Bacich Elementary Art Blog

TK/Kindergarten  The Skin You Live In: Self Portrait  How Many Colors Are There in the Human Rainbow? Visual arts are a wonderful, organic way to engage our students in conversation about skin colors, self love, respect for others, race and diversity. Students engaged in a self-study about their skin color and the skin of their peers, family and community. The culminating end product was a self portrait featuring student’s personal skin colors.    The book "The Skin You Live In" written by Michael Tyler , illustrated by David Lee Csicsko was a great introduction for students to share observations about their skin. After the read- aloud, students painted with watercolors creating color recipe charts to mix their own skin tones and used creative words to name and describe their skin colors. Students painted one entire page with their skin tone and wrote their creative names of their skin color on the page.   Students continued the study of their skin by contemp...

Community Building We have been working on establishing art room guidelines and building an inclusive community culture. We start every class with a greeting routine and a choral speaking and signing of our art classroom affirmation. Students love learning and practicing American Sign Language to support our greeting and affirmation.  Bacich artists, TK through 4th grade, worked on a collaborative concentric circle art piece that was inspired by International Dot Day and the concentric circle painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. Panels of these collaborative works are on display in the Bacich art room and the front office.  Sketchbooks It is a Bacich art room tradition that in the beginning of a new school year students start out their visual arts journey by grounding themselves with a sketchbook activity. Throughout the school year, students will have the opportunity to use their sketchbook in a combination of sketching, note taking and personal journal writing. Stud...