Monster ABC's

Please enjoy this ABC book written and illustrated by Cumberland School 1st Grade students.

First graders in Mrs. Polson's class and Mrs. Mullane's class each created a page in an ABC book in Art Class recently. This is how we created our story:

1. Students drew a letter from a hat.
2. Students created a sketch of a monster.
3. Students named their monsters starting with the same sound as the letter they were given, and included the character in a sentence.
4. Students glued the letter onto an 12"x18" paper, wrote their sentence, and drew a picture of their monster.
5. All pages were collected, while students helped to place them in alphabetical order.
6. The story was recorded and narrated by me, Ms. T.

Day of the Dead

Today and yesterday (November 1st and 2nd)  are holidays in Mexico, and other countries in Central and South America as well as parts of Europe. This holiday is filled with colorful art work, music and food. It is a happy celebration of the lives of loved ones that have passed. Alters are built, food is set out, and sugar skulls are made for the deceased to enjoy.

The 5th graders at Cumberland created colorfully decorated skull prints in the style of Day of the Dead. Students were given a skull image to start with. They adorned the image by adding shapes, lines and patterns. These designs were transferred onto a piece of styrofoam which made a printing plate. Each student made 2 prints of their skull with white ink onto black paper. They used oil pastels and Crayola color sticks to draw details and add color to their prints. The final step was adding glitter if they chose to do so.