Blue Ribbon Award

Did you hear?  PES was one of sixteen schools in Illinois to win the Blue Ribbon award for 2015!  We had a big dance party assembly to celebrate!

Inspiration and Drawing Studios Open!

There are too many things to list about how much I love this candid shot last week!  Someone takes "diving" into her art quite seriously in the background!  

Kindergarten friends finished their class "Peace" books and their pinwheels.  Remember next Monday, the 21st, is the International Day of Peace in which our pinwheels will be on display on the front lawn of the school for "whirled" peace!

Busy! Busy!

This school year is off to a great start!  Children have been working on making their portfolios to store artwork in and pinwheels for the International Day of Peace on September 21st!  

He is very proud of his coloring job!  If you notice in the background there are two new things!  I was able to obtain a booth from a wonderful family in Westlake this summer aka "The Creation Station" and a new wooden portfolio rack.  The portfolio rack will make student portfolios readily available to the children when they want to add to them. I was able to make this purchase with funds from our Artsonia account!  When parents purchase items from Artsonia, a percentage of the money goes into an account to help supplement supplies.  Thank you, parents!

Also our third kindness wreath is hanging on the door waiting for ribbons!  When the children are caught doing an act of kindness for each other in the studio, they might be invited to add a ribbon to the wreath.

The wreath from last year now resides in the library and the one before that is in Mrs. Brockway's office.  I am looking forward to a fabulous school year!

Last Day!

Happy Summer everyone!

May is flying by fast!

Last week, kindergarteners ate their artwork!  This is one of my favorite annual projects where students create the

color wheel out of frosting and vanilla wafers and then eat it up!

We also used up our open glue bottles to make Flubber with grades 1 and 2!  Remember to be responsible with your Flubber!

We installed the Buddy Bench on the playground!

Plus two of the three 4th grade classes walked down to the Blacksmith Studio for a demonstration from Mr. D.

Friday was Track & Field day!  Thanks to Mrs. Peterson for all your work organizing this annual event!

Now it comes time to say goodbye to some amazing kids.  It has been my pleasure being your elementary (and some pre-school!) art teacher.  You are each special and wonderful in your own ways.  I cannot wait to see where life takes you!

Selfie fun!  

Hope everyone has a wonderful summer! 

Masks

I love these boys!  They are exploring the art of mask making together!  

When children are given the opportunity to take charge of their learning, amazing things take shape!  Students become more confident in their decision making skills and quickly learn there can be many outcomes to a situation.  The level of engagement is amazing.  My next step is to encourage them to make them again using different materials.  How could you make it better?  

What a fabulous week!

We started the week with a bang!  There were approximately 270 WOW pieces due on Monday.  My crews helped organize and tag all artworks for the show Tuesday evening.  A huge shout out to Mrs. VandeVoorde, Mrs. Brandenburg's fourth grade class, and Mrs. Laue's first grade class  for their help in transport and set up!  Thanks to our teachers for their patience and understanding, and assistance with organization of pieces as it is a huge task!   Thank you to Miss Weimer for helping with the cookies (provided as a donation from Mrs. Bell) table and Mrs. Brockway for working the Yuda Bands table.  There were other staff that gave help where needed that is so appreciated!  Thanks to our amazing families for creating with your children and having a wonderful involvement in the fine arts!  Your support of choice based art education has been such a rewarding experience.  Attendance was amazing and our Yuda Band table remained busy all evening with over 70 sales in two hours!  

Love our kindergarten dancing cows!   We  will begin a transition to more choice based lessons over the next few weeks.  I am excited to see what new ideas they will bring to studio!

This first grader's recycled robot golf was a very popular attraction!

Then, on Wednesday, we hosted WREX-13's Project Tornado for all our third and fourth graders!  

These girls took their weather "homework" from Miss Morgan very seriously!  

Emma and I delivered the 30 fleece tie blankets and braided ropes to Noah's Ark today and hung our 4th graders display (for the kids that chose to participate).  They were amazed at our students skills!  

These artworks were also photographed and uploaded to student's Artsonia accounts!