Welcome to the World of Art!

Happy chilly Tuesday everyone! We cannot stop talking about the snowy weather that we see on the news. Will it snow enough for us to build snowmen and igloos? How about snowballs? It would be so much fun to play snowball fights with our friends.

 MORNING ACTIVITIES:

 Yesterday’s Dads’ Day was such a fun moment for us! We went through our Dads’ first names again and amazingly; a lot of friends remember them!  To add flavor to this wonderful celebration, we made a special gift for our Dads. We carefully cut along the lines to make a balloon. Then we sounded the words that we wanted to use in our message while looking at an alphabet map. Guess what? We were able to write our message to our Dads all by ourselves! We hope you like it!  On another table, we worked on our cutting skills as we cut different shapes and lines. After cutting them, we created our own artwork by arranging and gluing them on to a paper. Each artwork has its own story. Isn’t that brilliant?! We also enjoyed looking through different shapes over the light table. We lined and piled them up and created towers on top of a light table! It was awesome to see blocks on a light table.

 CIRCLE TIME

 Art, art, art! For some our friends who were not with us yesterday, we asked them what they think art is.

Ke: Art is like when sometimes Dad’s friend say, “Art!”. Sometimes my feeling is surprised when they say it!

Ak: Its last word is very confusing because its last letter is very, very not easy to say.

Ke: Art is drawing.

 As we talked about art, we recalled that a person who does art is called an artist. When Ke heard this, he said, “When we grow up, we can choose which profession we want to do”. He further explained that “profession” is a big word that means a job or work that someone does. This sparked an interest to everyone, and we just could not help but to share the profession that we know through our Dads and Moms.

 Ke: People that make buildings are called architects like my Mommy and Daddy. Architect is a profession. My Grandma is a designer and cooks food for everyone. Maybe she’s called a cook. My Grandpa is a banker. He helps people to save money and helps prevent sagi. Sagi are the bad people who take people’s money away.

Chr: So someone who cooks is called a “cooker”. My Dad’s profession is a counter. He just counts things. Lots of things like, “One, two, three!”.

 Ak: My Daddy only do surfing.

 Yu: He is called a surfer!
Ke: My Daddy is a surfer and coffee.

Ky: My Daddy do like this (did the mixing action with his arms and hands) and making coffee.

 Ak: He mixes coffee with spoon?

 Kei: Daddy makes coffee in Chiba. Everybody likes Daddy because they always looking (at Daddy). Everybody takes his picture!

 Ke: So you’re Dad is called a coffee maker.

 Yu: My Daddy only work and do zoom and talk with people from his office. He is a zoomer!

 Ak: My Daddy also do zoom for work. I don’t know what he do for work because he closes the door with the key, so I don’t see.

 Ke: My Daddy’s friend in zoom say hello. If me, Ky, and R come inside the room, my Daddy is angry.

 Amazing how we know different kinds of profession. Some of our parents have become “zoomers” or those who work at home and make use of zoom to communicate with their colleagues. Vieda explained to us that although our Dads and Moms work as “zoomers” at home, it is important for us to understand that they are working as if they were in their office. Now, we understand why we can’t just play around when they’re working at home.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are all paintings in frames?

 Vieda: Can you see any artwork or paintings that are in frames inside the Flowers Class?

 Ke: The shuji?

K: That one! (pointed at our body tracing)

Ke: That one over by the books!

 Yes, indeed! We have some artwork in frames in the class. Vieda held the art frame and let us see it closely.  What did we see?

Ke: I see trees.

Ke: Machi (a city)

Li: I see sharp pins.

Chr: I see flower candles.

Ri: Machi (city)

Ak: I see a black flag.

Kei: I see shapes like triangle.

Yu: This one looks like a Christmas tree.

Ky: I don’t know this.

We realized that we could be looking at the same artwork and yet see different things. Just the way artists create their artwork. Each artist expresses himself/herself through his art. We felt so excited as we learned that we could listen to our feelings and express them in arts. Art is also about different texture. With closed eyes, we touched a rubber toy. We did not know what it was at first and some of us thought it was a marshmallow!

Question: Who do you think is the artist of this artwork?

Ke: I know! It’s Shelley! Something is written down under there!
I want to make my own, too!

 It would be such a great experience if we could all become artists like Shelley and Keith Haring and create our own artwork! We also looked at some of the artworks of Keith Haring. We saw some of his paintings along the subways. Yu noticed that he marked the outlines of his drawings with black lines. Vieda said that artists have “inspiration” when they create their art. We did not really understand what inspiration means. So, Vieda asked us to talk about it with our families and share what ideas came up to class tomorrow.  We are also interested to hear what Shelley had in mind when she made her artwork. We hope to have an opportunity to have a chat with Shelley about her artwork.

 STORY TIME: Art by Patrick McDonell

 We enjoyed this funny book that gave us so many giggles! It is about a boy named Art and his art! Doesn’t that sound already funny? At the end of the story, we took turns in drawing squiggles, zigzags, dots, and splotches with blotches on our whiteboard. We are so happy with our class art! Perhaps we could turn our classroom into a museum? Then, Ke suggested that if we want it to become a museum, “We need to make a lot of artworks. If only make a few of them, then it’s not going to be a museum. It’s going to be called a gallery!”.

 So, Flowers, are you ready to make artworks to go in our museum? Or would you rather prefer to have an art gallery? We’ll find out soon!

 *We had a fire drill today. Our teachers did not tell us that we were having one until we heard the fire alarm during circle time. Our teachers praised us for being so calm as we evacuated our room and went downstairs. Way to go, Flowers!

Love,

FLOWERS