Art: Op Art Meets Egyptian Art/Maps

Third graders have begun an intense investigation of Op Art, Ancient Egyptian art, and maps. They will be visiting the Walters Art Gallery in December, and this project is based on a work they will be viewing, a papyrus scroll called the Book of the Faiyum. 

The girls learned about the artist Bridget Riley and the were some of the words they used to describe her work: moving, sliding, spaces you can move into, shimmering, shaking, a roller coaster ride, optical illusion. Bridget Riley also visited Egypt and was inspired by the color she saw in the art there. 

Third graders also isolated pattern from ancient Egyptian art and created a test print using scratch foam as a printing plate. Students noticed commonalities between the two disparate art forms. Both use pattern, contrast, and symmetry. Ask your third grader to describe the printing process. 

(A plate and a print)

Next third grade began to research maps, exploring the differences between Google Earth images and maps, particularly maps made by artists. They researched a certain place, and then began planning an op art map of this place using iPad tools. The abstract map image they created will become a print, so they used a low tech solution to reverse their map image. 

(Getting inspiration from fellow third graders)

(Reversing abstract map image)

Archaeologists in Ancient Egypt

    

Never giving up their search like Howard Carter, archaeologists recently discovered beautifully painted mummy cases. 







Cheerful colors and detailed pictures were carefully placed on each well-constructed case. 











Also found were neatly written pieces on papyrus paper, in cursive, of course! 









These paragraphs opened the doors to learning about the lives of interesting young ladies. 










Surprisingly, the mummies were found in "The Valley of the Queens,"  just east of the Nile River.

 

 

French: Enjoying Paris

We are having a great time in Paris.  The girls have toured the city, had breakfast in their hotel rooms, gone shopping in the French markets, and eaten in a French restaurant.  Next week they will be visiting the French monuments and museums.  They are having a blast, but they also miss you all.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone back in the U.S. on December 8th. 

Reading: Inferring

Today we introduced our third Reading Strategy: Inferring.  To concretely demonstrate this strategy, the girls were told a very believable, but fictional story.  As the story goes, I took garbage from my mysterious, new neighbors so I could learn something about them.  After presenting the girls with each item, they were able to make inferences about the neighbors.  For example, the girls inferred the neighbors had a baby after seeing an empty jar of baby food.  The girls were amazing as they supported their inferential thinking with evidence from the garbage. In the end, they were relieved to learn I had made up the whole story. 

Science: Rock On!

The girls are learning how to test minerals and rocks to see how hard they are.  Once they do a series of tests on the rocks, they will use the results to try to discover the identity of some unknown specimens.

Golden Days of Fall

Flossing Our Spelling Words

The girls received good check-ups after learning to apply

 the "Floss Rule."

 

 

What do they know about double consonants?  ff, ll, ss, dd, tt, zz

     Each double consonant sounds like one letter.

 

What do these words have in common?  smell, buzz, sniff, kindness, gruff

     Each word has one syllable with the short vowel sound.

           Also, the last two letters in every word are doubled.

 

Wait, what about words like bus and gas?

     There are always rules which are broken!

 

Remember the "Floss Rule" when
reading and writing!

 

The letters f, l, and s are the most common

letters that double at the end of words.