Friday, December 23, 2011

Snowflake Symmetry

       Before the winter break students grades 1-5 have been learning about various aspects of symmetry and radial symmetry by creating paper snowflakes. As a class we examined real snowflakes to find examples of symmetry and then created our own.


Real Snowflakes Up Close:


Here are some beautiful images of snowflakes under a microscope.
Can you find any repeating patterns in these real snowflakes?


Printable Snowflake Patterns:
As promised, i have attached four printable snowflake patterns. With permission from their parents students may print the snowflake patters below and practice creating more FUN symmetrical snowflakes over their winter break! Enjoy!









Showy Shapes and Sculptures

Our kindergarten and first grade students here at Wilson Elementary school have been exploring 2-D and 3-D shapes this December inspired by the book "Snowballs" By Lois Ehlert.


      After reading "Snowballs" kindergarten students created 2-D snowman out of shapes ranging in size. Students explored key shape vocabulary: circle, triangle, square, and oval, as well as key content vocabulary: small, medium, and big. After creating our snow people and creatures using various shapes, we displayed them as a winter wonderland in the main hallway.
Snow people and creatures display created by rooms 1, 2, B, & C

(snow dog, snow boy, and snow cat)


(snow bird, snow cat, and snow dad)


Our Snowy Mascot, Mr. Wilson Winter Wildcat! 



        Our first graders explored 2-D and 3-D shapes further, comparing their two dimensional circle to a three dimensional sphere. Creating both 2-D and 3-D snow people. First Grade students practiced creating small, medium, and large spheres using key sculpting techniques with model magic. All 3-D snowy sculptures are on display in the Wilson library until February 1st. Below are a few sample works from room 6.






Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!








Thursday, December 15, 2011

Coil Pottery Inspired by "Dave The Potter"

This month students at Wilson Elementary school have been learning about the art of pottery. Grades 3-5 have been reading the inspiring book "Dave the Potter" by Laban Carrick Hill, Illustrated by Bryan Collier. Within the story students learn about the inspiring true story about a slave in South Carolina who become a famous potter.

Students will focusing on identifying key pottery vocabulary words within the text, then students will create their very own coil pot! Below are some images from the story and a selection of images from our project. All of our coil pots will be on display in the Wilson library from December 15th to February 1st.

























Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Wilson Wear Logo Design Contest

A big high five to all students who entered our Wilson Wear Logo Design contest, i am very proud of all of you for doing a wonderful job. It was VERY hard to select just one winner, your teachers spent hours trying to narrow down all of your creative entries to just one winner. There were many designs we wanted to use, but we could only pick one.
 I would like to congratulate: Lexi from room 29


 Lexi's shirt design will be printed on our Wilson Wear T-shirts for sale later this year!
















more entries coming soon!

Since each and every one of you worked so hard on your logos, i would like to display some more of the entries on our classroom canvas! Great job boys and girls!