Category: Specialists

This Middle School Art Elective focuses on the human form in Sculpture. Students can proportionately sculpt the body or be inspired by artist Alberto Giacometti’s figures. The students create their figures out of foil, pipe cleaners and tape, before using paper mache.

Some of the students are making separate props for their figures such as a skateboard, surf board, book, and a lacrosse stick. The last class will be spent painting the figures.

Each student in the Middle School Green Block (grades 6th-8th) is working on their self-portrait. They are starting the process using the grid method. This is a technique used to accurately draw large scale. The students use their rulers to accurately draw the contour of their face and shoulders. They will finish the portrait in gray scale and learn shading and blending techniques.

The Set Design Middle School Elective is thought by Ms. Natalie and Maestra Padilla. In this class, the middle school students are working hard to complete the backdrop for the Lower School play, James and the Giant Peach. This Art class is in collaboration with the Music program and a great opportunity for the kids to work on a larger scale.

Their main focus right now is completing the Giant Peach! See their work and enjoy watching the Lower School play on Wednesday, December 19th at 1:30 pm!

The 6th grade just wrapped up their volcano unit. They learned about different types of volcanoes and their parts, where they are located, what type of eruptions occur, dangers and advantages of living by active volcanoes, and how they create different rocks and formations.

Students looked at different types of igneous rocks, tested different fluid viscosity to see how different lavas might flow, and then built their own shield volcano and tested off different batches of “magma.” They determined the speed of flow, what minerals make the lava flow slower, and how those different flows cool into different rocks. The students also learned about historic volcanoes and ones we still might want to be concerned about. It was a lot of fun!

The Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, takes place during the first two days of November. While the holiday’s observances include spending time in cemeteries, making shrines to the dead, and displaying skull and skeleton decorations, the occasion is joyful, rather than scary. Death isn’t seen as the end of one’s life, but as a natural part of the life cycle. During Día de los Muertos, it is said that the spirits of the dead come back to visit the living. First those who died as babies come home, then the older children, and finally those who died as adults.

Students set up an altar or ofrenda on the middle school deck. They decorated them festively with bright colors and had photographs, things that the dead people enjoyed, and items representing the four elements: fire (candles), water (drinks), earth (fruit), and wind (fluttering tissue-paper decorations.) Decorating with happy and cheerful calaveras (skulls) and calacas (skeletons) and eating pan de muerto (bread of the dead, made in honor of the holiday) is part of the Día de los Muertos celebration.

The students at Saklan are preparing the altar for the Dia de los Muertos celebration which takes place Oct. 31st – Nov. 2nd. This is a traditional Mexican holiday celebrated in Mexico as well as in the United States. This Middle School elective course is taught by the 4th – 8th grade Spanish teacher Maestra Padilla and K – 8th Art instructor Ms. Natalie.

Here the students are painting the skulls they sculpted in clay after making traditional flores de papel (paper flowers) that will surround the altar space. Dia de los Muertos is a time when people come together to remember and honor those that have passed. The students will be choosing people in the community and prominent figures that they will honor in the altar.