6th Grade: Finished Greek Columns

As if you didn't have enough Greek art jammed down your throat...here's a little more!  These are the Greek columns my 6th graders completed this year.  We did these at the same time that they learned about the Greeks in Social Studies (which was shortly after they finished reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in ELA as per a Common Core unit).

Previously, I wrote about how I was a little worried about the quality of these compared to the ones I did two years ago when I saw the students twice in a cycle.  For this project, I did the demonstration of how to build the columns at the end of the first class.  The second class they built them, and then the third class they smoothed them out and carved into them.  When they were fired, students took a fourth class to glaze them.

Previously, I allowed two days for construction, a day for refinement, and two days for glazing, which unfortunately would have taken FOREVER with the schedule I had this year.  Despite the time setback, I was pretty impressed with the columns they built!  Most students went for the Ionic column, but there were a few Corinthian types in there too!

2nd Grade: Scratch Art Greek Pottery

It seems like NYS really like the Ancient Greeks!  Maybe it's because we "borrowed" a lot of ideas from them to create our government and architecture.  Either way, the 2nd graders actually have two listening and learning strands based on the Greeks, and the second one was Greek Mythology.

When I returned from my maternity leave, the students were right in the middle of their mythology unit, so I decided to do some scratch art with them.  Second graders always LOVE to do scratch art!  This project took about two days, which is a really great time frame for a project when you only see a class once every six days.

On the first day, we made our scratch boards.  If you haven't seen it already, or you don't know how to make your own scratch board, you can see my tutorial here.

On the second day, we looked at some examples of Greek pots on the smartboard and I passed out a sheet that had different examples of Greek pottery types.  The students had to pick one type to draw.  They then were required to fill their pottery with images from a Greek myth they learned about in class.  Oh yes, they also had to draw a border with a pattern in it before they created their pottery.

I did this project last year with 6th graders, and I have to say that I think the 2nd graders did just as well on it as the 6th graders did.  Knock this off the list of 6th grade projects and move it to 2nd grade!

2nd Grade: Greek Mosaics

Well, I missed "throwback Thursday" but I'll post these today anyhow.  These mosaics were from way back when I had a substitute for my maternity leave.  I asked her to do it in conjunction with the 2nd grade NYS Listening & Learning strand about Ancient Greek civilizations.  This project wasn't exactly executed the way that I would have handled it, but a few of the projects did turn out decent.

I had my substitute use Roylco's Mosaic Squares, something I had purchased a few years back through the Extended Day grant and have never used.  I can't find the link to the sticky ones, but those are actually the ones that were used for this, not the paper squares.  Anyways, I have decided that if I do this project again, I will have the students cut up construction paper into random geometric shapes to fill in their spaces.  I had encouraged her to have the students cut the stickers in half to fit into smaller spaces, but no one did.  In other words, I plan on essentially combining this project with the geometric and organic shape collages that my 2nd graders did the year before.

6th Grade: Ceramic Greek Columns

Here is this year's Ancient Greek projects for my 6th graders.  I did this project two years ago and it was a huge success.  Unfortunately, this year they aren't turning out as great as the first time I did them...and it's through no fault of the students!  It really stinks only having elementary students once every six days!  There is no possible way to keep clay projects wet enough in that 8 day period in between classes (because the weekends add even more time) to allow students two days to work with wet clay. 

All things considering, they did a great job constructing these in a short amount of time, especially since I gave the demo all in the same class!  I tried to cut down on time for them by having slabs pre-rolled using my slab roller instead of having the students roll their own slabs.  Elementary students tend to take a longer time to roll out their own slabs.  Most students also chose to do Ionic and Doric columns...very few Corinthian. 

When I look at the quality of work I was able to get done in the last three years and then compare it to artwork from this year, it makes me a little sad!  If I had my way, I would be 5th-12th grade art so I could really enjoy those students...those are really my favorite grade levels (well, sometimes minus the 7th graders).  My 6th grade curriculum is BY FAR my favorite curriculum...anything that combines art and history makes me giddy with excitement!

I am currently in the process of firing the columns from this year's 6th graders, but I figured that I would share some of the columns from this project when I did it two years ago.  Students had two days to work in wet clay to score and slip, and then a third day to fine tune and smooth out their project.  We then glazed them with clear glaze, and some opted to add a little bit of a green to give it a mossy look.  I will share this years' projects once they are completed!

Busy weekend! Now onto work...

Whew!  What a busy weekend!  Saturday and Sunday my husband and I fished in the local fishing derby with our friends and their two-year old son.  We even had a taste of having a kid when he spent the night with us Saturday!

Then Monday, I FINALLY finished painting my master bathroom!!!  It took me all week!  It's been so hot and humid that I had to paint in spurts...the sweat just started pouring off me after 10 minutes of painting!  Either way, our bathroom renovation is finally underway...It used to be a light grayish-brown color...essentially the same color as the cupboards are currently painted.  I swear, the people who lived in this house before we bought it had the weirdest color tastes!

Our next step is to paint the cupboards, buy a new sink and counter top, and update the vanity and light fixture.  I'm also going to tile in those really cool alcohol ink tiles I've seen on Pinterest for a back splash instead of the molding!  You can see three of them set up on the molding that I've started to play around with.  

Currently, my room at school is being cleaned, so it will probably be a week before my supplies are delivered to my room and I can organize everything for the new year.  Is it weird that my favorite part of summer is receiving my supplies and organizing them???  I LOVE organizing stuff!

As of right now at home, I'm just working on my 6th grade curriculum.  I've decided that for each cultural unit, student will work out of a note packet.  The note packets will include fill-in-the-blanks from the power points I use, planning pages for project planning, vocab definitions, and reflection pages where students will have to answer various questions about their projects upon completion (hello common core!).  I did this last year with my Greek unit and it really seemed to help students learn and use the vocabulary more during the project.  Here are some examples of what I've included into my packets below: