Story Quilts

After reading Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold, first graders created their own story quilts about an experience they had (either real or imagined). At first, students created a small watercolor painting and used patterned paper to collage their borders. As the project continued, a student asked if they could make an actual uilt. I thought why not, and decided to use burlap for students to transfer their images onto. First graders seemed to really enjoy this project. They had some lively sewing circles going on and they did a really great job of helping each other out with the sewing. At the very least, they got a lot of practice tying knots!

My House by Alexis

My House. My house is a rainbow. The tree is brown and green. I love my house because I like my tree. I played when I was little.

The Taj Mahal by Serena

This is me and the Taj Mahal. It's beautiful here! The Taj Mahal is white. I used to go there when I was little. The Taj Mahal was built long, long ago. The Taj Mahal is the tallest building in India.

Paul's awesome presentation of Leaving the Atmosphere. Too cute.

Some Updates and Some Mexican Suns

Really looking forward to getting back on track with posting much more frequently now that the yearbook is finally finished and submitted!! Here's a few cool things coming up: I'm very excited to be attending the NAEA National Convention in Baltimore in a few weeks... I expect to have lots of great stuff to report back from that. After we get back from break, 5th grade is going to be starting a collaborative project with students at a school in Oaxaca, Mexico where a friend of mine is currently teaching art. We'll be setting up ongoing skype video chats for our classes as the project continues. Stay tuned...








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In the meantime, check out these AWESOME Mexican suns by 3rd graders! While working on this project, we learned about soo many art ideas: contrast, variety, mixing warm and cool colors (just to name a few). We had a lot of fun making these suns and I was especially impressed with how much personality students put into them. Enjoy!

*Credit: lesson was adapted from this one by paintedpaper.

Ode to Food

This post is a bit late as this lesson is from a few months back when all the Thanksgiving / holiday cooking was going on. Second graders were introduced to Pop art, looking specifically at Andy Warhol and Wayne Thiebaud. They learned that art could be about everyday objects like food. They then chose their own favorite foods and drew them using oil pastels to blend and mix their colors. Students finished the lesson by writing an ode to celebrate their food and then read their poems aloud to the class. We had a lot of fun with this one and it certainly made us all very hungry! Enjoy!

Listen to Amber's poem: Chocolate Cake

Dustin's Cake and Ice Cream

Conley's Pizza

Listen to Bryce's poem: The Tall Cake



Listen to Madeline's poem: Turkey!



Listen to Hannah's poem: Apples

Aztec Mosaics

Third graders learned about Aztec culture by examining their art and architecture. After viewing many different types of mosaics, students selected an aztec symbol and started planning out their own mosaic. They had to select their color palette, make choices about how to fill their symbols, and design patterns for their backgrounds. After much hard work their finished mosaics look great!!!

 

 

 

Mythological Creatures

Fourth graders learned about the mythologies of different cultures and how these stories were often used by ancient peoples to explain the world around them. I thought it would be fun to focus on some of the fantastical creatures from these mythologies. We read from Dragons, Dragons and Other Creatures That Never Were (Eric Carle) and students created their own version of a mythological creature in the style of Carle.

Fourth graders used their research to write poems about their creature. They  also created a constellation of their creature using glow in the dark ink and were excited to present their work to the class!

Listen to Jelonnie's presentation on the Centaur.

Listen to Whitney's poem about the Yeti.

Painted Worlds

This was one of the first lessons fifth graders worked on at the beginning of the year and was intended to give them some art history background. The project was to select a painting from a modern art movement and transform it from a 2D space to a "3D" diorama. Students had to pay special attention to the space in their painting while creating their foreground and backgrounds. They also tried to emulate their artist's style in parts of their work. Fifth graders seemed to really enjoy using the oil pastels to blend their colors and were also excited to use reductive methods to scratch away and add detail. At the end of the lesson, students were organized in groups based on which art movement their original painting was from. The groups then worked collaboratively to arrange their movements into a visual timeline and to present the main ideas of their art movement to the class.

* This lesson was partially inspired by this fantastic lesson by the very talented Ruth Chung. 

 

Chameleon Collages

Sorry for the delay in posting. Winter break always seems to go by so fast! Here's a start on all that I need to catch up with!

After reading "A Color of His Own" by Leo Lionni, kindergartners created their own chameleon  using collage and mixed media. They learned how to use shapes and outlines to help sketch out each part of their drawing and also had to decide what special colors to use for their chameleon. I was excited to see some students match their chameleon's color to what was in their background - which showed what they had learned about chameleons in the story!