5/19/14 - MO [UNBROKEN ARBOR VITAE arts activity]

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HAVING JUST FINISHED WITH A WEEK OF OAKS TESTING (and knowing the sample SBAC test approaches) LET'S TAKE A LITTLE BREAK AND DOING SOMETHING A BIT RIGHT BRAIN ORIENTED!

Dear 7^th Graders:

As one of Mr. Gentile’s students at Roseway Heights you are invited to participate in a unique experience to make art and share your experiences about the Oregon forests and nature with Taiwanese students and audiences.

You will have the opportunity to write and/or draw responses on letterpress printed "tree rings." These tree rings will be included in the Unbroken Arbor Vitae art exhibit as the voices of your generation. You will share your ideas and visions for our future and our environment, and consider what actions each person can take to protect our natural world.

We are four Portland women artists who are visiting your classroom on the May 19 & 20. The classroom artwork you create with us will be included in an international exhibit in Taipei, Taiwan in Oct 2014. The exhibition Unbroken Arbor Vitae will present a Northwest forest in life sized paper sculptures & photography, a video that explore ideas of reverence & renewal for nature and the artwork made by your class.

When we return from Taiwan we will arrange to visit Roseway Heights and share pictures of the exhibit and our experience in Taipei. We will be creating similar "tree rings" with students in Taiwan, and the results along with the tree rings created at RWH will be exhibited in Portland in 2015.

Thank you for participating,

Anne Greenwood, Diane Jacobs, Rachel Siegal and Shu-Ju Wan

AGENDA:
- Introduce the project - show a mock-up paper tree stump - our goals and expectations
- show some slides of our Pacific Northwest Forests
 - transition to an outdoor activity where the large trees are on campus.
 - (toss a hacky sack in a circle - when you get the hacky sack thrown to you you say a descriptive word that relates to the forest (pine cone, lichen, Douglas Fir, fresh air etc.)

Go back inside to start working on the log prints.
Begin the cut-out log prints, examples that we each make, colored pencils, regular pencils, ink pens, photographs that we’ve taken in the forest of fungi, ferns, trees, lichen, moss, etc, actual pine cones and things found in the forest for inspiration.
- Show the students some observational drawing techniques
- Work on their log prints

PROMPTS TO GUIDE STUDENT WRITING AND ART:
- Describe a forest you know.
- Why do you think the forests are important?
- What is a concern you have about your local or the world’s forests?
- What can you do to help preserve the forests?

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HOMEWORK
* * * *
Focus on finishing up the Poetry Scrapbook if you have not finished (it's due!)

No HW this week.  We will be starting Lois Lowry's The Giver (in class) and getting back into SS (post Crusades).