Third-grade students at Helen M. Knight Elementary School in Moab recently created a school of Utah’s native fish as part of a class art project. Under the direction of art coach Bruce Hucko, the students chose a native Utah fish to study and draw larger than life on cardboard.

Parents helped students cut out the pieces and then the students glued them together, covered them in paper mache and painted them.

One side of the fish was painted to match the natural appearance of the fish and the other was painted as students preferred, using creativity as their guide, Hucko said in a news release.

The third-graders’ fish were put on display at the Moab Valley Inn in November, during the Desert Fishes Council’s 42nd annual conference.

“The paper mache replicas of Utah’s native fishes were used as a talking point during the meeting to highlight to our members the importance of outreach and education to the public, especially children,” Desert Fishes Council President Heidi Blasius recently wrote to the students.

“The council was so appreciative of the student work that they sent a $500 donation for the K-3 Art Program,” Hucko said in a news release. “It is a great credit to the young HMK artists that their work is recognized by this national organization.”

In other HMK art news, all third grade students recently completed a study of southern Utah’s landforms that culminated in oil pastel, watercolor and mixed media artworks showing the “lines of landscape.” The art is hanging in the third-grade and library area at HMK.

Second grade students have spent the last month learning about American Indian cultures of the Four Corners area, especially the Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo and Ancestral Puebloan people. As part of the lessons, second-grade students created symmetrical symbolic designs inspired by Navajo rugs and baskets.

First grade students have been working to construct a miniature replica showing area community members at work and play. The project, built as part of the Title 1 program’s core curriculum on learning about community, features buildings made of small boxes and drawings, done by all first graders, of various community members in action poses. The first-graders also created a watercolor exhibit of fall leaves.

In the spirit of the holiday season, kindergarten students created a display of Christmas candle art, as well as making their first tempera paintings. Kindergarten kids have also been learning the color wheel. They created a green candle with a purple base and orange flame made with yellow, red and blue paint. That project was followed on the heels of the cornucopia fruits and vegetables they painted to decorate their Thanksgiving program, according to Hucko.

The public is invited to visit the school and see the student artwork during normal school hours. Hucko works at HMK through the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program that is administered by the Utah State Office of Education and funded by the Utah State Legislature.