Ursuline students in Toddler 1 through Kindergarten take art with Early Childhood Fine Arts teacher, Nubia Aguiar. Enjoy looking at all of the beautiful artwork that was created throughout the year!
To learn more about how different cultures create art, the Early Childhood (EC) students learned that Australian indigenous art is the oldest, unbroken traditional art in the world. It has been created for around 40,000 years. The art can be found in caves, wood carvings, sculptures, ceremonial clothing, and paintings. Before modern paints existed, the Aboriginal people created their paints from grinding rocks, leaves and berries. The students explored different forms of aboriginal art and created their own renditions using natural and contemporary materials.
The Early Childhood students had the opportunity to learn about the Mexican cultural tradition of Dia De Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). The students learned that the Dia De Los Muertos is a celebratory holiday to remember and honor the dead. Mexican families celebrate these vibrant traditions with colorful flowers, sugar skulls, tasty dishes, and altars for the dead. All that brings the memory of those that have passed to new life.
As part of the Ursuline Christmas traditions, students in Early Childhood collaborated in the creation of a manger scene to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Students from T1, T2, T3, Pre-K, and Kindergarten prepared for Advent and Christmas by learning the Nativity story in religion class with Mrs. Kathy. For the creation of the manger scene, Mrs. Nubia exposed the students to the art techniques and paint styles of the artists, Van Gogh and Klimt. As part of our Christmas traditions, the students also were encouraged by the teachers to perform kind deeds for others as they were taught by Jesus.
T2 students learned about opposites with Mrs. Chrissy and Ms. Tam during story time. In music class, they a danced to an "in and out of the circle" song. In the garden, they filled the garden buckets with soil to learn the meaning of full and then dumped the soil out to learn that without the soil, the bucket was empty. In art class with Mrs. Nubia, they created a Negative/Positive Collage using a variety of black and white materials with a black background and white foreground.
As one of our studio art invitations, Zentangle and Watercolor art had a great way to engage the Pre-K and Kindergarten girls in an open-ended art activity. The Zentangle method of drawing is a combination of dots, lines, curves, and simple shapes. Since Zentangle art is a non-representational and unplanned drawing, the girls felt relaxed and self-confident that they could create beautiful art. Some of them chose to go a step further and painted their beautiful artwork with watercolor.
In January, the Early Childhood community came back from the Christmas break and had the Nativity scene still up to celebrate the Epiphany. Since the Nativity background was stylized and inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night,” the students decided to create their own version of "The Starry Night." They were eager to learn more about Vincent Van Gogh’s life and art. They learned that Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853 in the Netherlands, Europe. He started drawing when he was a child, but did not start painting until he was in his late 20’s. He moved to France and his art was very colorful and different, but at the time, not many people liked his art. He created over 900 paintings, but only sold one painting when he was alive. He died in 1890. Shortly after his death, contemporary artists were inspired by his art and started an art movement called, Expressionism. Now, his art is famous all over the world. The students were fascinated with his life and inspired by his art. They started creating their own Expressionist art. They enjoyed it so much that we continued learning and creating art inspired by Vincent Van Gogh into our distance learning art classes.
Toddler 1 students learned about circles with Mrs. Rachael and Mrs. Kristie during storytime and music. In art class with Mrs. Nubia, students explored circles by creating art inspired by the Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky. Their stamp circle projects and circle baked cookies were given to the Ursuline Sisters for St. Angela’s Feast Day.
