The start of the school year is always filled you such excitement!  

Donations of Clorox wipes will be GREATLY appreciated!

After reintroducing ourselves to each other and the classroom, I love to work on name inspired artworks for the start of the year.  Name art incorporates line and shape, when using a scheme, it also incorporates color.  It is a fun place to start and a great way to get creative juices flowing.  

4th and 5th grade will be working on Graffiti art.  We will discuss real-world examples, and the ethics behind graffiti making, or tagging.  We will use perspective to make our names really pop!

3rd graders will be creating name bugs.  This is a fun project that always turns out great.  Students can also practice their cursive skills on this one. 

1st and 2nd graders will be creating a name art inspired by the artist Paul Klee.  They will work on handwriting, repetition, color schemes, folding, and more!

Kindergarten will be creating rubbings from three dimensional versions of their own names.  They will work on tracing to improve name spelling, letter recognition, and handwriting.  

Click on the images to view more artwork.

I look forward to another GREAT YEAR!! 

February is Black History Month, but in the Hedke artroom we talk about embracing diversity all year long!  

Some current projects that we have going that teach the acceptance of others and futhering our understanding of others include:  

All hands In - A project that symbolizes the fact that no matter what our race, heritage, background, lifestyle, dress, etc., etc , etc., we are all one TEAM.

Jacob Lawrence Collages - A collage that shows how community impacts our lives.  We look at African-American painter Jacob Lawerence's work, read a book he has illustrated and find out about the meaning of his community inspired artworks.  We then create a community inspired collage of our own.   

For the past few years, I have had the opportunity to donate my time and artwork for an extremely good cause.  Spaulding for Children hosts yearly Celebrity Cook-Off's and Wait-Off's where, amongst other things, local celebrities work as cooks and waiters.  The celebrities wear hand painted aprons that get auctioned off during the evening.  The proceeds are donated to Spaulding for Children. 

I have had such a great time painting aprons for the cause in the past, that this year I brought in some aprons for the students to help create.  They had an amazing time with them.  The only complaint was that they wanted to make more!  

I was so pleased and impressed by the student's reactions.  The project spurred discussion of the importance of helping others, the positive aspects of adoption, and more.  A student in fourth grade even had an opportunity to share her own adoption story and was very proud to help paint the aprons to help others.  

All in all, it was a great experience.  A special thank you goes out to Spaulding for all the wonderful hard work they do each and every day!
                                                                                                                                      http://spaulding.org/