A Small Change to Make Room for Variety!
Working with 3-5 different classes of nearly 30 students in one grade level per week is quite new to me as of this year. I believe I see 5-6 different 5th grades, 3rd grades, 2nd grades, and 1st grades per week. I also see 5 different 6th grades, 3 4th grades, 3 kindergartens, 2 pre-k classes, 2 self-contained classes, and 1 ABA class. I have a big mix of students and started feeling a little bored with repeating the same project with every class for the entire marking period. I have given it some thought and decided it would be best to change art activities up within each grade level. This will leave us with more of a variety to display in galleries and on the website, as well as give me a chance to see my students create artwork in different styles, sizes, art forms, and while using more than 1 medium.
So here is a little preview of what you will be seeing in the next few weeks! I am super excited to see what these guys can do!
Pre-K: Assorted Shapes House Collage [ Using pre-cut assorted shapes from colored construction paper, students will assemble and glue the shapes to create a house. This assignment will teach students how to plan and assemble pieces to create a whole].
Kindergarten
Bowl of Fruit [This project is designed at the beginners level where students will work with crayons to learn how to work two colors into one object to observe the outcome of blending colors. Pictures will be provided for students to reference and they will dow their own bowl or fruit arrangement, then color!]
1st Grade
Super Crazy Line Cities [This is a great project to get students used to using a ruler without restrictions! I created this lesson to allow students in the elementary grades to freely use a ruler to construct a city. They will learn to overlap buildings to show buildings in the front, middle, and back and they will use a ruler any time they make straight lines {diagonal, horizontal, checkered, or vertical}. In the case of creating curved or zigzagged lines, students may free-hand draw them. This project also requires outlining with a thin sharpie marker and TONS of color!]
Leaning Tower of Cups: [The other 1st grades will be making a stack of 3 cups that vary in size, shape, and handle! Each cup will have a different design or pattern, as well as the background and table. This project is very similar as far as exercising line and color but students will not be using a ruler unless needed. This project focuses primarily on design and overlapping.
2nd Grade
Hundertwasser Nature and the Eyes of Human Architecture [My 2nd graders are fantastic and very bright as well! I was exploring some artists online to see what we could do- something new and fun, also something challenging. Then I found Hundertwasser, an Austrian artist with brilliant use of color and line- two elements I LOVE including in artwork. I introduced it to one of my 2nd grades today and let me tell you- their sketches were fantastic! I overheard some of them talking about his artwork that I had printed out and left on the table. I was almost in tears from laughing because their conversation was so intellectual, yet so innocent! We are going to learn about this amazing artist and his ties to nature and human life... how he wanted to incorporate the environment in the cities and stray from the creation of architecture that stood disconnected to creative freedom.
Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers [With the spring right around the corner and Earth Day approaching, I thought it would be great to have some of my 2nd grades paint some beautiful Georgia O'Keeffe inspired flower close-ups. Of course, students will be strongly encouraged to incorporate their own use of color and shape!
3rd Grade
Celebrating African Culture [Originally I wanted to introduce some African art and celebrate Black History Month, but we ran late with our last project. That is quite alright though! We are still going to learn about Black History and African culture. Students will create a 3 musicians piece with a touch of African jazz influence! We will discuss Picasso's 3 Musicians and tie it into African culture and music from the early to mid 1900's. This will be an oil pastels and watercolor project because the two pair so nicely together!
African Animals [I have a large 3rd grade so we are splitting this up nicely! The other group will be working on African animals and they will decorate them with patterns and textiles of Africa. They will use oil pastels and watercolors as well to emphasis the designs inside the animals. These will look beautiful].
4th Grade
Japanese Scroll Painting [Okay, they will not be scrolls per say, but the idea is there. I already introduced a power point presentation that gave students an overview of Japanese culture. We also watched some neat videos about Japanese sports-the kids couldn't get enough of the sumo wrestling! They will pick anything having to do with Japanese culture: food, clothing, ceremony, sports, landscape, or architecture and feature it on their scroll painting. We will use watercolors to create a calm, peaceful, and loose visual story. They will initial their painting using Japanese lettering. So cool!
5th Grade
Ansel Adams Black and White Paintings [This has become an absolute favorite of mine because it always looks gorgeous! Students will learn about Ansel Adams and pick from one of his landscape photographs. They will learn about the grayscale and value in turning the photograph into a painting. Some students will be chosen to work in large scale to create a dynamic gallery display].
Collage Landscapes [To keep honoring Ansel Adams beautiful work, the other half of the 5th grade will use black and white magazine pieces to recreate one of Ansel Adams landscapes. This makes for a really interesting composition involving text and shape.]
6th Grade
Animal Close-up Paintings [The 6th grade will be learning about cropping an image, resizing an image, emphasis, and using acrylic paint to build texture and create color, value, shades, tints, and depth. Students have already begun drawing their animals. I made a few pre-cut frames of different sizes for students to crop a section of their animals face to draw and paint. It is interesting to see how challenging it is for students to just draw what they see inside of the small square as opposed to the entire photograph. These should turn out great!]
Bilingual 5th/6th
Complex Cities and a KandinSKY [The bilingual class is also making cities using a ruler and a fine point black marker or pen. After they add all of their lines and overlapping buildings, they will cut that image out and paste it to a second sheet of paper. The second sheet of paper will be painted using the famous Kandinsky circles of all sizes.]
Self-Contained and ABA
Name Monsters [The students in the self-contained and ABA classes are fortunate because they love art and work so fast that we can borrow projects from other grade levels and bring it up to their grade level. One of the few projects we have been working on it create a name monster, which also shows students how to transfer an image to the other side of a composition to show symmetry. Then they turn their picture around and add eyes, arms, hands, legs, feet, fangs, and all the good stuff! They just love making these!]
So here is a little preview of what you will be seeing in the next few weeks! I am super excited to see what these guys can do!
Pre-K: Assorted Shapes House Collage [ Using pre-cut assorted shapes from colored construction paper, students will assemble and glue the shapes to create a house. This assignment will teach students how to plan and assemble pieces to create a whole].
Kindergarten
Bowl of Fruit [This project is designed at the beginners level where students will work with crayons to learn how to work two colors into one object to observe the outcome of blending colors. Pictures will be provided for students to reference and they will dow their own bowl or fruit arrangement, then color!]
1st Grade
Super Crazy Line Cities [This is a great project to get students used to using a ruler without restrictions! I created this lesson to allow students in the elementary grades to freely use a ruler to construct a city. They will learn to overlap buildings to show buildings in the front, middle, and back and they will use a ruler any time they make straight lines {diagonal, horizontal, checkered, or vertical}. In the case of creating curved or zigzagged lines, students may free-hand draw them. This project also requires outlining with a thin sharpie marker and TONS of color!]
Leaning Tower of Cups: [The other 1st grades will be making a stack of 3 cups that vary in size, shape, and handle! Each cup will have a different design or pattern, as well as the background and table. This project is very similar as far as exercising line and color but students will not be using a ruler unless needed. This project focuses primarily on design and overlapping.
2nd Grade
Hundertwasser Nature and the Eyes of Human Architecture [My 2nd graders are fantastic and very bright as well! I was exploring some artists online to see what we could do- something new and fun, also something challenging. Then I found Hundertwasser, an Austrian artist with brilliant use of color and line- two elements I LOVE including in artwork. I introduced it to one of my 2nd grades today and let me tell you- their sketches were fantastic! I overheard some of them talking about his artwork that I had printed out and left on the table. I was almost in tears from laughing because their conversation was so intellectual, yet so innocent! We are going to learn about this amazing artist and his ties to nature and human life... how he wanted to incorporate the environment in the cities and stray from the creation of architecture that stood disconnected to creative freedom.
Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers [With the spring right around the corner and Earth Day approaching, I thought it would be great to have some of my 2nd grades paint some beautiful Georgia O'Keeffe inspired flower close-ups. Of course, students will be strongly encouraged to incorporate their own use of color and shape!
3rd Grade
Celebrating African Culture [Originally I wanted to introduce some African art and celebrate Black History Month, but we ran late with our last project. That is quite alright though! We are still going to learn about Black History and African culture. Students will create a 3 musicians piece with a touch of African jazz influence! We will discuss Picasso's 3 Musicians and tie it into African culture and music from the early to mid 1900's. This will be an oil pastels and watercolor project because the two pair so nicely together!
African Animals [I have a large 3rd grade so we are splitting this up nicely! The other group will be working on African animals and they will decorate them with patterns and textiles of Africa. They will use oil pastels and watercolors as well to emphasis the designs inside the animals. These will look beautiful].
4th Grade
Japanese Scroll Painting [Okay, they will not be scrolls per say, but the idea is there. I already introduced a power point presentation that gave students an overview of Japanese culture. We also watched some neat videos about Japanese sports-the kids couldn't get enough of the sumo wrestling! They will pick anything having to do with Japanese culture: food, clothing, ceremony, sports, landscape, or architecture and feature it on their scroll painting. We will use watercolors to create a calm, peaceful, and loose visual story. They will initial their painting using Japanese lettering. So cool!
5th Grade
Ansel Adams Black and White Paintings [This has become an absolute favorite of mine because it always looks gorgeous! Students will learn about Ansel Adams and pick from one of his landscape photographs. They will learn about the grayscale and value in turning the photograph into a painting. Some students will be chosen to work in large scale to create a dynamic gallery display].
Collage Landscapes [To keep honoring Ansel Adams beautiful work, the other half of the 5th grade will use black and white magazine pieces to recreate one of Ansel Adams landscapes. This makes for a really interesting composition involving text and shape.]
6th Grade
Animal Close-up Paintings [The 6th grade will be learning about cropping an image, resizing an image, emphasis, and using acrylic paint to build texture and create color, value, shades, tints, and depth. Students have already begun drawing their animals. I made a few pre-cut frames of different sizes for students to crop a section of their animals face to draw and paint. It is interesting to see how challenging it is for students to just draw what they see inside of the small square as opposed to the entire photograph. These should turn out great!]
Bilingual 5th/6th
Complex Cities and a KandinSKY [The bilingual class is also making cities using a ruler and a fine point black marker or pen. After they add all of their lines and overlapping buildings, they will cut that image out and paste it to a second sheet of paper. The second sheet of paper will be painted using the famous Kandinsky circles of all sizes.]
Self-Contained and ABA
Name Monsters [The students in the self-contained and ABA classes are fortunate because they love art and work so fast that we can borrow projects from other grade levels and bring it up to their grade level. One of the few projects we have been working on it create a name monster, which also shows students how to transfer an image to the other side of a composition to show symmetry. Then they turn their picture around and add eyes, arms, hands, legs, feet, fangs, and all the good stuff! They just love making these!]