Freckle Face's Blog: Put Your Fans Together…It’s a New Year!

Friday, January 24, 2020

Put Your Fans Together…It’s a New Year!

1st grade

Raise your hand if you know what is happening on January 25^th. I asked my second grade art class this question about a week ago. One student said, “Report cards?” Well, it’s almost that time, but I was looking for a different answer. Several kids knew that January 25 is when the Chinese New Year begins. One youngster with a very solemn face said, “It’s when the animal changes in the Chinese calendar.” True enough. 2020 is the year of the rat.

3rd grade

Honestly, my first reaction was unfavorable. I’m not a fan of rats. They’re hard to love. Bunnies? Good. Birds? Good. But rats? The Chinese zodiac ascribes several positive traits to rats, including productivity, diligence and shrewdness. (AKA sneaky when plotting to come eat from your fruit trees. Also wily, despite the fact that you left out rat traps.) It’s hard for me to feel excited about this being the year of the rat. And I fear for our backyard garden. But I digress.

The Chinese New Year celebration will continue through February 8. My art students have been decorating and folding paper fans to tie in with the celebration.

The idea came to me like so many of my art ideas: randomly. I was in a store and saw a fabric fan and thought this would be a fun art idea for my students. Most of our art is two-dimensional, so making something that has a 3-d effect gives us another dimension to explore.

4th grade

The youngest kids folded their fans along lines I drew out for them. They used a lot of imagination and came up with all kinds of different designs. I told them their fans did not have to look like the Chinese fans we looked at for reference, and that they could come up with their own designs.

The older kids drew on semi-circles of paper that didn’t have lines drawn on them. I wanted their fans to look more like continuous scenes. The kids really impressed me with how they interpreted this project. So much variety in what they created. Some kids used my fan photos as inspiration, drawing their own cherry blossoms, which are a popular design on fans. But other students chose to freestyle their designs. My only requirement was that the kids use at least three bright colors in their designs.

6th grade

7th grade

As you can see, my students have had a very productive 2020 thus far. Less than a month in and we’ve already marked New Years, Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday, Chinese New Year…and don’t even get me started on all the national days. Obviously, you celebrated National Argyle day on January 8, and you participated in National Dress up your Pet Day on the 14^th. But if you somehow missed those, here is the link to the complete list of national days in January.

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/january/

Plus, February is right around the corner, so let’s not waste another minute jibber-jabbering. As everyone knows, we have to prepare for Tater Tot Day on February 2. And then Peppermint Patty Day is coming up on February 11, and Tell a Fairy Tale Day on the 26th…

Looks like 2020 is going to be a very busy year, just like the industrious rat himself.