Hello Monet

We started our study of Impressionism today. For some of the students, this was kind of a review because they have studied this movement in past years. I hope that I helped them understand it a bit more and didn't bore them!

The day started out a little rough; the PowerPoint that I had created as an introduction to both the movement and the projects was not opening on the laptop. So I just had to "wing it" and work without visuals, which is hard to do but I think it went OK. Eventually I was able to get a reader downloaded and the afternoon classes were able to see the PowerPoint slide show. Next week I will be showing the slide show to the 2 morning classes that missed out. I would like to say thank you to my wonderful husband for the help getting this problem solved. You are the best!

The older classes also received their sketchbooks today which is very exciting! They all seemed to be happy to have them. Each week they are required to do 2-4 drawings in these books. This will help them practice the skills they are learning this year. The sketchbooks are also a way for the students to have all their art notes in one place, which will help with learning vocabulary! 

I was pleasantly surprised with the level of retention that the students showed when I was reviewing with each group at the end of their class. Every classroom was able to name the movement, focus artist and basic idea behind the Impressionistic movement, not to mention some other details that I did not think they would pick up on - like that the artists focused on painting time and light . I am proud of them for this!!

As I stated before, we are studying the Impressionistic movement, which was at its height between 1880 and 1890. In all the classes, we are focusing on Monet for multiple reasons:
 1. He was one of the movement's most influential artist (the movement was even named after one of his paintings: "Impression Sunrise")
2. His use of color and strong brush strokes are something that the students will easily respond to
3. I really like his style

The older classes are using the painting "Impression Sunrise" to create their own landscape based off of a picture that they brought in to work with:

 The younger kids are creating a piece based off of Monet's Waterlilies: 

These projects are going to take multiple weeks to finish but I am looking forward to the end results!

I also was able to prepare and hang my bulletin board today. It is located in the front hallway and has an interactive magazine portion. The students can learn a bit more about the movements or artists by reading the information on this board. They can also see examples of the paintings or works that the artists we are focusing on created. The board will change with the movements. It also has an area in the upper right hand corner that lists what will be needed for class that the students might need to bring from home. I think it turned out well!