Rods of Gold

 

Segue into autumn --

Brilliant gold graces ditches,

Fuzzy golden blossoms gently sweep their space with each breeze

Combines humming harvest homily,

Grain trucks rumble out to collect crop, raising dust on dirt roads

Corn picking, husking, canning -- munching kernel upon juicy kernel.

 

Red-tinged maple samaras, waiting to take wing

Monarch caterpillars munch through dozens of milkweed leaves,

Chewing, growing, shedding, chewing, growing, shedding…

Preparing for tremendous transformation

Back-to-school, pondering, planning and prepping

Goldenrod time!

Dandelion Wishes

One of the last ELA / Art activities I had my students do in spring was create watercolour sunsets with silhouettes.  I borrowed the idea from That Artist Woman, but put my own twist to it.

 Dandelion Summer Wishes Poem
To compose the wishes poem, we brainstormed for several subheadings for things we might like to do during the summer holidays including: trips, fun activities, work projects, etc.  The students listed several ideas for each topic.  Next, they selected one "wish" in each topic that they most wanted to come true.  They typed those in a table in Word along with a title and their name to complete the poem.  After printing it out and cutting it into strips, they arranged their strips on their watercolour sunsets and silhouettes to make it look like their wishes are floating away with the dandelion seeds.

We kept their project up on one of our bulletin boards, so that once school starts we cab reread them to see which of their dandelion wishes came true.

Since we'll be starting a new school year next week, students might have back-to-school wishes they'd like to write about.
Perhaps you have ELA / Art ideas that you'd like to share.  I'd love hear about them.

End of the School Year

We've all seen various versions of "survival kits", which include such things as "an elastic to remind you to keep flexible... a paper clip to keep it all together..."
This year I created not a survival kit, but a "Summertime Wishes Kit" for my students.
Below are the contents for my kits:

I typed the following onto card-stock and placed it inside zip lock bags with the contents.

Summertime Wishes

Here are a few items to help you have a great summer –

Bouncy Ball: take lots of time to play games 

Bookmark: read some good books

Balloon: have fun, fun, fun!

Stickers: stick together with some good friends

Pencil & Tablet: write down a few wonderful summer memories 

Smarties: keep smart, sweet and especially safe!

              Love, Elma & Linda

My students were pleased with their little bag of goodies as they set out on their summer holidays.

Leaf Relief

 One of my fall art projects came from Fall Leaves.
We basically followed Cassie's instructions, except that we created leaf rubbings (using wax crayons and a black paint wash)  for the background rather than the ideas that she suggested.


What intrigued me most about the project is the "metallic" leaf created out of cardboard, leaves, tinfoil and spray paint.  In the end they really looked as if they were tarnished metal.





If I were to do it again, I would perhaps have each student create several "metal" leaves for their background.



 
As you'll notice, some of the backgrounds are more grey than black - I made them with different classes and added more water to the black paint.