a mural, posters and announcements, advertising Rama Central's third annual food drive for orphaned wildlife (media literacy, art, writing).

Students distributed our posters throughout the school:

They counted, bundled and delivered flyers, for students from Kindergarten through Grade 8 to share with their parents (addition):

We worked together as a class to write the script for an oral presentation about the food drive (shared writing), and then a group of seven students toured the school and delivered our presentation to all classes, from Kindergarten through Grade 8 (oral language, public speaking). Throughout the food drive, students from our class will also deliver messages and reminders via the morning announcements (oral language, public speaking).

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Each morning over the next three weeks, students from our class will collect food donations from children as they exit their school buses (volunteer service).

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This year, we are thanking students who donate food by inviting them to enter their names in a lucky draw.

Each week we will be giving away a set of these fabulous prizes. We want to thank the wildlife sanctuaries for donating items for our lucky draw!

At the end of each week, our class will sort, weigh, and count or estimate the number of items we have collected (measurement, addition, subtraction, multiplication, estimation), package the food for shipment, and load cartons of food into Mrs. Black's car (volunteer service). She will then drive the food to its destination.

Last fall, Mrs. Black delivered four car loads of food to various wildlife sanctuaries. This is what a typical shipment of food looked like:

This year's tentative delivery schedule is as follows:

Procyon Wildlife, in Beeton: weekend of Sept. 26-27
Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, in Pefferlaw: weekend of October 3-4
Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, in Minden: weekend of October 10-12
Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rosseau: weekend of October 17-18

This PowerPoint presentation, which showcases our 2014 campaign, provides more detail about the curriculum connections and activities associated with the food drive (click on the image below and the PowerPoint will download to your computer):

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

One-Point Perspective Art

Margaret BlackApril 6, 2015Leave a comment

In March, we learned to draw and paint pictures that show distance the way our eyes perceive it... that is, in "perspective."

These are the Success Criteria for this project:

We took our time and added a lot of detail. One of the challenges was creating paint colours that were not available on our paint palette (e.g. brown).

Here are some of us hard at work:

These are some of the finished products!

We think you'll agree that they turned out pretty well!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Island Survivor 2014: Social Studies, Collaboration & Drama!

Margaret BlackDecember 20, 2014December 21, 2014Leave a comment

This week, during Literacy and Social Studies periods, our class participated in an island survivor simulation. The exercise was designed to consolidate learning in Social Studies, while stretching students’ ability to work collaboratively in assigned groups and providing them with an opportunity to engage in role play.

Prior to undertaking this project, students in Grade 4 worked in pairs or individually, to research one of Canada’s physical regions. Students in Grade 5 completed an inquiry project exploring the roles of various levels of government in addressing social and environmental issues. Students used this prior knowledge to inform their "island survival plans." Each student also created a character he/she wished to play during our island survivor simulation.

This is the basic outline of the project (Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Day 1

On Monday, we discussed the terms "collaboration," "compromise" and "consensus," as a class. Students were told that the goal was to reach consensus within their small group, when developing their survival plans.

Students were then assigned to groups and given name tags, information packages and survival plan templates.

For the purpose of the island survivor exercise, Grade 4 students "crash landed" in the region of Canada that they studied. After the class was divided into their survivor groups, the Grade 4 students taught their Grade 5 island-mates about the region in which they found themselves stranded.

Then, within their small groups, students introduced their characters to each other and began brainstorming a list of all the things they might be able to do with the items that were salvaged from the plane. Two students that participated in this exercise last year were given the task of researching search and rescue methodologies. They also took on a role as small group facilitators.

Day 2

On Tuesday, groups continued their work exploring potential uses for the items salvaged from the plane and began to develop their survival plans.

Day 3

On Wednesday, one or two members of each group began work on a land use map of their island, while other group members refined their survival plans. Students responsible for search and rescue plotted search grids on regional maps that included the locations of our islands.

Day 4: Search and Rescue/Ontario Survivor Press Conferences

On Thursday morning, groups were told that, against all odds, they had been found! They were told they would be invited to participate in a press conference explaining how they had survived their island ordeal. The students that had researched search and rescue methodologies prepared to role play a presentation about how the survivors had been found.

On Thursday afternoon, Search and Rescue and the group that had been stranded on an island in Ontario attended their press conferences and made presentations. The rest of the class acted as members of the press gallery, listening to information, posing questions and completing presentation feedback forms.

During presentations, our student teacher, Miss Carson, and Mrs. Black also completed presentation feedback forms, and filled out rubrics assessing each student's performance as a role play actor.

Day 5: Nunavut, Newfoundland and British Columbia Survivor Press Conferences

On Friday, we held press conferences for the survivors that crash landed in Newfoundland:

Nunavut:

and British Columbia:

At the end of the process, students completed peer evaluation forms reflecting upon their group work skills and the skills employed by the other members of their small group.

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

These are the scores the class gave each group's overall survival plan, based on their performance at the press conference:

Ontario: 64%
British Columbia: 59%
Newfoundland: 58%
Nunavut: 51%

The class was also asked to rate the odds of each group surviving a winter in the wilderness, based on the survival plans they presented. These are the class' estimates:

Ontario: 65% chance of survival
Newfoundland: 65% chance of survival
British Columbia: 57% chance of survival
Nunavut: 47% chance of survival

Congratulations to the survivors who crash landed near Shakespeare Island, Lake Nipigon, northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario! You are the winners of Island Survivor 2014!!

Island Survivor was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for most students in the class; a frustrating one for a few. While groups were meeting to brainstorm ideas and achieve consensus about their survival plans, Miss Carson and Mrs. Black circulated. They stepped in and facilitated whenever personality clashes or inexperience with consensus-building created an impasse. They hope the one-on-one and small group coaching that transpired during this activity will provide students with some new tools and strategies they can employ next time they are collaborating with others on a project.

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Hometown Heroes Project!

Margaret BlackNovember 24, 2014November 24, 2014Leave a comment

"Hometown Heroes" was a multi-step curriculum-based project that met expectations in three curriculum areas and included a character education/outreach component. Art and written work generated by this project will be included in our new student portfolios.

Click on any photo in this BLOG post to enlarge it.

STEP ONE: Brainstorm your strengths, abilities and interests.

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STEP TWO: Draw a caricature of yourself and label it with some of the ideas from Step 1 (Visual Arts).

Here are some of the finished products:

STEP 3: Think of an outreach project you have the strengths/skills to complete, and create a job description for the task (media literacy). This project should benefit family, neighbours or the community.

Students chose a wide range of outreach initiatives. Some projects of benefit to family included: babysitting, teaching crafts to younger siblings, helping with grocery shopping, cooking breakfast, washing dishes, doing laundry, raking leaves, shoveling snow and helping prepare the home/yard for winter. Projects of assistance to others outside the home included: assisting a neighbour that was recovering from surgery, making cards for children in hospital and volunteering at a veterinarian's office.

STEP 4: Write a manual for your outreach project (procedural writing).

STEP 5: Go home and do the task you identified (character education/outreach)! 🙂

STEP 6: Reflect upon how it felt to be a "hometown hero."

STEP 7: Participate in a sharing time/celebration of your accomplishments with the class!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Drama: Building a Community

Margaret BlackJune 17, 2014June 18, 2014Leave a comment

Over the past two months, our class engaged in a team-building and drama activity that was developed by the Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educators. The unit plan can be found here: http://www.code.on.ca/resource/building-community

The class was divided into two random groups, by drawing coloured cubes from a bag. Each student was asked to develop a role for him/herself, within his/her community. Then each group was given several tasks to complete, including making up a name for their town, identifying a mayor and town council, designing a map and flag, and developing a town philosophy and list of special features. Mrs. Black displayed the community profiles on foam boards (click on any photo to enlarge it):

After community profiles were complete, students were told that the Ontario Government had identified the area between the two towns as a potential new landfill site for refuse from Toronto. They were told that the forest area between their towns would be clear cut, a highway would be built south of the two towns, and an interchange and access road would provide dump trucks with access to the landfill site. Students were told that the towns would be financially compensated for any inconvenience the project might cause, and that the highway would likely bring them more tourists.

Residents of both towns were then invited to dress in role and attend a large group discussion about the landfill and highway project. A lively debate ensued. Students saw few long term benefits, but identified many negative possibilities associated with the project:

loss of important wildlife habitat due to clear cutting of the forest between the two towns
noise from the highway and dump trucks
potential for accidents and spills involving dump trucks
pollution of the land, air and water by materials in the landfill
loss of revenue, because the forest to be clear-cut supports Maple Ridge's syrup industry
unsightliness that would drive away tourists
potential for crime in their small town, because of easier access from the city
loss of revenue due to the need for greater police presence, to deal with increased crime

In the end, the class reached consensus; every student felt that no amount of short term financial gain could adequately compensate them for the hardship the project would entail. When the government representative came to the meeting to address any concerns, she (Mrs. Black, in role) was peppered with hard questions and comments about the landfill and highway project. On behalf of the government, Mrs. Black reluctantly agreed that the towns' environmental concerns may have some merit and agreed to order an environmental assessment.

Students were congratulated on their role-playing and debating skills, and told that they did a fine job identifying potential issues with the proposed project!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Decorating “Bowls for Beds” 2

Margaret BlackApril 1, 2014May 13, 20142 Comments

On Tuesday, April 1st, Mr. Fitzgerald’s Grade 5/6 class and the Grade 5's in our class assisted with a fund-raiser to benefit homeless women and children in Orillia.

Volunteers from Georgian College and Couchiching Jubilee House came to the school, gave a presentation about homelessness, and provided students with ceramic bowls, paint, brushes, and instructions.

Students then created beautifully painted ceramic bowls that will be fired and used at a soup-tasting fund raiser for Couchiching Jubilee House, a transitional housing facility. The soup-tasting event will be held at Twin Lakes Secondary School, on April 27th, and will feature the best soups from restaurants across Orillia and area. Several students and their parents opted to purchase the bowls they decorated, which will serve as their tickets to the event. The rest of the student-decorated bowls will be sold to the public for use at the event.

Here are pictures of students in action, painting their soup bowls. Click on any picture to enlarge it:

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Marvelous Miss M.!

Margaret BlackDecember 17, 2013December 19, 2013Leave a comment

Over the past five weeks, Olivia Manovich, a teacher-candidate from Lakehead University's Faculty of Education, completed a teaching practicum in our classroom. During her first week with us, Miss M. observed Mrs. Black's teaching. From weeks two through five, Miss M. began to create her own unit and lesson plans and teach the class herself, with Mrs. Black providing feedback. Each subsequent week, Miss M. assumed a larger proportion of the teaching responsibilities, until last week (week 5) when she was teaching full time.

Miss M.'s enthusiasm was contagious and her thoroughness was second to none. She brought as many new ideas to the table as she took away! We want to thank Miss M. for all her hard work and dedication. It just won't be the same when we return in January, and Miss M. isn't there. 🙁

Here are a few images of Marvelous Miss M. at work with our class (click any photo to enlarge it).

Introduction to The Elements of Dance:

Daily Physical Activity:

Math:

Writing:

Gym (Volleyball):

Science:

Playing with the school band and teacher-band:

We wish Miss M. all the best in her future as a teacher. Any school would be lucky to have her!!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Island Survivor 2013: Social Studies, Cooperation & Drama! 1

Margaret BlackDecember 17, 2013December 18, 20141 Comment

Last week, during Literacy and Social Studies periods, our class participated in an island survivor exercise. This exercise was designed to consolidate learning in Social Studies, while stretching students' ability to work cooperatively in assigned groups and providing them with an opportunity to participate in role play.

Prior to undertaking this project, students in Grade 4 worked in pairs, or individually, to research one of Canada's physical regions. Students in Grade 5 completed an inquiry project exploring the tasks various levels of government might undertake in addressing an emergency such as a major regional ice storm. Students' learning in Social Studies was assessed based on these projects.

Each student then created a character he/she wished to play during our island survivor project and was assigned to a group destined to "crash land" in one of four Canadian regions. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

These are our Learning Goals, co-created Success Criteria, and scenario. The Learning Goals focus upon applying student learning from Social Studies to solve a problem, cooperation and drama.

For the purpose of the island survivor exercise, Grade 4 students were assigned to crash land in the region of Canada that they studied. After the class was divided into their survivor groups and they listened to a story about the crash scenario, the Grade 4 students in each group taught their Grade 5 island-mates about the region of Canada where they found themselves stranded:

In our scenario, the plane went down in water and sunk. Survivors were able to paddle to a nearby island, in a lifeboat, with the following supplies:

Their first task, as a group, was to brainstorm a list of uses for each of their supplies:

Then they worked on the tasks of developing survival plans, a form of government, laws, an environmental protection plan for their island, a flag, and a map of their island (depicting landforms, vegetation, water sources, their settlements and paths to their hunting and fishing areas, etc.) To assist them with the mapping task, each group was provided with a laminated satellite image of an actual island in the physical region where they were stranded in the scenario.

The Newfoundland (Appalachia) and Nunavut (Arctic Lowlands) groups were both stranded on islands surrounded by sea water, but had fresh water available on their islands. The Nunavut group was in the high arctic, above the tree line. The Ontario (Canadian Shield) and British Columbia (Cordillera) groups were stranded on islands surrounded by fresh water. The British Columbia group was in an area of Northern B.C. with high mountains on either side of their lake.

Students were initially told that their chance of ever being rescued was slim to none; that they needed to prepare to spend the winter or longer on their island. Once groups had completed their plans, flags and maps, they were told that, miraculously, they HAD been rescued, and that they would soon be invited to participate in a press conference. At the press conference, they would explain their experiences and survival plans (in role) to a gallery of print, television and internet journalists. Groups then set about preparing for their press conferences.

While each group presented, the rest of the students in the class played the role of journalists, asking questions and completing forms rating presenters on their plans, and their perceived chance of surviving the winter had they not been rescued. Everyone took the drama seriously and ensured that all questions about each group's plans were fully explained.

Our student teacher (Miss M) and I used checklists and anecdotal notes to rate how well students cooperated within their groups throughout the island survivor exercise, and used a rubric to assess each student's performance in drama:

Island Survivor was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for most students in the class; a frustrating one for a few. While groups were meeting to brainstorm ideas and achieve consensus about their survival plans, Miss M. and I circulated. We stepped in and facilitated whenever personality clashes or inexperience with consensus-building created an impasse. We hope the one-on-one and small group coaching that transpired during this activity will provide students with some new tools and strategies they can employ next time they are working within a group setting.

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.