Visual Arts

Students engage in the visual arts daily in school, often in work periods in the Studio or Shared Space, but as students become more skilled, they use these skills in the classroom as well. Students receive weekly art lessons. Art lessons often teach students techniques to use in the Shared Space, such as how to sew or illustrate a book, but students also have lessons in art as a discipline itself. Impressionist self-portraits or designing and stitching pillows connect students with looking more closely and imagining possibilities. Each year skills and concepts are revisited and further developed. During their work, students may pause and share strategies in problem-solving. At the end of various projects, students pause to reflect and critique and celebrate their work.

FIRST GRADE

Students begin the year with a messy collaborative project of printmaking to keep them open to many possibilities in art. They move to a focus on identity as they complete self-portraits in clay and oil pastels. During this year, there is a leap in the fine motor skills students develop as they work with different media. Skills like woodworking, stitching, bending wire, and paint require and develop hand-eye coordination. Students learn how to look more closely as they participate in observational and line drawing and as they blend colors and provide texture in paint. A highlight of the year is building their own vehicle in woodworking and a collaborative found-object sculpture connected to their study of space. Students title their individual pieces.

SECOND GRADE

This is a year for confidence building. Students are more internal, so they engage in more independent work and problem-solving skills while still receiving clear guidance and step-by-step structures for projects. They are challenged by more ambitious projects with less structure, such as instrument design and construction. Group work early on is more supervised and then less so as students refer to written guides and routines and systems in place. Clay sculpting and puppet making are highlights of the year. Students expand their writing about their work by creating simple labels with captions to inform viewers of the work.