1st Grade Blog Stars 2010/2011 Children's Museum Partnership

1st grade artists are working on a year long project called Spaces, Places and Changes in partnership with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.  It combines art, literacy, science and social studies learning and allows the first grade teachers, Ms. Thompson and Ms. Cain, to collaborate with Ms. Babusci to plan exciting field trips to the museum and deepen the learning happening at school, and at the museum.  We will update the blog with information about this project throughout the school year.

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During our PSSArt focus on quilting and sewing, 1^st grade artists used large, blunt needles, yarn and burlap to learn a basic straight stitch.  After mastering this they graduated to the “crazy yarn” and some more challenging stitches like the “stars” you see on these masterpieces.  The young artists showed amazing patience and determination.

Emma Kazynski

Patrick MacNamee

After sewing it was a logical leap to weaving - a similar concept.  Instead of traditional textiles, we used plastic bags to create these recycled weavings.  This project also tied in with our larger weavings we are creating collaboratively for an installation art piece that will conclude our year-long partnership project with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh - see images of these masterpieces below.

Abraham DeAlmeida

Narissa Baker

Recycled-Collaborative Weavings - 

Action shots at the reception for our art exhibition at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum!

Laini Virag adds some green plarn.  "Plarn" is yarn made from plastic bags, it was created in Studio 101 by the middle school artists in support of the 1st grade weavers.  

The other non-traditional art materials?  A tee shirt and a hula hoop!

Some Propel Braddock Hills artists helped out too!

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As we continue our partnership with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh we are talking about the function of museums.  A museum houses a collection for visitors to learn from and engage with.  1st grade students shared their own personal collections with one another, and Ms. Babusci shared her collection of salt and pepper shakers!  1st grade artists chose a favorite salt and pepper shaker set and observed the shapes and details to create a line drawing.  In the next class they observed the colors and added paint.  Throughout this partnership with the museum, 1st grade artists have been using their powers of observation to improve their drawing skills. 

Abby Kunkle

 Nate Baker

The Children's Museum has quite a collection of puppets.  During our last museum visit we saw so many puppets, including the puppets from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood!  We learned about 5 types of puppets: hand puppets, finger puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes and rod puppets.  In Studio 101 first grade artists created their own felt, finger puppets inspired by their favorite animals. 

 NeveahWessel

Roman Surratt

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Laini Virag

Laini is creating her "I'm Special" self-portrait puppet, part of the "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Mr. Rogers social studies and character education curriculum that 1st grade is using.  The curriculum is woven into our museum partnership project.  (It was "Pajama Day"!)

Stephen Byrne

Stephen is working in his museum sketchbook/journal in CMP's Backyard exhibit.  The books incude art and written reflections by the students.  The books are created out of 2 recycled paper grocery bags.  They will be featured in an exhibit at the museum when the project concludes.

Jaymie Bobbin

Jaymie is creating a silhouette of a column for the silk screening station in the art studio at CMP.  Students studied 3 types of classic architectural columns: doric, ionic and corinthian.

Tommy Burns

Tommy is enjoying the silk screening station.  He is watching the ink being added, next he pulled the squeegee across the screen to create his print.