Welcome Back, Prairie Ridge Cougars!

We are off to a great start in the Art Room. During the first week of classes, each student made a sketchbook to keep for the duration of the school year. We discussed the purposes of sketchbooks for artists, and how they are a great tool for keeping track of ideas, words and images that can help us formulate ideas for future artwork, or to simply render our observations of the world.

This week, students looked at sketchbooks Ms. Newman has created. Sketchbooks can not only contain pencil sketches, but words that describe artwork, reflections on art processes, found objects, and images from other sources.





Brand new National Art Standards were released this summer, and we are jumping right in to addressing them in the curriculum. The new standards were a great place to start in creating goals for the school year in art.  3rd through 5th grade classes created student created goals to track on a chart throughout the school year.  Each table created a goal for one of the categories addressed in the standards:

• Creating

• Presenting

• Responding

• Connecting

We also made goals that had to do with learning about art careers, contemporary art and craftsmanship (being thoughtful and careful when developing and creating a piece of art.)




Other goals include:

• Earn Artist of the Week

• Earn the Table Trophy

• Use my art skills and visual observation skills outside of school

Here is an example of one of our goal tracking charts:

I am looking forward to another spectacular year in the art room!