Published: May 10, 2008 10:16 pm      

Sunset Elementary showcases talent of first-grade Picassos

EDMOND — As the year comes to end, teachers are scrambling to meet dreaded state-mandated PASS objectives. However, first-grade teachers at Sunset Elementary found a creative and fun way for their students to meet their art requirements.

“These are all PASS skills we have to pass throughout the year,” said Keri Lurry, first-grade teacher. “It teaches them culture of art and since they don’t have an art class it teaches them how to be creative.”

Each first-grade student made a different art project each day last week and showcased them for parents in an Art Exhibition Friday. The walls of the first-grade hall were lined with more than 600 pieces of art.

Lurry said each teacher taught a different art lesson to each of the five first-grade classes. By the end of the week each student had completed five art projects.

One of the PASS objectives for art required the students to learn about the history and culture of art.

Students studied Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, French artists and Dorothy Strait, an American Indian artist. They created paintings in styles similar to the artists they learned about.

“I like to paint,” said Kayden Drake, a first-grader.

She created a painting of her playing outside.

“It has the skies and a sun and the birds and the bush,” she said.

First-graders also painted butterflies in order to meet the objective of naming principles of design, including balance, rhythm and center of interest.

Sade Baker, a first-grader, said they listened to music and then drew a picture of what that music made them think of for one lesson.

“It helps you to learn how to draw,” she said.

Lurry said the Art Exhibition met the object of art appreciation because it teaches students how to visit museums and examine artwork.

“It lets them show their parent what they’ve done and brag,” she said.

Derajae Alberty, a first-grader, said she really enjoyed going out into the halls and looking at her classmates’ work.

“I saw all the pictures,” she said. “It was pretty.”