Who am I? Exploring Self Portraits

Who am I?

We are beginning to dive deep into what this question is truly asking.  We have started a project with our art director, Marjon Aucoin, to help our Kinder and First Grade students answer this question.  We will look carefully at self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and other various artists.  Throughout the year, the children will make a variety of self-portraits, write poetry, give a speech about themselves to their classmates, and a letter about themselves—all to be placed in their self-portrait portfolio.

Who am I? is not a simple question. In fact, as we have started this project, we are seeing that it leads to many more questions.  Here are some that have come up:

• What are the things that make me happy?
• What are the things that make me sad?
• What is a happy color? (For Nohea - pink, for Mark - blue)
• What is a sad color? (Shirmar - green)
• What color is an angry color? (Jennifer - red)
• What are the things that I like?

It is exciting to see the children exploring their sense of self through diverse forms, and we are seeing how they are begining to form ideas about their identity.

Below is a sneak peak at the first step in creating our self portrait portfolio:

Photos were taken so that the children would have their pictures to study as we worked.......

When they entered the art studio, the photos and materials were ready.....

The children engaged in a discussion about self portraits and began to explore their photos by talking about shapes, colors, and facial characteristics.  We talked about what colors could represent emotions we feel.

The children began to explore creating their first self portrait!

In the end, beautiful pieces stood before us!!!!!

Nohea chose to use many colors because she said they made her happy.

Alex focused on her beautiful eyes, and she needed a yellow smile because yellow meant she was happy.

After spending several minutes thinking about what she really liked, Annika said that her favorite group of animals were birds, so she made a peacock feather and a mocking bird feather in her portrait.  She also loves Yellow Stone Park, so she drew a buffalo as well!

For a viewing of all of our portraits, please visit our room to see them on display.  Stay tuned for progress on our Self Portrait Portfolios ;0)

Raising Money For A Good Cause

Look at what we are making now!  Aside from finishing up our claymation and documentary, we have started creating bracelets.  And these special bracelets are not just your ordinary bracelets..........they are helping raise money for children with cancer and Down Syndrome.

The children in this class are making their very own special edition yellow bracelets! They are selling them and raising money to donate to the cancer research with St. Judes for Down Syndrome. They are also working with the Therapy Spot where a lot of their bracelets will be sold. The children have already created many different kinds of bracelets with patterns and designs. They are very proud and committed to this project in helping others out. Please feel free to stop by and buy a bracelet or make a special order of a bracelet to show your support!

Claymation and Documentaries

Our Mulitmedia Storytelling is underway and we can't wait to see how it turns out!  Our Art Director, Marjon, has been spending time showing the children examples of claymation and how it is created.

The children are currently working on two films.  One is "War of the Knight", which is claymation, and the other is "A Documentary on Bugs".

Here is a peek at the children setting up the scene for the filming of the introduction to the claymation film.  They made the title, and a little bunny is going to walk around the words of the title.  The children set up the scene and took several pictures of the bunny moving around.  Once we put the pictures together in the film, it will look like a real movie!

We are learning so much about movie making.  We are currently making a story board for our "Bug Documentary" and more characters for our claymation movie.

The Great Castle

                                                          The Great Castle

The kids started a project with princes, princesses, and dragons. The characters were made out of clay and then colored. In the end it turned out very well. It was alot of fun!


This is the king when the kids first started.



It started out white and dull but was very colorful at the end of the project.

                                               This is one of the pets. 'Kirby' is the girls name.

                                                             This is the princesses son.

                                               This is the queen. The queen lost her crown.

                                                                 This is the princess.

                                               This is the princesses' royal bunny's house.

This is the princesses' royal bunny. She was found
in the woods by the princess.

As you can see this project has been successful.The kids had a lot of fun doing this.

(All of the art work was made by Anastasia)

These are all of the dragons.

ROAR!

This blog post was created by Tyler, age 10 and Anastasia, age 11.

Summer School Multimedia Storytelling

We are now enrolling for our Little Wonders Summer Camp!!

We have written a brief description below of the many activities that our students will be working on over the summer..
Multimedia Storytelling:
Children will be able to write a story based on any creative subject matter they choose. They will be able to choose the medium that they would like to use to tell the story. Examples include a version of claymation, dramatic interpretation, traditional illustration with the use of watercolor or acrylic paint, photography, etc. Once the children choose their desired medium they will be educated on the history and techniques of that material by Marjon F. Aucoin. She is a traditionally trained fine artist, medical illustrator, and nationally recognized for her recent series of art in the annual showcase Spectrum. At the end of the summer we will have an art show/ performance to present their stories to the audience.


Aside from the creation of their stories the children will be able to participate in a variety of activities such as cooking, photography, learning Photoshop, directing the summer school blog, arranging field trips, and much more.

Please contact us with any questions that you might have!!

A House For Three

The girls happened to find some time away from homework to work on "the house for three"!  They have been working so hard on making this tiny house, with tiny little people living in it........Each piece of paper is carefully cut out and colored.  She is using tape to secure it all......

There is even a bunk bed for the twins ;0)

These people may look big in these pictures, but they are smaller than the fingers that made them!

Every day a little more is done to the house.  We are anxious to see what else will come of it!  We are learning patience though, since we only see the girls after school ;0)

The Big Castle That We Can Fit In

So we are sure you remember the dragons we created out of clay.......well, they needed a castle.  Originally, we wanted to build a castle out of wood, but Dimi convinced his mom to bring "big boxes" for the castle. It had to be a castle that we could fit in!  And, YES, it is BIG!  We have had to construct our castle in the main hallway because our rooms are too small for it!

The good thing is, because it is in the hallway, all of the children get to appreciate and visit it!

We can't wait to get suited up and get into character........but we are reminded that we need to take one step at a time.  Finish one step, move to the other.  Costumes are next on our list!

Annika is working hard at constructing the roof!

Dimi is building the walls.......

We are working so well together, and the younger children are in LOVE with our castle, that it looks like we will be "hired" to construct pieces for the other classrooms!

Contagious Creativity

It is funny how each class gets a peek of other class's projects and gets inspired to make their own project ;0)

The after schoolers saw the preschools castle and right away said, "We want to make a castle!"  Their castle is on a smaller scale, and they wanted to use clay to make dragons for it!

Take a peek at the first stages of their work!

Here we even have nest for the baby dragon twins!