Sixth grade students at Harris Middle School studying Eastern Europe and the Renaissance got a treat when Anne Phillips spent three days subbing with an art of illumination lesson.  Anne brought illumination examples and asked students to create their own illumination of the first letter of their name.  Students were asked to create a border and to incorporate various symbols or reflections of their personal self within their illumination.

Anne Phillips was asked to create a special project with sixth grade students at Bowman Middle School.  Students were paired with a first grade counterpart that they interviewed as the basis for the main character for their own children’s book.  After the interview, the sixth graders wrote a children’s book and then Anne helped with the illustration and book construction.  They cut cereal boxes to size for the front and back covers of the book.  Using a rice flour paste they wrapped the cereal board with muslin.  When it dried they painted the covers and used a Japanese stab binding method to assemble the books.

When you wish upon a star, Anne Phillips will find a creative way to make End-of-Grade Reviews into a fun day of subbing.  Anne spent the day with fifth graders from Burnsville Elementary School creating star drawings.  When the stars designs were complete, students had to identify 3 acute and 3 obtuse angles in the star.  They then had to measure the angles and report back to Anne what the largest angle and the smallest angles were in the star.  Anyone who found a right angle or an equilateral triangle in their designs got an extra special prize.

In Burnsville Elementary School, kindergarten students complete a unit of study on tools, so Anne Phillips got creative and helped students use the tools to make a Tic-Tac-Toe board.  Each student measured and cut a pine board to the right length.  Some students used a hand saw and some students used a jig saw.  Students then marked the 9 places on their board to put their screws.  Each student drilled 9 screws in a grid pattern – this was the actual Tic-Tac-Toe board.  They nailed 2 nails in place – one to hold the red washers, and one to hold the silver washers.  When they were done with this 1/2 day project they had a Tic-Tac-Toe board and a real understanding of the tools they had studied.

Anne Phillips subbed for Mrs. Antinori’s fourth grade class at Burnsville Elementary School.  She gave each student three pieces of charcoal, and mixed up a batch of Mrs. Stewart’s solution of blue, ammonia, and salt.  The students spooned it over the charcoal with food coloring and waited for the magic to happen.  Within an hour crystals started to form.  Two days later, Anne came back and repeated the process with the students to grow a number of crystals for their rock garden.  This directly connected to their study of rocks and minerals.

Recently, Anne Phillips subbed for Mrs. Silver’s kindergarten class at Burnsville Elementary School.  To incorporate their unit on ocean study, Anne read Swimming by Leo Lionni.  She brought photographs of creatures that you would find in the sea, and using empty water bottles students made their own miniature ocean world.  Each student got to pick 8 beads that Anne provided.  She brought fish, dolphin, starfish, sea horses, seals, shells, whales, and a few others.  They dropped the beads, along with some glitter, vegetable oil, blue food coloring and water into the water bottles and created a magical underwater world.

Anne Phillips subbed for Katrina Plato’s art class at Bowman Middle School and used the opportunity to teach art techniques through the creation of fun geometric starbursts.  Students used colored pencils on black paper to create starburst shapes.  They were asked to use a variety of textures and patterns when creating their star, and were reminded of considering negative space within their design.  They reviewed the color wheel and discussed complimentary colors which they were to consider when creating their star design.  The result was a burst of bright and brilliant star designs.

Substitute Kerstin Davis recently spent two days at Harris Middle School with 85, 7th graders creating and flying kites inspired by Chinese and Japanese tradition.  Kerstin substituted for Lori Huskins Social Studies class and discussed the invention of papermaking and its influence on Asian countries to connect to the Asian Studies curriculum of the class to the kite making lesson.  Chinese inspired kites were designed with special attention to cultural and spiritual meaning and Japanese inspired kites were built and flown with the Edo fighting kites in mind.  The culmination of designing and building the kites was a great day of flying!