Category: Steam

Weeks Seventeen and Eighteen

5/31/2018

Arts a la Mode

For ten years our school has hosted an Empty Bowls event. It has gone through a few changes since we began to participate in this program that was started nearly 30 years ago by a group of artists who wanted to use art as a call to action to raise food and funds to combat food insecurity in their communities.

I am very thankful for those who have come out over the years to support families in our community by donating to this cause. This year's even was particularly special because of our band director's retirement. He has been an awesome partner in this project and I am excited for him and his family as he begins a new chapter in his life.

2018 Arts ala Mode - Mr. Klein Recognition (Byron Center West Middle School) from Steve Harryman on Vimeo.

We also got to use a lot of our DonorsChoose.org funded projects during this event. It was great fun to see the button maker we received in action during this community event. It was a HUGE hit! Many students, siblings, and parents made buttons (some more than one) and sported them for the evening.

We also got a chance to showcase our ArtPrize piece, of which I have an exciting update to share!

It was an awesome night to celebrate our Arts programs at WMS. My favorite part of it was seeing students step up in leadership roles and really take charge of the evening. This is something I want to do more of with my students and find additional leadership opportunities for them to share their knowledge and love of Art with others through acts of service.

Thank you TangerKIDS Program!

I like writing grants. I have presented about it at conferences and helped others write their grants and projects for their classrooms. I actually love helping others with theirs (even more than mine). I got started with grant writing because someone helped me and I look at helping others as a way of paying it forward.

Thanks to a more recent effort with the TangerKIDS program, we gained the needed funds to help our National Scholastic Gold Medalist get to the celebration at Carnegie Hall. We are so thankful for the opportunity this grant allows this student and our program in promoting a legacy of excellence.

I am particularly excited to attend the celebration, too, because it is also the ten year anniversary of my first National Scholastic Medalist and trip to NYC!

When Old Becomes New

To finish up the semester, students worked on one of my favorite themes: Something Old, Something New. This theme asks students to go into their portfolios and rework ideas from the past, showing they have grown in skill and understanding since that original work was created.

Here are some of the works students created as a result of this prompt:

Brayden: I did Photoshop because its fun and it looks good. I used a portrait from last year to change and make much better. I did better on craft, creativity, content, and composition. For example, The creativity is a lot better, and it looks a lot cooler and better. Also it is more neat. The last one looked like scribbles, and this one is real, and much nicer. I wanted to do Photoshop because I like the effects of it.

Olivia: In this artwork we had to create a new version of an older artwork we made and I decided to redo my observational shoe drawing from last year. To make this artwork better I made it more creative by spraying yellow water color around the shoe. Another way that I improved this artwork is by the composition. I added more color and because I used complimentary colors I think it added a better rhythm to the piece. I really wanted to revisit this idea because I never really got to finish it last year and I knew that I could make it a lot more creative if I used everything that I learned in class this year.

Alex: This piece of art is a recreation of my continuous line portrait “Tears of Destiny.” To improve this piece I used opacity and different color strokes as a new form of craft. I also used more things to fill the space like the bandana for more creativity. My personal connection to this art was that the original piece of this art was not created very well. I wanted to revisit it to make it better and show that I improved as an artist.

Ellie: I decided to use the technique of drawing, because I have never done it before. I wanted to try it so that eventually I can improve and get better at drawing. I used the art element of color because the gray portrait pops when it is against the blue background. I used the Creativity C because I used a new technique where I put swirls on the paper in washable markers, and then I put water color over them to smear them out. I also used the Craft C because I took my time to make it the best that I can. I decided to recreate this piece because I could see that I didn't do my very best the first time, so I wanted to do another piece that I took a longer time and did my very best.

Adam: In fifth grade, I drew a polar bear that was an okay piece of artwork. This year, I recreated the drawing. This time with paint. I definitely improved my art skills since then. This is because I used craft, creativity, composition, and content to make a great piece of artwork. For example, my craft improved a lot. It took me a lot of effort to draw it, and then paint it. Also, I used content because of the value on the polar bear. The darker colors emphasis shadows and highlights on the bear. I chose to revisit the idea of the polar bear because it was something that I knew I could do better on.

Faith: For this project I chose to remake was from project challenge 2:spaces and places. The piece that I did with project challenge 2, was a sun set on the beach. I really liked drawing out all of the things in that piece and I liked the materials that I got to use such as pencils and colored pencils. Although that piece still turned out pretty good, I felt that it wasn't my best work and I could do better and I really wanted to push myself on this last project. So I decided to take a picture that I had taken when I was on vacation in the great smoky mountains and look at it and draw what was in the picture. Some of the materials that I used in my last piece in project challenge 2 was that I had to draw everything out before I colored all of it. For this project I decided that I really wanted to work with different values with pencils and I thought that the picture that I took would be a perfect one because of the mountains. One of the four Cs that I used when creating this piece was craft. This is true because the way that I made this piece was with all different shading pencils and that was all I used because I really like the way that they looked. One other of the four Cs that I used in this piece is creativity. This is true because I think that this piece was pretty original because of the materials that I used because it seems like there seems to be a lot of pieces that use landscape and draw them. The reason I wanted to revisit this idea was because of how much I enjoyed making project challenge 2 but I really felt that I could push myself to do better then I did the 1st time. The personal connection that I have to this piece is I absolutely loved going to the great smoky mountains for vacation. It was my most favorite place that I had ever been to and I have been there twice and just loved being there and seeing the scenery so I decided that I could use one of the pictures from when I went there and use it in my art work.

Focusing on Math in STEAM

To close out our STEAM units for the semester, I asked students to create a work that employs math concepts in their work. Leaving the door open to a variety of options, I was a little nervous with what students would do for this one.

Students selected so many interesting options for their work and made new connections between math and art concepts to do so. It was fun to see them go through their works and land on finished pieces.

Here is a sampling of their work:

Sophia: For this math project, I decided to do origami because it seemed fun and it was something I have never done before. To make this, I created different sized 3D triangles using different colored paper. Then I arranged them in a frame (not shown in the picture) for a cleaner look. This relates to math because I had to measure the lengths of the triangles to create them and arrange them together using their angles. I like this project because it is clean cut and organized, but also fun.

Khiem: In this art I used angles and perspective from the filming unit. To make a video interesting you need different perspective so I took that idea and used on this one. I try to make it look like from a angle above. The crane is flying by the water and in the hand a person hold one of them.

Tess: To make this op-art piece, I used isometric graph paper to draw boxes in random directions, overlapping and going underneath each other. I did this twice to make two different patterns, then I traced the two patterns to create three identical copies of each. I decided to use complementary colors so each design would be unique, but still match with the other patterns.

Vanessa: For this project I did a tessellation and that means I made a shape out of paper and made a puzzle out of it and to color it I used water color.

Maria: In order to create this origami sculpture I needed knowledge of math concepts in order to be successful. Paper folding, or origami relates to shapes and angles. While creating the three dimensional angular boxes, every angle of each fold had to be exact. If not, each box would not be congruent, and would not represent the 3D shape I was trying to make. Recognition of shapes and designs that would make this project appealing were also useful. Making this project required me to use art ideas as well, such as printmaking, and other collage techniques.

We have a Venue!

I am very excited to announce that we have secured a venue to display our work for ArtPrize10! Our work will be on display on the second floor of The Downtown Market.

It is an awesome place I go to regularly and I know our students will be eager to head to the market and enjoy viewing the work as they also partake on the ice cream, popcorn, barbecue, and my personal favorite of chicken and waffles while there.

We are all still working on our pieces as we look ahead to installing the works in September. This is going to be a great event to kick off the school year in the Fall and get students excited about art. It is also awesome to be in the running for the Youth Collaboration Award for $2500!

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Week Thirteen

4/27/2018

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Last STEAM Collaboration

Students presented their last STEAM collaboration for the year this week. For this challenge, students were asked to design and create structures that represented spaces we use like schools, businesses, homes, and other architectural works.

It was fun to see students from both classes work together to create a variety of buildings using blueprints, digital renderings, and physical models. The pieces are currently on display in our Library until the end of the year.

DE is DONE

Another semester of DE is in the books. It has been almost 8 years since the last time I taught 3D and I am so thankful I was able to come back to it with this group. These kids were amazing to work with, full of so many ideas, and willing to push themselves to try new ideas and techniques.

I was really excited to see their final exam projects complete and how they took the opportunity of designing their own prompt with their choice of media. It gave students to try some things they were interested in doing or revisiting ideas left undone from the past. Here are a few of the results:

For our final farewell of the group, we met at the Meijer Gardens to complete a scavenger hunt and sketchbook activity. A special thanks to The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters for sponsoring our trip!

Building More Skills

Students also spend this week building skills by learning about printmaking and observational drawing. Our newest themed project asks students to examine the objects we interact with on a daily basis and make art that focuses on that relationship. In addition to that, students are also being challenged to use a different media to work with for this piece.

Next week we will spend time refining ideas and finalizing media for use to work towards project goals. Here are some works in progress so far:

Arts a la Mode Prep

We are getting excited for our annual Fine Arts Night on May 22nd and starting to put the finishing touches on our preparations for the event that includes Empty Bowls, Performances, Art Displays, and STEAM activities (two of which were funded with DonorsChoose.org requests earlier this year).

We are also in process of gathering volunteers for the night, asking students and parents to help out. If you are a student or parent at BCPS and would like to help, please contact me for more information.

Finishing touches on bowl for May 22nd Arts a la Mode event at BCWMS. pic.twitter.com/ztubEqKIdC
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 26, 2018

ArtPrize10 Update

We are continuing work on our part of the ArtPrize piece this year. I am so excited to see it coming together, but know we still have A LOT of work to do before it is complete. This week was spent cutting a lot of reflective paper and then figuring out how to place it on the work.

Hopefully next week we will be able to get our profile up and running and start to secure a venue. If you would like to connect, please visit our ArtPrize page.

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Week Eleven

4/13/2018

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Acting Like Designers

For our final STEAM collaborative of the year, students are acting like an architecture firm and creating spaces using a variety of tools. To begin, students get into groups of four and assign roles: Project Managers are responsible for collecting images of the work, writing a purpose statement for the work, and creating a presentation of all of those items; Blueprint Designers are responsible for sketching out the way the building will look and the layout of the structure; SketchUp Artists are responsible for creating a digital rendering of the structure; and Maquette Builders are responsible for creating a physical model of the piece.

In STEAM class, we are working on thinking like Design Engineers and creating concept sketches of products. To get them thinking about product design, we watched the video below:

Afterwards, students started to brainstorm products that currently exist as well as those that do not that would help resolve frustrations they have. It was fun to see students come up with ideas and then getting feedback from others through a roundtable sharing process.

Before working on their final designs, I also took students through the act of creating a "Mood Board" to help better define their product. They combined images and words while thinking about their product and consumer to give an overall feel for their design as well as hone in on their point of view as the designer. I had never done this before with students. It is such a quick and easy activity to do and it helps secure their idea before finalizing their sketch.

Here are some of the results:

I am also super excited that the latest issue of Scholastic Art Magazine fits right into this project. I made sure to spend time yesterday going over their interview with Nike Chief Design Officer, John Hoke with my STEAM students.

Sometimes I think the people at Scholastic are reading my mind. This issue could not have come at a better time!

Alter Egos

We are nearing to a close for our Dual Enrollment class and students worked on finishing up their alter egos before starting their final exam projects. It has been fun to see students interpret a variety of media and concepts throughout the term. I am excited to see that students took a lot of liberty with their alter egos. Some used clay, others used wall paper and wire, and some used hot glue. With only a couple of weeks left before we finish final exam projects and say goodbye, here are a few of the solutions from this last project.

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Week Ten

3/27/2018

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Ok Go Sandbox to the Rescue

This week was the first week of the last marking period. It was also a short week and the week before Spring Break. As you might guess, students' minds were not super focused on starting new, intense work, nor were they really ready to begin a big project only to have to pause it for a week of break before getting back into it again.

Lucky for me, I have a great teaching partner in the STEM room and we decided to take advantage of this week with a short collaborative based on the new teacher resource: OkGo Sandbox.

I have used their resources before in my classroom; using this resource was a whole new experience. Not only did students get to see the video employ the concept of flip books (which was what we decided to end the marking period on for our 3rd STEAM collaborative this year), they also got extended learning opportunities to discuss gravity, timing, and other STEAM concepts that help make OkGo's videos one-of-a-kind pieces of art. This was also a great way to reflect on the NAEA conference from last week that focused on the theme of Art + Design = STEAM.

Students were excited to work collaboratively on this project, it only took about four days to complete, and we even got a retweet of our activity from the website! Students love knowing their work will be seen by others and you can see a compilation of completed flip books my our 7th and 8th grade Art and STEM students below:

Automata's Complete

STEAM students worked on completing their Automata's this week. It was fun to see them create something that moves through the use of engineering principles in this project. We were also able to connect it to the film Hugo and the book it is based. Again, one of the big points from the NAEA conference in Seattle this year was how art is the intersection of all disciplines in life. This project was such a great articulation of that and my students did such a nice job of working together to create interesting results shown below:

ArtPrize10 Collaboration

In addition to all of the STEAM projects completed this week, we also started our ArtPrize10 collaboration. I am excited to see this project come together, especially since we are working with all six schools in our district. To kick it off this week, students painted a fingerprint of paint and then used a sharpie to create a self-portrait. We were able to discuss concepts about color and abstraction as well as diversity and collaboration in this process. We will be doing more with this once we get back from break!

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Week Nine

3/20/2018

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Automata's

STEAM students started Automata's this week. This is my first time teaching this concept and product. It was fun to see students work on this in pairs and connect their understanding of other subjects with this Engineering concept. Students should be finishing up these works next week. I am very excited with their progress and how they are combining their skills and understanding from a variety of areas to make this work!

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

It was very exciting to learn that one of our Dual Enrollment students, Lauren Doyle, was awarded the Air Zoo Innovation in Art and Science Award. I am so proud to see this student I first met in my 7th grade Art class grow into her own artist combining her love of Art and Science to create pieces featured above and below. I decided to nominate Lauren when I found out about this opportunity. Her work with electroplating made for a unique opportunity to connect Art with Science and I am so glad she was recognized for making this connection with her work.

Lauren will be recognized at the Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awards dinner in April. We are excited to see what more Lauren does as she finishes our 3D class and starts prepping her portfolio for next year's competition season which will include the Scholastic Art Awards.

Spaces and Places

Students finished their second major themed project this semester using the theme of Space and Place as a jumping off point. Here are some ways they resolved imagery to best explore the concept:

Adam: In this project, I made a canyon landscape out of clay. I made little jagged notches in the clay to give it texture. Also, I chose the materials that I used so that I could challenge myself. Working with clay is not easy. I had to slip and score everything that I put on it. I can compare and contrast this piece to an artist of note. For example, it looks like a Nathan Walsh artwork piece. This is because of the amount of detail I used. To add onto that, I over exaggerated the colors just like in his artwork.

Patty: I decided to draw a mountain with an inspiration of the artist Ansel Adams, because he had a lot of drawings and paintings of nature, in gray scale, so I wanted to draw a mountain, and then use color pastel to add some color to it. The background seemed empty so I added some shade from the outside in.

Alex: For this project I decided to use photography. I used photography to help show how from our point of view, far away, we may not see everything that is in a small place. I would compare my work to the work of Ansel Adams. Like him I used photography to show the space and value in the photographs. My work would be different form his in the fact where I use several pictures and put them into one, and I also take a landscape photo of a smaller landscape to really bring out the texture in the objects I'm photographing.

Jason: I decided to use value pencils because I thought it would be the easiest way to show where the sun is showing and where it is not showing. I pressed harder and used darker pencils where the sun was not showing. I would compare this artwork to Ansel Adams because he only uses pencils in his artwork, which is like mine. In the principles of design, you can see a pattern where the houses get smaller the closer they get to the vanishing points.

Gage: I made this picture on photoshop. I used photo shop because I am good at it. Also I would compare my artwork to David Hockney because it is natural but also abstract and cartoons. I made a tree in the Feld because I like the wilderness.

Noah: We learned about spaces and places and I put in thee use of cold and hot colors the hot colors poped out and the cool colors pushed in and this made a cool affect so what I did was I painted colors on first blue, green, brown, yellow, orange and last but not least black and then I put tape on the paper so I didn't paint on the c0olors I made and I let it dry and I took the tape of and boom, this came out.

Perspective Bootcamp

Students also had a chance to work with perspective this week. Here are some examples of what they did in only a few days!

Chelsea

NAEA in Seattle

I had an awesome time at the National Art Education Association Conference in Seattle to finish the week. I am so thankful to be a part of the NAEA and participate in such a quality organization that offers the best of professional development opportunities for their members. Even better is the opportunity to attend conferences in cities I may not normally visit and experience the art and culture of that area so I can bring it back into my classroom in ways that are both enriching and relevant to my students. In addition, I get the time to connect with others who know my teaching situation best and compare notes.

I will do a more in-depth write-up of my time in Seattle and the things I learned at the conference next week, but here is a short snippet of the experience with images below:

NAEA registration area was so organized this year and it was great to run into people I haven't seen since 2016 in line.

#teammiddle presentation at #naea18 is in the books! Love my art tribe! pic.twitter.com/qqHggX2Mix
— Holly Bess Kincaid (@ArtLadyHBK) March 22, 2018

This is my 6th year presenting at NAEA. It was awesome to get our group up and moving in an exercise that demonstrates concepts about color.

Hearing from Nick Cave was a highlight. I am a fan of his work and students learn about him in our objects/artifacts themed unit. It was great to also see his work at the Seattle Art Museum.

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Week One

1/27/2018

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New Semester with New Students

This installation was completed by over 200 students in our school. It encircles a tree that was planted years ago to honor our veterans and is also next to the entrance of our school and flagpole.

Our Art classes run in semesters, which means I get to greet new students after 18 weeks and start over again with them. It is fun to see how this new set of students approach the content already covered by first semester and bring their own experiences to the table to complete various pieces of content and creation.

One of my favorite things about this first week, was getting to finish our installation of painted rocks inspired by the story "The Dot," by Peter H. Reynolds. I have been using this story for at least the last five years with my students to inspire legacy projects in our school. We have made paintings, paper globes, and now these painted rocks as a way to make our own mark on WMS.

Each year I do this, I am usually doing something with my students for the first time and not 100% sure how and if it will turn out. I openly share this with my students and explain that taking creative risks is one of the duties of an artist and it is up to all of us to be courageous in this class with the work we make. I am very pleased with this year's outcome and look forward to seeing what legacy project we come up with for next year.

Here are some thoughts from the students on their work:

Avery: For this project I created a rock that displays an abstract pattern of dots. I decided not to focus on a specific pattern in order to incorporate the Dot story. The Dot story talks about about how all artists work is unique and anyone can create art. My piece, and all the other rocks created in class, are different in order to represent diversity and beauty in art.

Gage: This is like in the story the dot because we started with one dot and we began to do more. Also it represents that anyone can be creative. Finally, it was the first project of the year.

Brady: I made this amazing piece of art because of the book, The Dot. I just made one dot and went on from there. This rock was made from a bunch of random dots and then I made more.

Katie: In this artwork, I started with one big dot--the sun. It popped into my head as soon as we started. This connects to the book because starting with one dot made a bigger thing called art. It connects to real life because we are leaving this artwork behind just like we will have to leave other things behind as in our legacy.

This is a more complete view of the work.

Empty Bowls

For years, I have engaged students with clay on the first day. This semester, I switched around some activities and actually started with paint and waited until our third day together to work with clay.

When I informed one class that we were going to work with clay, it was greeted with a "Woo Hoo!" I know that not all of my students will choose art as a career, but I do hope that they will continue to create and appreciate art as grow up and react with a "Woo Hoo!" during those experiences.

It was fun to see students work with clay in this way and for 7th graders to create bowls for our annual Empty Bowls night. Even better will be once these are fired and we get to glaze them in a variety of colors.

Henna Hands

Something new was tried with my 8th graders for our first clay experience. Instead of making bowls like they did when they were in 7th grade or the leaves like last semester did (because it is January in Michigan and there are no leaves), students created Henna-inspired patterned hands.

Inspired by this post and henna-painted hands, I decided to try this out with student and see how they turned out. For the most part, there has been success so far (only a few repaired fingers along the way). In the future, I would probably have students keep their fingers closer together or use the slab roller in order to avoid some of those issues.

I am excited to see how they finish out and what happens when we apply a glaze treatment to them. This was a great alternative to the leaves and students seemed to really enjoy the process of creating patterns.

Collaboratives

Collaboration is something I am passionate about in my classroom. I feel strongly that success in team format is much more powerful than individually. It takes much more skill and understanding to work with others and find common ground than it does to go it alone.

For the first day of our STEAM class, we brainstormed ideas that show what we value at WMS: Academics, Arts, and Athletics. These symbols were then drawn by students on canvases with WMS on them and a grid. Every time a shape changes on the grid, so does the color (keeping cool colors for the backgrounds and warm for the letters/objects).

We are more than half-way to our end goal with these works (once they are done they will be showcased in the office) and we hope to complete them next week. This is my first time teaching STEAM as a class, so it will be a learning experience for both my students and me this semester!

Can you see the WMS?

Drawing in Space

For our second collaboration in 3D, students had the opportunity to explore the concept of drawing in space by using wire. In teams of two and three, students selected an object and then sketched out the object using contour lines. After, they turned that line drawing into a sculpture using wire.

It was interesting to see that multiple groups selected cameras as their object. Below are some process and final images of particularly successful attempts.

#FirstMillion Funding

On January 25th, our latestDonorsChoose.org project was funded thanks to the matching funds from #FirstMillion, celebrating the first million funded projects on the site. I am so thankful for the additional materials we will now have due to the generosity of others.

If you are interested in helping fund a project, I recommend visiting their site and seeing a variety of opportunities to do just that!

Woo Hoo! Thanks @DonorsChoose #FirstMillion pic.twitter.com/DK8mBl6Wbv
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) January 25, 2018

This week was really packed with a lot of amazing things. I am so thankful and excited that I get the opportunity to be a part of all of it.

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Week Sixteen

12/22/2017

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Game On

Video game design is something we have worked on in the past, but I think this year may have been the most organized rollout of it yet. For our second STEAM collaboration, the STEM teacher and I wanted our students to fuse their art and coding skills by using content from other classes to create games.

To help get students used to the programs, we did mini workshop days where students had a chance to created animated GIFs on Piskel and code using Scratch. This gave them some base-level ideas of how to create their work and make it move the way they wanted. This year we wanted student games to focus on some of the content covered in other classes, so we asked teachers to come up with three items they cover in class that students then signed up for as the theme for their game.

Students then used a series of design prompts and storyboarding to help them come up with characters and purpose for their game as it relates to the content they selected. Over the last two weeks, our students worked together to create the games and then shared them and gave each other feedback. In addition to the games, students also created cover art to promote it.

I am really proud of what students accomplished in such a short period of time. It was fun to see them work through the problem and find so many different solutions. It was inspiring to see students helping each other out and being their own best resource to research and discover solutions. What has best yet was seeing how excited they were to share their products with others and the encouragement that was exchanged as students completed feedback forms.

Click on the images below to view/play some of the games:

This was a great way to complete our time left in the classroom for the calendar year. When we return from break, we will only have about two weeks before switching electives and starting new with a different group. It will be fun to see how these students tackle our last major project and I am excited for what 2018 will bring!

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Week Three

9/23/2017

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ArtPrize 2017

I am going to start out by showcasing our final event of the week first: ArtPrize9! We had a chance to spend a day downtown on Friday and make our way to venues that included the place where our work is being displayed. Our piece, "Painting Under Paper Cuts," is in the running for the Youth Collaboration Award of a $5000 grant. You can help us win with a vote. Voting for the YCA ends on September 30th. None of this would have been possible without the help of parent and teacher chaperones.

It was a very warm day outside on Friday, but students stayed hydrated and in good spirits throughout the trip. One student reminded me how important experiences like these are when she explained this was her first time ever going downtown in Grand Rapids. I am happy I was able to be a part of that memory and introduce her to the awesome sights and sounds of ArtPrize9! I am also thankful to the ArtPrize Education team for offering this opportunity of both showing our work in the Youth Collaboration category and for having grants available for traveling downtown.

Check out the video below for more highlights from our trip:

Names to Know

Students worked on a project I use to help me put names to faces this week. I am a visual learner and I explain this to my students as I go through this challenge. Students start out by creating interest lists (what are five things that are essential to you, what are your favorite colors/objects/shapes) and then use those lists to generate ideas for transforming the letters of their names into their interests on their portfolios.

We also use this challenge as a way to explain how we will be using sketchbooks this semester. It is a great way to get students used to the idea of sketching out ideas and working through solutions on a smaller scale before tackling it larger.

Students also learned a variety of colored pencil and marker techniques to apply to their names. We will be finishing these up on Monday and posting the results to Artsonia.

This week had a lot of action in it. We started it with presentations of their Spinning Tops in the STEAM challenge and ended with a trip to ArtPrize9. It was super fun to see students begin to stretch their creative minds through projects that ask them to rethink and reconsider things we see or use everyday in new and interesting ways.

I am looking forward to seeing how students finish out their names on Monday and work on our first major challenge that starts next week. I am also excited to meet with students about The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards next week and to find out the results of the Youth Collaboration Awards when voting ends on the 30th!

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Week Two

9/16/2017

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Spinning with STEAM

We kicked off our first full week of school with a STEAM collaboration. For those of you who are new to this blog, the STEM teacher and I combine our classes once a marking period to create a STEAM experience for students. In these sessions, students use Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math to create and collaborate on solving a variety of problems.

This year, we decided we wanted to jump on the spinning craze that we all experienced with fidget spinners last spring and have students create spinning tops. After doing some research, we found an awesome resource at TryEngineering.org. We also found this video about the Physics of a Spinning Top that was posted by high school students on YouTube to share with our kids (they especially liked the background music):

Through this challenge, we wanted students to implement Design Thinking using the DICE model (Discover, Ideate, Create, Evaluate) and to work collaboratively to meet performance standards for the top they were going to make. Students were given the following items to use in their bag of materials to work with and many used the materials to create more than one top:

CD
2 hot glue sticks
2 toothpicks
1 black plastic cup lid
2 small clear cup lids
2 marbles
2 washers
1 nail
1 screw
1 plastic bottle cap
1 string
2 craft sticks

Before building, students created a variety of sketches showing how they could use the materials to create their top. They also had a series of performance standards to consider in their design that outlined both the criteria and constraints of what was expected in their work. For example, the top could not be more than 20g, had to spin for at least 10 seconds, and they could not use extra materials outside of what they were given in their bag of goods. We also asked for them to consider aesthetics in their design and gave them an option to earn extra points for designing additional spinning tops.

After their tops were created, they had to test them on two surfaces and record the results in a data table. To complete the project, students worked in teams to create a presentation that included images of their sketch, top, results of tests in the form of line graphs, and overall findings from the project.

We like to combine our Art and STEM classes for this STEAM collaboration because it gets students to see the connections between our classes and how we are going to use common language and expectations during their time with us. This is the third year we have been doing these types of activities and students will be presenting their finished work for this first STEAM collaboration of the year on Monday.

ArtPrize 9 Preview

Here is our work on display at our venue. Thanks to Steve Fridsma for sharing this image on Facebook!

ArtPrize 9 opens this week! That means starting on September 20th, people can vote for our work at Monroe Community Church and help our classroom win $5000 Youth Collaboration Award! I am so thankful to Jamie Dennett, our STEM teacher, for helping our work make it to our venue and to Steve Fridsma, our Venue Coordinator, for connecting with us and hosting our piece. There was an awesome team of volunteers at Monroe Community Church on Saturday who worked for hours on installation. In addition to that, I would also like to thank The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters for covering our costs and our greater Byron Center Public School Community for their support in this endeavor. It has been a humbling experience and I look forward to celebrating at the opening reception on Tuesday, September 19th from 6-8:30 p.m. (here are the details if you would like to join). We would love to see you there!

Here are some details sent from the ArtPrize Education Team about how to vote:

Voting for the Youth Collaboration Award is just like ArtPrize voting. Before you vote, you will need to download the ArtPrize app to your phone, or vote online. You will also need to visit ArtPrize in person. Visit this link to learn more about how to vote.
Eligible voters must be age 13 years or older to sign up for an artprize.org account and register to vote at ArtPrize.
You have to attend the ArtPrize in person in order to vote. You can verify attendance by downloading the ArtPrize mobile app and having your location services turned on while inside the ArtPrize district; or stop by an ArtPrize HUB.
For the Youth Collaboration Award, voting begins on September 20th at 12pm and ends on September 30th at 11:59pm. This is also the end of Round 1 voting for general ArtPrize. You will not be able to vote for these entries during Round 2.
The winner of the Youth Collaboration Award will be announced at the ArtPrize Awards Ceremony on October 6th at 7:30pm and can be viewed at the Rosa Parks Circle viewing party or on TV!

One of the best parts of this experience is getting to see other artists' work on display and talk to them about their process and work. The images above include works from artists who traveled from Toronto, Oklahoma, Montana, North Carolina, and of course, Michigan. It is such an honor to have our work with such skill and talent and it will be so fun to see our students react to the exhibition.

The next two weeks are going to be a whirlwind of an experience! Even if we don't win the $5000 grant, it has been worth the effort. We are already talking about what might be possible for ArtPrize 10...

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Three to go

5/20/2017

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STEAM Collaborations

The STEM teacher and I decided that simply one more collaboration was not enough for our students, so we did a JAM PACKED week and a half that included three! It was a perfect way to finish our last collaborations as a group and release some creative energy during State Testing.

Here are some of the results:

#1: Mandala Madness

When we plan out our collaborations, we want to make sure students are getting equal parts Art and STEM. This Mandala collaboration really is one of the most perfect blends we have found and offers a chance for everyone to help out.

First students get into groups of four and learn about various ways cultures have used radial design as a strategy to communicate ideas. After we look at some examples of various designs, students fold and cut their own mandala, using the fold lines as their lines of symmetry to transfer the design so it is symmetrical throughout their piece.

After students completed their designs, we went outside to translate them into LARGE replicas with chalk. I happened to be sick on the day we did this, but my students made sure to turn in images of their work. Here are a few:

Students also explored radial symmetry through digital means using Sumopaint and Photoshop.

#2: Piskels to Legos

In the spirit of translating images from one platform to another, students created images using the online program PiskelApp and then recreated them on our Lego Board! This Lego Board and the Lego pieces were purchased through a DonorsChoose project earlier in the year and funding from The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters.

It was an awesome use of materials and it was fun to see all of the different creatures and creations students came up with to add to the board. This was our first time doing this collaboration and only had about a day to complete it. I think we will do some other really cool things with the Lego board in the future based on this experience.

#3: ArtPrize Youth Collaboration

Inspired by my trip to The Lab School in Washington, D.C. for The Power of Art Conference, I knew I wanted to do a large collaborative with students that would ultimately hang in our library. The new Youth Collaboration Award offered by ArtPrize was just the incentive to get something done by the end of the year and we hope we are able to connect with a venue in order to have it as a part of this year's competition.

The above video walks you through the five day process students went through to create this colorful work. First, students looked at the combines of Robert Rauschenberg and used his application of paint to inform their approach to attaching the canvas by making marks using a variety of tools. I was able to use donated paint from X-rite that was given to us a couple of years ago for this and a variety of paint brushes, sponges, texture tools, yarn, and stamps for applying it to the three 4x8ft foam boards. Even some teachers and our Assistant Principal got in on the action. They were simply encouraged to make marks and attack the surface (I had a great painting teacher in college who would say the same to me).

Then students were shown some images by Caledonia Curry and how she uses printmaking and cut patterns on paper to create collaged and layered works. We used the idea of paper cutting to create a series of portraits of students from our school (some of the images were from photos I had taken for the yearbook and others were from students own images) and various circle patterns. Students worked in pairs for this and it was fun to see the patterns and faces emerge as they cut into the colorful pieces of paper.

Once that was complete, we worked together to arrange the cut outs on top of the painted background until it seemed to look "right." Using Modge Podge and sponge brushes, they were sealed on top of the surface.

The end result is bright and colorful and reflective of the wonderful chaos that is both the end of the year and frequently in my Middle School Art room. I think we are pretty much finished (although we may add in some Sharpie outlines in the background - we are still debating this). We have until June 22nd to connect with a venue so our work can be a part of the ArtPrize Youth Collaboration Award consideration.

If you are interested in hosting this work, please visit the link and request a connection.

This work will be on display in the BCWMS Lobby during our Arts a la Mode/Fine Arts Night on Tuesday May 23rd.

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When Old Becomes New

Focusing on Math in STEAM

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Last STEAM Collaboration

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ArtPrize10 Update

Acting Like Designers

Alter Egos

Ok Go Sandbox to the Rescue

Automata's Complete

ArtPrize10 Collaboration

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Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

Spaces and Places

Perspective Bootcamp

NAEA in Seattle

New Semester with New Students

Empty Bowls

Henna Hands

Collaboratives

Drawing in Space

#FirstMillion Funding

Game On

ArtPrize 2017

Names to Know

Spinning with STEAM

ArtPrize 9 Preview

STEAM Collaborations

#1: Mandala Madness

#2: Piskels to Legos

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