Water and Art with Montalvo
By the 2nd Grade Generous Jaguars and Rockin’ Redwoods, with an intro from Teacher Elizabeth
Both second grade classes recently completed a multidisciplinary unit of study on water and the impact we have on our waterways. We took an in-depth look at our local watershed, our oceans, and what we can do to protect them. We integrated this investigation throughout the curriculum and participated in weekly art lessons with Michele Gueiu, an artist from the Montalvo Teaching Artist Program, in her 4th year of residency at Village. Michele came to our classes for ten weeks every Thursday to lead the students in painting waterscapes, designing plankton which glowed in the dark with the help of a blacklight, and creating water symbols. They also used iPads to design posters for National River Cleanup Day and made shadow boxes of sea animals lit by a small battery. This project also included science lessons on closed circuits.
A sampling of our shadowbox projects, water symbols and waterscape art are below, as well as a student reflection on the unit.
Villa Montalvo Artwork
By Rehane B.
On Thursdays Michele from Villa Montalvo has been coming to our classroom
and we have been making artwork related to water. It is super FUN! The first one we did was a landscape picture only using the basic lines. We used ink to paint. We only used primary colors. The second week we made glow in the dark plankton with only orange, green and white, but under the blacklight it turned BLUE! The third week we made water symbols out of blue paper- it was super fun. The symbols represent rivers, waves, waterfalls and many more.
My favorite was making the water symbols. It was my favorite because I really liked trying to figure out simple designs and making mirror images. When everybody was done we put them on the carpet together and it looks super cool. It kind of looked like a quilt. If you like to see it look in the hallway of Mrs. Becky’s office.
It made me feel happy that everybody had worked together and hard on it. It looked amazing when it was done. Miss Michele is super NICE! She is a great artist in my opinion at least, I think so.
Shadow Boxes & Water Symbols
