Monday, March 16, 2015

4th Grade - Financial Literacy Contest WINNERS!

A few months ago, the University of Cincinnati held a contest promoting financial literacy for the university's Economics Center.  The contest was to submit a drawing representing one of four financial literacy concepts, and Reading was lucky enough to have not one but TWO winners out of the 150 entries!  A huge congratulations to fourth graders Jaedyn Estes from Hilltop and Andrew Bush from Central for the awards.  Both artists received a 25 dollar cash prize and an invitation to a very nice luncheon attended by lots of important financial leaders in Cincinnati, including the mayor, the CEO of General Electric, and local news anchor Katherine Nero.  It really was quite an experience for all of us in attendance, plus the cheesecake was delicious.

Take a look at some pictures from the event.  We were deep in the corner, so my picture of Jaedyn and Andrew onstage isn't very good, but I'll post more as soon as I get a link from the event.  Once again, congratulations, guys!

The 5 winners.

Jaedyn's entry for "Spending."

Andrew's entry for "Saving."

Jaedyn with her poster.

Andrew with his poster.

So fancy.
The 5 winners onstage.

My not-so-good picture of the kids onstage.

Being recognized.

Congrats again!

4th Grade - Cartoon Characters

Cartooning has always been a passion of mine, and the fourth graders had a blast getting into their own characters.  I provided students with a sheet with tips and examples of eyes, noses, and mouths to start.  Fourth graders added the details to round their character out, then finished them off by filling out a short questionnaire that provided more background information.  These are awesome.












4th Grade - Folk Monsters

Another new one for this year, for this project we explored some Japanese legends, specifically the yokai, then made up our own.  We discussed a lot of different types of these folk monsters and considered their reason for existing.  When we created our own, we made sure that each one had a purpose, or did something unique.

It's really open-ended projects like these that really make me excited to be an art teacher.  The ideas the fourth graders came up with are so off-the-well and creative, it was hard to narrow down when I was taking pictures for the blog post here.  Take a look.















3rd Grade - Treasure Maps

Inspired by the always inspiring thomaselementaryart.blogspot.com, this is a new one in my art room.  Here, we look at some examples of treasure maps and discuss what makes them different from regular maps.  The secret is in the details.  For this project, we make a large treasure map, complete with a dotted trail, dangerous landmarks, and x marks the spot.  We paint wet-on-wet to help make the colors look a little faded, then tear the edges to complete the look.  The third graders did a really nice job coming up with a lot of different ideas for their island themes.










2nd Grade - Making Money

High up on my list of favorite second grade projects is dollar-designing Making Money.  For this project, we pretend like we are the president of the United States, but the rules have changed.  When we are president, we can do anything we want:  change laws, make up our own rules, change the name of the country, and, of course, make our own money with our faces on it.  The catch is that counterfeiters are trying to copy our bills and steal our money, so we have to load our designs with lots of secrets and details, just like the real government does.  We spend the first part of the unit taking a close look at some of the well-known secrets and security measures dollar bills have in place nowadays, then we start on our own.  We're sure to include the monetary amount, our presidential portraits, and as many secrets as we can pack in.  See if you can pick out some of them in these examples: