Contours

Today we finished reading "Mae Jemison" and the students worked a little more on the final drafts of the book of Thinking Map inspired compositions that will become a book for Back-to-School Breakfast. Most students went to Mr. Pratt after recess so I could work with students from both classes who needed to finish up the CELDT test. The last section of the test is oral and it needs to be given with a bit of privacy. Mr. Pratt had the students watch an old video version of Sarah, Plain and Tall, the story we read last week in Open Court. It's a pretty dull after-school special from the 1980's, but he reported that they were surprisingly interested after having read the story.

Thursday is art day in room 19, and today's lesson focused on contour drawing. The students first picked an object in the room. This student picked one of the computers.

They then did a blind contour drawing. This is a classic art school exercise where the artist does not look at the paper nor lift the pencil. The results always look awful, but they force the student to really look at the object.

They then had the opportunity to draw the object again. This time, they could look at the paper, lift the pencil, and even use an eraser. But, because they had already looked at the object so intensely during the blind drawing, the results were much better!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling words for the test tomorrow. (2) Do "Patterns," envision Math, pages 60-61.

Homework is light tonight and tomorrow so that students can finish off the writing project.