Students Rebuild Literacy Challenge

Expressions 8th grade students took on the students rebuild literacy challenge this week in class.  For every bookmark made by a student, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate $1 to Save the Children Literacy Boost Program in Latin America.  

We learned how to make corner bookmarks, tassel bookmarks and origami bookmarks.  Over the course of four days our hard working students made a total of 2,653 bookmarks! 

How to make a corner bookmark

8th grade students are making bookmarks for student rebuild. Each day Mrs. Shane and I are teaching a new bookmark technique. Day 1 consisted of students making corner bookmarks using this tutorial. Over the course of 1 day students make over 300 bookmarks! The next bookmark with be a braider tassel bookmark. Go 8th grade students!

Blankets beginning to take form!

Our hard work and dedication to knitting is beginning to payoff as strips are being weaved together and blankets are taking form.  Great work 8th graders!  Once the border is added the blankets will be sent off to Project Linus.  

How to wrap block letter with newspaper

The 7th grade students are finalizing construction of their block letters using newspaper wrapping techniques from this video.

Macy's Believe Campaign

This is an easy way to get charitable this season! Check out this screencast and learn how writing a letter to Santa can raise money for the make a Wish Foundation. BELIEVE!

Knitting with eyes closed!

Knitting is going great in the Expressions room!  Most students are half way towards their 50" knitted strip of yarn.  These individual strips will be woven together (a true collaborative project) to form stadium sized blankets that we will donate to Project Linus.

Some students have taken off with their knitting and are on their third or fourth 50" knitted strip.  A few select students are so good they can knit with their eyes closed!

Making Knitting Needles to Knit for Project Linus

The 8th grade class is about to embark upon a mission. A Knitting Mission to knit at least 25 stadium-sized blankets for Project Linus! In order to do so, we need materials like knitting needles and yarn. Instead of having families fork out money for knitting needles we decided to have kids make them out of dowels in class. A video for how to do this is linked here. Kids had a lot of fun creating and designing their needles. It was a lot like wood shop in the Art Room!

New changes to our website!

Making some changes to our website to give it some pizzaz.

7th Grade Museum Field Trip

The 7th grade field trip to the California Museum and The Crocker Museum turned out to be a great day. We had 13 fabulous parent chaperone's, perfect weather conditions in the mid 70's and 87 super enthusiastic 7th grade students. We split up the group so that half the kids were at the California Museum and the other half were at the Crocker. We all met up at lunch and picnicked in the park. Afterwards, the kids organized groups to play football, throw the Frisbee, chase squirrels and just play. It was nice to see the students relax and break out of the school day norm.

Exploding Picture Box

The second Paper sculpting project for the 8th grade is an Exploding Picture Box. The kids get very excited about this project and take a lot of time designing their box for the person or theme they are basing it upon. We show this presentation that includes an awesome video that uses paper primarily as a source of design details. The kids end up taking this one home on a Friday to finalize picture layout and email a picture of their final product. Here are a few pictures of final projects.

Quilled Letter

The 8th grade Paper Sculpting Unit Started with the Quilled Letter and the students are really getting creative with making their quilled frame and shapes. We use this video in conjunction with a presentation to kick off the project and get ideas flowing. Here are some pictures of kids during the initial framing and quilling day 1-2.

1 point name perspective

We brought back 1 point name perspective and did a lot more scaffolding with a focus on value. The Google slide presentation is linked here. The process took a bit longer but the quality of student outcomes really demonstrates student understanding.

Dias Family Night

We kicked off the opening of our Dias de Los Muertos exhibit with a family night. It's so great to showcase student work and invite families for a viewing. Taiko went all out with painting their faces and performing a Skeleton puppet show during the drumming performance. The artwork was beautiful and colorful with a bit of flash!

Remembrance Skeleton Collages

Our 7th grade students really dive into this project every year. You see and hear great team building as students reflect on their personal connection and memories they want to be honored and carried out through design within the Skeleton collage. These skeletons will become alive within the exhibit appearing as though they are floating above the arts and crafts below.