Fifth Grade Shake Music Video!

Both fifth grade classes joined forces to bring you these end-of-the-year videos for the 2014-2015 school year!

The fifth graders had a lot of fun filming, and they gave up a lot of recess time! Almost 100% of the filming took place during recesses over the past two months. What a great way to remember the school year! All of our students were filmed for the main video, including our reading buddies, and there was plenty of footage for a hilarious blooper video too!

Most of the ideas for each of the scenes also came from the students. Usually I just told them, "Alright, what do you want to do? Where are we going to go?" Without their ideas and help, it would not have been such a success! Great job, you guys!! :-)

The two videos are embedded below. Enjoy!

Shake - 5th Grade at West Hills Christian School - Mr. Riedl on YouTube

Shake BLOOPERS - 5th Grade at West Hills Christian School - Mr. Riedl on YouTube

2015-06-03

New Photo Albums on Google+

For your viewing pleasure, I currently store all classroom photos in two locations: Google+ and Facebook. My preference is Google+ for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that you are able to download an entire album of photos at once (as far as I know, Facebook only allows you to download one photo at a time). So, all of the student work albums listed below will send you to the albums on Google+. Random photos from the school year are located in both locations.

Google+ Photos is relatively new to me, as I have used PicasaWeb up until this point in time. A couple of the albums below have been transferred to G+ from PicasaWeb, so some of you may have already seen them. I absolutely love Google+ Photos and the options available on the mobile app, allowing me to take pictures and easily upload them to G+ and/or Google Drive without even having to sit in front of the computer!

And of course, Google+ creates Auto Awesome photos for fun!

Enjoy the classroom photos below (Random photos of the 2013-2014 school year so far are at the bottom!).
--Mr. Riedl

Hand Drawings 2013-10-18

Island Map Projects 2013-10-24

Mirrored Name Art 2013-11-01

Space Projects 2013-11-14

Painting landscapes (Like Grandma Moses) 2013-12-06

2013-2014 Photos (I regularly add to this album)

Hand Drawings

We enjoyed finishing up our first art project a couple of weeks ago! They are now hanging on the Student Showcase in the classroom. Embedded slideshow is below. Enjoy!

Not loading? Click here

Dancing Dubstep Violin: Lindsey Stirling

When Lindsey Stirling was on America's Got Talent, she called herself the "Hip-hop violinist". After getting voted off the show, her career skyrocketed as she now has close to 3 million subscribers on YouTube.

She is classically trained, but after a few years of playing she started to get burnt out. Deciding to try something new and be herself, she added dance, dubstep, and anything else creative to make it fun for her and her fans.

I watched the video below (Shadows) and was immediately hooked. What I loved was not only her skills playing the violin, but also her creativity with the video, dancing, and making it fun! I hope you enjoy it too. Check out the video below and see other creative works on her YouTube channel.

http://youtu.be/JGCsyshUU-A

Craft: Paper Roses

Many people have asked me where I came up with the idea of the paper roses that my students made for the adults who have helped volunteer/work for our classroom in some capacity throughout the year. The idea originated at an annual DIY event before Christmas organized by my church. The woman who showed me how to make the roses directed me to a website, and from there I found another paper rose-making site that was more kid-friendly. Click on the link below. This site (The Elli Blog) has many great resources for other DIY projects that might interest you as well.

The Elli Blog: DIY Paper Rose Templates

If you have any other craft ideas that are great for fifth graders, please feel free to comment below and link your favorite. Thanks!
--Mr. Riedl

Embossing Incan Heads

This past week, Mrs. Golsan, one of our many awesome parent volunteers, came in to teach our students about Incan culture. The activity that went along with the lesson was learning how to emboss a picture into sheet metal. Using a ballpoint pen to press hard on the lines of the drawing, it embosses an imprint of the sketch. Very fun! The students enjoyed it, but I wasn't able to photograph all of them.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102454439242306386310/IncanSheetMetalArtLiteracy20130514

Compound Machine Design Project

I assigned a new project for science today! The goal is to design a compound machine using all six simple machines we have been learning about. Similar to a Rube Goldberg machine, this design should be a ridiculous way to perform a simple task. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time in this unit to actually built an apparatus, but we can still have fun designing them. See below for what I drew on the whiteboard for my students.

Videos: Real beauty & shadow art dancing

Below are two viral videos currently being viewed across the globe. I wanted to share them both because of the depth and meaning behind each one.

In the first video, Dove shows a fascinating experiment they created, called Real Beauty Sketches. The idea is to have a professional sketch artist draw a person's own description of what the person looks like, and then a new sketch of another person's description of the same person. The differences are startling. "You are more beautiful than you think" is the tagline of the project. I hope to continually remind my wife and daughter that their beauty is deeper than the image reflected back in the mirror, and that we ought to ultimately look to Jesus' heart for beauty.

In the second video, Britain's Got Talent introduced Attraction Shadow Theatre, an artistic dancing group, telling a thoughtful, meaningful story to music in this clip. This is such a creative idea, with endless potential in communicating life and emotion.

http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk

http://youtu.be/a4Fv98jttYA

Mr. Riedl is now on Instagram!

I have absolutely fallen in love with Instagram! It is such a wonderful collection of photographic artwork. Now, in a fun, new way, I can simply utilize this resource with the photos I have already been taking of the classroom, students, and our school community!

Photos are a great way to capture memories and are even easier now that we have smartphones and other mobile devices. Although I am too young to remember the Kodak Instamatic, I do remember using Polaroids and often used the catchphrase "Kodak moment." Maybe we will soon be saying "Insta-moment"?

Many of my students have told me they are already on Instagram, so be sure to connect with me!
UPDATE: I just discovered the Instagram Terms of Use states that one must be at least 13 years old to use the service. Please understand that I do not condone breaking the law.

My user name is mrriedl. Check out my first two photos below!

Friday carpool, mosaics art, and Mr. Riedl might need glasses soon

Christmas Geometric Art!

Hello everyone! On such a special day, I wanted to share a special video: Vi Hart's Snowflakes, Starflakes, and Swirlflakes. She always does such a great job with her fun, creative math videos. This one is particularly Christmasey. :-) Enjoy!

Christmas Card Drawing Contest

This year a Christmas Card Drawing Contest will be held. The winners will not only receive the honor of being The West Hills Christmas Card Artist for the cards sent to our donors and alumni, but also will receive a $50 gift card from Target!

Christmas Card Drawing Contest RULES:

1. There will be two winners. One from Grades K-4 and one from Grades 5-8. 
2. The drawings must reflect what Christmas means to the artist.
3. All artwork must be an original design. Please do not copy anyone else's work.
4. All artwork must be hand drawn and colored with colored pencils. No electronic use of any type allowed.
5. All West Hills students K-8 are eligible to enter one Christmas card artwork drawing.
6. The final artwork drawing must fit on one side of a 5.5" x 8.5" piece of paper.
7. The one piece of artwork must be submitted to Katie Craft by Wednesday, Nov. 28 at 8:30am.
8. The two winners of the contest will be announced on Friday, Nov. 30 by 3:00pm.

Good luck and happy drawing!

Image note: The artist is Maya Morales, age 6 of Youngsville, Louisiana, a "straight-A" first grade student at nearby Coteau Elementary. She signed the card with two purple hearts on the back cover. Maya is a childhood cancer patient of Dr. Ammar Morad, founder of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program at Women's & Children's Hospital in Lafayette, LA.

Art Project: Hands

click here to view and download photos

Finger Dancing?

Watch "Unleash Your Fingers" on YouTube
I can totally see this catching on with my students! It reminds me of pen spinning. I love how the geometric shapes and angles burst into the video. So cool. Gotta integrate this into my math classes somehow.

Traffic Paint

Watch "Painting Reality" on YouTube
This is awesome art, although I'm not so sure the street cleaners would be all that happy. :-)

JayCut Video Editing

I have discovered an awesome online video editing website called JayCut. This is the site I used to make the video of Nolan in his crib, a few posts ago. I have used Windows Movie Maker to do the same kind of thing in the past, but that program has always been touchy and problematic for me. JayCut is online, so it automatically saves your work if you forget (like I do). It is also very useful when sharing videos to different sources: Web, PC, or Mobile. You just need to upload the video and then you can chop it up, edit it, and create a great looking video.

Below is an image of what it looks like when using the JayCut editing program online. It is extremely easy to use, clear, and great for beginners.

I would definitely recommend my students using it for any school projects they might be putting together. An example of one video I made very quickly, only in about 30 minutes is below. I could have even added text or put music to it, but I decided to keep it simple. Check it out at jaycut.com and have fun with it!

New Wardrobe!

I am super excited about the bright new colors I'll be wearing to school now! Super bright and cheery!

Contrail Rainbow

I found these pics on a blog I follow (http://cyclotram.blogspot.com/2010/10/contrail-rainbow.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cyclotram+%28Cyclotram%29&utm_content=Google+Reader), who takes awesome pictures around the Portland area.

Here he found a contrail that was acting as a prism for a rainbow in the sky. The sunlight refracted as in shone through the water droplets after they condensed in the sky following a jet passing through. Pretty sweet shot!

Weekly Update! May 3-7, 2010

Our very last Colonization Settlement Round takes place on Monday. We had a great time simulating colonial interactions in the New World. We learned a lot about history, social interaction, and basic needs for survival. The American Revolution is coming up next in social studies.

This week is the last week before OMSI Camp (May 10-14). Please be sure that your child has a packing checklist and is well prepared before next Monday when we leave.

In our math group, we are beginning the individual work samples in class. When working on homework with your child, please remember to encourage them to show all of their work and have them explain all of their steps, including checking to make sure their answer is correct.

Lastly, Art Night is on Thursday night at 6:30pm! It will surely be a wonderful event, and I hope to see everyone there! After all, over the past two weeks our 5th graders have worked hard on art projects with their Kindergarten buddies, and it has been delightful to see them work well together. A few pictures are included below.

--Mr. Riedl

Mural painting

Painting a mural with the 5th graders!