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Showing posts from September, 2018

How do artists come up with ideas?

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In Byam art, we have been learning about how artists come up with ideas for their artwork! Artists get inspired by the world around them, their experiences, and their imagination to create works of art. Below, see first grade artists creating works of art including drawings and temporary sculptures in the building center, based on their imagination. It is amazing to see and hear about the artwork that students can create when they are encouraged to imagine!  Two students worked together to create a city using one of our new mosaic building sets in the building center. They described their art as a city, where the shape pieces were the backyards and the screws represented the houses and buildings.  A student drawing a "dragon vs. dragon" cartoon which he wants to turn into a movie This student described her artwork as a drawing of a girl that was transformed into a tree by an wicked witch!  Two students building a castle in the building center using o

New School Year and Drawing Materials Exploration

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Welcome new Byam families, and welcome back to all others!! I hope you all had a fun and relaxing summer! I spent some of the summer months working with the Massachusetts Department of Education on curriculum framework revisions. Our current art curriculum standards, which outline what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, are from 1999, so were overdue for an update! In 2014, a revised version of the National Core Art Standards were released, so along with other art educators and education professionals from around the state, I worked on updating our state standards to reflect the updated national standards. It was a lot of work and wonderful to meet and collaborate with other educators from around Massachusetts. My art curriculum will continue to be mostly based on the current standards this year, but we are excited to have the new framework finished and released in the coming year. We kicked off the new school year last week at Byam, and things are off to a g