Saipan Community School Art Show

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers,

     I don't mean to steal the show as my wife just blogged about her most recent endeavor of running, but I felt I should write about the annual Art Show & Young Writer's Workshop (YWW) our students put on at school.  Last year I had my students do poems for the YWW, but this year I felt I needed to challenge them a little more. This year I had my sixth graders write three page research papers and my 7th and 8th graders write 10 page short stories.  Even though this event took place on the 19th of April, I am still grading these papers because I want to do a good job in giving feedback etc... I will not write much about this event, but will rather let the pictures do the talking.   I hope you enjoy them.  Remember to click on the picture for a larger image.

A lamp made out of pop-sickle sticks one of my
eight grade girls created.  I would tell her to use
it, but I'm afraid it might be a fire hazard if left unattended.

Paper mache' dolls colored and made glossy using art glue.

A self-portrait of one of my seventh grade Chinese students.  I like
this picture because it shows her personality this year as opposed to
last year's personality as a 6th grader.  She may not think so, but that is
what I think.

Me standing in front of my table of essays and short stories.
Many thanks go out to my three helpers Kara Fifield, Ms. Oronia, and Nellie (sp?)
who helped in making my table awesome.  Funny thing is that when I was
labeling my desk I forgot the "i" in Junior due to not paying attention, being hungry, and
talking to students when I should have been concentrating.  We all laughed and they
proceeded to help me.  I still have a good chuckle every time I think about that.

These are multi-layered aluminum foil engravings.  Students
are graded based on how many layers of engraving they make upon the
foil.  It is hard to see the layers from this picture.  In the bottom example,
you can see at least three layers.  I like this picture because they are shining in the sun.

Kara having a good conversation with a parent.  The first grade made
stories and they had a lot of fun doing it.

A picture of the crowd just as the amount of people coming to view the show
was picking up.  I really think Mrs. Winkfield our art teacher does a great job
inspiring kids to create.  As far as I know, this is something unique that only our school
does.  I'm always amazed at how even artwork from kindergarten looks like
professional abstract art.