Whats that animal I am thinking of?

Kindergarten became detectives as we geared up for Thanksgiving break. Each table had a clue, feathers in a box, eggs, a claw and a sound clip of a turkey. At the last station students were able to draw what they thought the animal I was thinking of was. I was thinking of a turkey but henry's dromaeosaurus with feathers was a pretty great guess!

Fantastical Animals

Using 5 photos students were directed to create a fantastical creature in Photoshop.

Design Challenge

Using 3 provided photos students were instructed to design an interesting composition using Photoshop.
Students could manipulate the photos, erase, multiply, rotate, and filter the photos allowing the viewer to see their unique perspectives.

We now have a green screen

Goodbye purple wall! Hello green screen!

Penpals in South Korea

password: penpals

As a finale to our year long Middle Grades Project we invited Sidewalk Sam to the West Somerville . As a class we created a mural in the playground. The mural had a peace dove in the center surrounded by representations of our middle grades topics. Each 7th grade student filled a square with colorful chalk, and were directed to put down some expression that shows how we can make the world a better place. Sidewalk Sam's peace dove project started as a way to help curb youth violence around Boston. Sidewalk expressed his concern with using guns and hateful graffiti to settle disputes. " If your allowed to put symbols of anger and hate in the community, you should never allow those symbols to be unchallenged. There should be teenagers that say, I will not let this stand". So far Sidewalk, his wife Tina and several others from the community have painted over 700 peace doves around the city that read " Stop Violence and Create Peace".







Genetically Modified Corn

Book Soundtracks

Emmy nominated animator Dave Schlafman visits WSNS

Fashion Club Final Projects- Paper dresses inspired by flight

" For my dress I was inspired by the cross-section of the USS Akron 1931 airship. I was desperate to find an idea in the last five minutes of one class. I looked in one book and found this photo of the inside of the airplane. I thought it would make an adorable pattern so I photo copied the image and transferred it onto my dress. I embroidered around one of the cross-section patterns and laced the back." Samantha





" I was inspired by the way smoke travels through the air. We used dye and water to get the gradient effect"- Pamela







"I chose bubbles for my inspiration because I love dots so much. I thought about flying dots and realized that bubbles are basically flying dots." - Katie

5th Grade Jazz Projects

Joseph's project on Louis Armstrong:


Jocely's project on Ella Fitzgerald:



Nick's project on Big Momma Thornton:



Donovan's project on Duke Ellington



Ryan's project on Jimi Hendrix:



Amanda's project on Jesse Dee

Cool photo? I think so.

Aurelio Ramos shows the 8th grade his UV reactive violet laser projector!

Book Soundtracks

Today the 4th grade started book soundtracks. In groups of two they picked their favorite children's picture book, video taped themselves explaining why they chose the book, and took pictures of all the pages. Next they will import all the frames into Movie Maker and narrate/ add sound effects to their video. The completed projects will be added to the shared folder so the K,1 and 2nd graders will be able to listen and read along with. Stay tuned.

Jacob Fenwick shows the 8th grade how to hack a kinect to make motion activated music.

Stop Motion Mash Up

DJ Encanti Skypes with the East Somerville School

Dj/Electronic sound artist Encanti Skypes with the East Somerville School right before leaving for a three month tour with his audio/visual act Z.E.E (Zebbler Encanti Experience) and headliner EOTO.

Katie's LED Bubble Hat

1st and 2nd Grade Wishes

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday the 2nd grade read " Green Eggs and Ham" afterwards they were asked to think of something that they thought they didn't like, and then tried it and ended up liking it. We then went to artpad.art.com to use word processing and paint tools to design a page about our discussion.

Didgeridoo/Beatboxer Max Jackson visits WSNS