On Monday, March 12th, Mrs. Häberle visited the third grade class to teach us about the Spanish painter Joan Miro. He liked to paint with bright colors and simple shapes. Some popular shapes that kept reappearing in Miro’s paintings were the sun, moon and stars. Mrs. Häberle discussed the life of Miro with the class. Then they were given three puzzles of famous paintings to assemble in their groups. After completing the puzzles they had to decide which of the paintings was painted by Miro. They were all successful with this! Finally she asked the children to think of a bright, hot sun and they were given acrylic paints and a palette knife to create an image of the sun as Miro might have done. They approached this task with much enthusiasm and creativity, as you can see below!



This week we inquired into the life and works of Georgia O’Keeffe, an American artist who was fascinated by nature, flowers, mountains, the sky, animal bones from the desert, cityscapes and such.  She painted these objects close up to help people see and experience these everyday objects the way she saw them.  Here are a few of the children’s’ creations in the style of Georgia O’Keeffe.

On Wednesday, March 7th, Mrs. Brunner came to our class and taught us about pointillism, the painting style used by the artist Georges Seurat. She demonstrated this technique first with a picture of a pear. She then asked the students to think of a place they really enjoy being and use pointillism to create a painting of this place. The students were very enthusiastic and worked creatively with the pointillism style. Here are the results of their efforts:

Art for Sale

The students of grade 3 have created 2 pieces of artwork in collaboration with Mrs. Brunner to be auctioned off at the Spring Benefit this weekend. They worked collaboratively in their groups and have produced two beautiful artworks that you can bid on to add some brilliant color to your home or office.

                            The girls work with warm colors.              The boys use cool colors.

                                                    The proud artists with their finished works!

For our Paint Me A Picture unit of inquiry the students have been doing a learning journey of artists. We read about and discuss the works of different prominent artists and then we record facts that we have learned about their lives. Following this, we copy a piece of art that they did before creating an original artwork in their style. We have already studied Picasso and Matisse.

Enjoy the pictures of the students original creations below! 

Portraits in the style of Pablo Picasso

Painting with Scissors in the style of Henri Matisse

Math Test: Wednesday, March 15th

We have completed another unit in math on the concepts of money, length, mass and volume, as well as solving word problems relating to the measurement concepts of length, mass and volume. This encompasses chapters 10, 11 and 12 in the math textbook from pages 6-54. The students are free to bring their math books home to practice for the test, but please remind them to bring them back to school each day as we will need it for class. Please review the concepts with them so they are better equipped to successfully complete the test independently.



 Grade 3 has started their new unit entitled ‘Paint Me A Picture’. For the tension engagement the students chose a number and from this we decided the order the class would paint. They were simply instructed to work as a whole group to paint me a picture without any discussion amongst themselves. The students were each given three to five minutes to paint. The idea was that they would look at what the previous students painted and add to it to make a pleasing composition. However, they kept to their own space at first, but in the end they managed to tie it all together. Everyone was very creative in the way they approached the blank canvas and made use of the various tools that was provided. The painting is quite interesting and they are very happy with the result. They have titled the painting ‘The Magic Dream’.



Half way there! Everyone does their part!



'The Magic Dream' 80 x 80 cm-Acrylic on Canvas-The Grade 3 Class of 2012

 

Painting Shirts Required!!!



Students need to have a painting shirt for this unit as we will be working with acrylic paint a lot and it is difficult to remove if they get it on their clothes. If you have any old shirts we can use for this purpose, we would be very happy to have them! Thank you in advance for your support.

Students were asked to choose 3 colored rectangles of paper. They were directed to use pastels, markers, crayons, colored pencils or pencils to show how they see color, shape and spirit in art. Each piece of paper represented one of these three elements.  The students demonstrated great creativity and freely drew their representations of these elements.

Using Color to Create

Harmony and Tension

The students were asked to choose four colored squares. In groups of four, they were asked to arrange the colors to make a composition that shows harmony. They repeated this process a second time, this time creating tension in their composition. This led to much discussion and collaboration to reach the end result. Take a look and see if you feel harmony or tension in the artworks.

Tension:

A feeling of worry, nervousness, or suspense.

Harmony:

Agreement; a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity.

Communities Assembly

On Thursday, February 9^th the grade three class hosted an assembly for the primary classes of Early Years through to Grade 5. The assembly represented a culmination of the activities and projects completed during our communities unit of inquiry. The students presented English and German poetry, drawings of the countryside, the pros and cons of living in a village, their community projects, a map, a drama reenactment of the story ‘City Mouse and the Country Mouse’ and their 3-D models of rural, suburban and urban communities. The students planned and organized the assembly and are to be commended on a wonderful job! They presented with confidence, clarity and great cooperation! It was a fantastic display of all their hard work during the unit.

                                     The two MC's!                               Poem: Sounds of the City

 Presenting 'My Community' Projects

                                             Countryside Drawings and Country Child Poems

Pros and Cons of Living in a Village

                                                Dramatization of Country Mouse City Mouse

     Presenting their 3-D Community Models