Curriculum Night 2015

Art K-3 and 5th

Mrs. Crepas
Welcome to the Art Room!
Im so excited to be starting a new school
year! In art class, all grade levels will be
working with a variety of art materials,
learning about artists from many times
and places, learning the language of art
and how to discuss art, and discussing big
ideas about art. In other words, we will
be doing studio work, art history, art
criticism, and aesthetics.
Students are graded in art from 3rd

What we are learning:

grade on.

Studio work, or art projects,

This year has begun with a project for International Dot Day. All students

on the rubric include craftsmanship and

have been working on a painting to help celebrate. Next, every grade level

care, originality and creativity, and

learns something new about color theory: everything from learning about

classroom habits and behavior. You can

primary and secondary colors to working with watercolor washes using

find copies of the rubrics on my classroom

analogous color schemes. We will be exploring landscapes, portraits, still life

website.

are graded using a rubric.

Main points

paintings and various sculpture techniques. We will be doing printmaking,

perspective drawing, weaving with paper and yarn, painting and pastels, collage

I tend to work with projects that are open-

and mosaic. We will be creating kinetic art that seems to change, and creating

ended, with focus on a technique, skill or

faux stained glass. 3rd, 4th, and5th graders will be learning a bit about photo

idea. Subject matter is generally from the

manipulation and digital art using their Chromebooks, too! Please check

students interests.

into the art website for recent slideshows!

Wish List:

Yarn, Fabric, Bubble Wrap, Plastic or paper cups, Paper Plates, Cardboard tubes(paper towel, wrapping paper) Envelopes, Aluminum foil bake ware (pie pans, etc.) egg cartons,
magazines (please check for content) wire hangers, pictures from calendars, wallpaper books,
zip-lock bags, sea shells, hair stylist books, fake flowers, smaller stuffed animals, old vases, office
supplies - staplers, masking tape, packaging tape, folders, etc.
you are interested in up-cycling but arent sure, just contact me!

and of course, if you have something

icrepas@norridge80.net

10

Lessons
the

Arts

Te a ch
By Elliot Eisner

2
3
4
5

The arts teach children to make GOOD

JUDGMENTS about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct
answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is
judgment rather than rules that prevail.
The arts teach children that problems can have
MORE than ONE solution and that questions can
have more than one answer.
The arts celebrate multiple PERSPECTIVES.
One of their large lessons is that there are many
ways to SEE and INTERPRET the world.
The arts teach children that in complex forms of
problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but
change with circumstance and opportunity.
Learning in the arts requires the ABILITY and a
WILLINGNESS to surrender to the unanticipated
possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
The arts make VIVID the fact that neither words
in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we
can KNOW. The limits of our language do not
define the limits of our COGNITION.

6
7
8
9
10

The arts teach students that SMALL

DIFFERENCES can have LARGE EFFECTS.
The arts traffic in subtleties.
The arts teach students to think through and
within a material. All art forms employ some
means through which IMAGES become REAL.
The arts help CHILDREN LEARN to say
what cannot be said. When children are
invited to disclose what a work of art helps
them FEEL, they must reach into their
POETIC CAPACITIES to find the words
that will do the job.
The ARTS ENABLE us to have EXPERIENCE
we can have from no other source and through
such experience to DISCOVER the range and
variety of what we are capable of FEELING.
The arts' position in the school curriculum
symbolizes to the young what adults BELIEVE
is IMPORTANT.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach
and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press.
Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten
Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.
To obtain a digital version of this document, please visit www.arteducators.org/advocacy

National Art Education Association

w w w. a r t e d u c a t o r s . o r g