Guest readers were district Administrators, James Madison President, City Councilman, School Board Member, Musician, Community Leaders, Realtor, DJs, and educators. Books were shared in Spanish, English and even through song.

Readers included: Daniel Kirwan (principal), Laura Feichtinger McGrath, Joanne Gabbin, President Alger, Gary Painter, Kathy Holter, Matt Hassman, Ron Ornstein, Jonathan Ruppel, Holly Bess Kincaid, Abe Shearer, JR Snow, Joe Glick, Brent Holsinger, Brandy Lindsey, Isabel Castillo, Molly Murphy, Margot Zahner, Sandy Parks, Ritchie Vaughan, Jessica Pyle

The arts and reading are vehicles to transport our students through their imagination to learn about cultures, people, far off lands and imagine worlds beyond our own. "Art is a place kids travel to, where they feel good about themselves. Keep their passport current."
Fred Babb, author and artist

To learn more about:

• World Read Aloud Day : http://www.litworld.org/wrad/_
• Youth Art Month : https://www.arteducators.org/news/articles/10-youth-art-month
• Some of my favorite art books: http://capitolofcreativity.weebly.com/art-books.html

I invite you in March to read aloud to a child, support the arts by going to your local Youth Art Month Exhibits and continue to celebrate creativity!

Every week I ask my students to T.H.I.N.K. about a new piece of art work. The chosen work will correlate in some way to the current project, a theme or events. When teachers are making the choice to get rid of posters in lieu of digital projections online I am finding students are more engaged to look at the actual printed poster. Little hidden clues on posters like the Title, Artist, Dates, Medium, and location have students dashing to make the connections with artwork. 

Currently, my students are working on a self portrait project and we have looked at several different Artist's own portraits. The focus this week has been on a self portrait by the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), one of the greatest figures of the Northern Renaissance. As a draughtsman and painter, he rivaled his elder contemporary Leonardo Da Vinci, and his masterful woodcuts and engravings of mythical and allegorical scenes made him famous across Europe. The image we are using for our art critique this week was done when he was only 13 years old. Skyline students are enjoying seeing the talent of an artist close to their own age. What do you THINK about Albrecht Durer's self portrait?


    Albrecht Durer- Self Portrait Age 13

Tell... what you see in the artwork? 
What is the medium? 
Is the image a sculpture, painting, drawing, architecture, etc?
Portrait, Landscape, Still Life? 
Describe lines, shapes, colors scheme, or basic elements of work.
Description = pure description of the object without value judgments, analysis, or interpretation.

How... did the artist create the artwork?
How did the artist use the Elements and Principles in creating the art work?
What is the subject matter?
How did the artist use a color scheme, the space of the image, value, or create movement?
Description Analysis= determining what the features suggest and deciding why the artist used such features to convey specific ideas.

Interpret...
Why did the artist create this artwork? What does it mean?
What is the main idea?
Express what you think about the art work and its meaning.
What evidence (in or outside of artwork) supports your interpretation?
Interpretation= establishing the broader context for this type of art.

Now...
What do you THINK? Is the art work successful? Why or Why not? What criteria helps to judge the work's success? What is the evidence in the work to support your judgement? What would you have done differently if you were creating the artwork?
Judgment= Judging a piece of work means giving it rank in relation to other works and of course considering a very important aspect of the visual arts; its originality.

World Read Aloud Day was celebrated on March 5th, 2014. Due to testing and snow days here at Skyline we moved our celebration to March 12, 2014. Worldwide at least 793 million people remain illiterate. Two-thirds of them are women. LitWorld is changing that.

Every year on the first Wednesday of March, World Read Aloud Day calls global attention to the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories. Along with Ms. Parks our librarian we decided to connect the observance with Youth Art Month to share the power of words and art.