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Twenty-five McCurdy Elementary School students in the Hazelwood School District took home awards from the 2009 Missouri Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM) math and art contest. Seven of those 25 students won blue ribbons in different categories.

Kaylynn Michael, a first grade student, won first place for her entry in the geometric shapes using markers and crayons category.

“I took some paper and traced over the top, bottom and right sides,” she said. She explained she used blue and indigo on the first half and orange and a shade of pinkish-red on the second half. “I’m actually kind of surprised,” she continued. “I didn’t think I would win.”

Dannie Saines III, who is in third grade, also earned a blue ribbon for his shape designs.

“It was fun because it’s math and it’s art,” he said. “What I drew looked like a math flower. When I did that, I felt like I was in art class doing homework.” Saines said he selected red, black, yellow and pink to complete his art.

Second grade student Nicholas Mitalovich received first place for his glued-on geometric shapes. He used black, red, yellow and orange to finish his piece.

“Everything we did in the lower grades was based on shapes,” said the school’s art teacher, Linda Crull. She explained that Mitalovich started with a still life and then broke it down and examined pieces of it, using a Cubist style of art, where objects are broken up, analyzed and reassembled in an abstract form.

For third grader Jaylan Johnson, math and art combined to make a cause-and-effect scene. “We had to do angles,” he said. “I say it feels good to have a blue ribbon because it’s probably the first one I have had.”

First place winner and fourth grade student James Adkison created glued-on shapes too, using colorful scrapbook paper. He rotated them and used different shapes and sizes.

“I did the Star of Bethlehem,” he said. “I haven’t won a blue ribbon in art before; it makes me very proud.”

Shapes are also what earned fifth grader Abigail Barron top honors. “I took a star and pointed it ‘up’ and then I took another one and placed it next to the first one.” She created a tessellation design. Tessellations, or tiling, are repeating shapes with no gaps or overlaps.

Fifth grade student Majduleen Mutan received a first place ribbon for her work in the computer-generated art category. “I did mine with hexagons and I kept repeating them,” Mutan said. She said she used black and white as well as brown and gray to color her shapes. ”

“I’m very, very pleased with their wins,” Crull said. She explained that she looks at the District’s grade-level expectations, the state’s education requirements and the classroom and art curriculum, blending elements of each into the students’ work that she submits for the contest.

(story courtesy of the Hazelwood Communications Dept.)

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