Read Me week

Only this student could manage to look dignified. 

Love the personality in this one.

The puff paint is a fun trick. 

Unlike a lot of teachers, because of the numbers at my school, we are able to run a 3 day specials rotation, one hour per class.  So, I typically finish my 9 weeks of mandated curriculum far before the other art teachers in MNPS.  This week is "Read Me" week, and since we're wrapping up our other projects, I decided to cut loose and have a little fun with the kiddos.  With the kindergarten students, I reviewed basic self- portraiture, along with some cutting, gluing, and direction following skills by Cat in the Hatifying our art projects.  The kids were delighted, especially with the whiskers, and it was a great way to integrate reading.  I had each student write their name, along with the phrase "in the hat" and they were chuckling away.   The second graders did a very simple project based on "The Lorax"- a cut landscape type background, giving me the opportunity to review vocabulary such as background, overlapping, and distance.  We cut out a small, medium and large tree trunk, striped it with white chalk, and arranged them in the picture to show space.  The fun was trying out the puffy paint recipe that's been floating around pinterest (equal parts glue and shaving cream, along with some food coloring).  We used the puff paint for our "Truffula Puffs".

So curious

Bless this 4th grader's heart.  He is so meticulous, and while that is a good thing, on a clay day,  our projects tend to be one day doozies, that have to be done, since I may not see the student again for days.  But, this one was willing to risk it drying out, if I put it in a bag, and tried to remember to spray it- and, for the most part it worked out.  We lost a couple of the turrets. but most of it made it- he's been glazing for 2 days (2 hour long art session) and I am so curious to see how these bricks glaze.  Usually, my kiddos slap a coat of glaze on, and we call it good- but with the Mayco Stroke N Coat glazes, there is such a variety of color, that students like this have a great time with the paint job.  This year is the first year that any of the kids caught on that if they left the mortar unglazed, it would have a very realistic effect.  I loaded this up tonight, and will be so excited to see it tomorrow.

Action Drawings (1st Grade)

This one loved the action lines

The 1st graders  have been loving the work of Keith Haring.  After doing the "cut outs" which I showed in a previous post, we continued our look at his work with action drawings.  Here are a couple fun ones.

Keith Haring Action People

This past week was Jump Rope for Heart, and I usually try to do some sort of activity that relates- something where we look at action.  And, in my really good years, I make it down the hall to hang the pics around the PE room.  This year, I brought in the work of Keith Haring, and the 1st graders and I talked about contrast, along with action.  The students were in love with his bright colorful images, and had a lot of fun with his work.  We each drew and cut a large shape of a person in action.  After a review of contrast, students chose a color that would help their person stand out, and glued it down.  The extra fun was black glue to trace and add action lines.  After this project, we began to work on our drawing of people, and I'll post those fun pics soon. 

Cupcakes

I saw these clay cupcake things on "Art for  1170" and fell in love with the idea.  There are only so many years one can teach the pinch pot without needing to switch it up.  In other years, I've taught the kids to add handles, feet, lids.  One year, I did kind of a Greek Art thing, and we stained the pinch pots rather than glazing or painting.  But, seeing the cupcakes, I just had to try it.  I bought the mini tart pans at Bed Bath and Beyond for about 79 cents each.  But, with the 20% off coupon, it wasn't so bad.  Plus, I knew that I would keep them for years to come.  I have to work on how to present this lesson- but basically, we put a slab of clay into the pie pans, and pinched it around.  Set it aside, and worked on Pinch Pots.  After making a successful pinch pot, students shaped it until it would cover the opening on the  pie pan.  Then, we crammed newspaper (which I had pre-cut to be more manageable) into the pinch pot.  I had students lay one piece of newspaper on top of the pie pan, then set their muffin top on top.  This was a hard concept, and so far, 2 cupcakes are forever sealed because the kiddos didn't understand, and I didn't figure that out in time to fix it.  Whatever clay was left over was used to roll icing, make sprinkles, chocolate chips, or the ever popular cherry on top.  This week, we painted our cupcakes.  I just used tempera cakes, with a layer of Acrylic Medium over the top.  And, they are cute.  Next time though, I'm going to have the students "dunk" the bottoms into a thinned down paint/water solution, and only use brushes to paint the top- hoping that way, the paint job is smoother.  When we do clay animals, we "dunk" first, then paint details, and it works really well.  I brought in my cake plate, and my librarian friend has loaned me her cupcake stand so we can display them.

This Lesson keeps getting better...

Ever have one of those projects that you love to teach, but you keep re-vamping it every time?  For me, it is the Kindergarten Texture Plaques.  When I first began teaching 15 yrs ago (yikes) it was a lesson I taught to the Kindergarten as a way of exploring texture, and introducing clay and texture tools.  It was a big blob of clay, and we strung yarn through them, and wore them home.  Fun.  Then, I found a couple awesome packs of alphabet cookie cutters.  We began to cut out their first initial, out of the best section of their textured clay.  Even better.  This year, the lesson fell around Valentines day, so I first had them cut out a heart from their textured clay, and then we rolled coils and made their first letter to attach to the heart (including those language/writing skills).  I just so happened to have a huge donation of rainbow shoelaces (random) which we strung onto the hearts, and those finished with more time were allowed to use my beads to create a pattern on both sides.  The kids are delighted, and so excited to wear them home.  We used tempera cakes to paint them, and I had them put a coat of Acrylic Polymer Medium over the top to add a little shine.

Animal Prints/Cupcake Prints

After the gluing, pre-printing

This student moved, but I used his plate as an example, and sent his print to the new school.

Creative Drying Space

Many students thought of an animal that could utilize a hole puncher.

Cupcakes everywhere

I have 2 printmaking classes going at once.  Not sure if it's a rookie mistake that I should have known to avoid, or if it's the crashing of the curriculum.  I see my kids every 3 days, so I'm sure the other teachers in the district who only see their students once a week are pacing their lessons differently.  Nonetheless, we are having a fabulous messy time in the new art room-and I've had to get a little creative to find the space for prints to dry.  My 1st graders have been working on "Humor" and using the work of Thiebaud as their inspiration, so we made cupcake prints by carving into Styrofoam.  The 3rd graders have been looking using animals as our inspiration. Their theme this 9 weeks has been Journey-I am trying to encourage them to learn from their mistakes, and push themselves to be their best, despite their perceived limitations.  We've been looking at Monet and Van Gogh, along with other artists.  They created collograph printing plates by cutting and gluing tag board.  I always try to have the students spread a thin layer of glue with their finger over the collograph plates, as I think it helps the pieces stick, and it provides a smoother surface for the ink.  I think the 3rd graders made some great animals. 

Bird Masks

While the kindergarten students are looking at Jim Dine's Heart series, my 2nd graders' art is for the birds.  We began by looking at a selection of works by Audubon, and discussing structure in nature.  This worked well, because it just so happened that some of the 2nd graders are working on a bird research unit in the library.  After getting our bird on we moved  to bird masks.  An oldie but a goodie- I teach it most years.  This year, we put a collage twist on with the decorating.  I got out gel markers, the scrap box, feathers and sequins.  I asked them to try more than one method of embellishment, and to keep the idea of symmetry in mind.  Other than the fact that my room looks like a bird exploded, we had a great time, with some great results.  Can't wait to see the kids model them tomorrow :)

Jim Dine Hearts- Kindergarten

So, this time of year, love is in the air (or at least, excitement is).  The little ones are seeing hearts pop up everywhere, beginning to talk about their valentines and I'm starting to see the shoe box valentine mailboxes walk into school.  Perfect time to review shapes, and symmetry.  The kindergarten students and I have been talking about textures.  So I taught them how to use texture plates, and we rubbed away.  Then, we cut our textured papers into hearts, and embellished them with a variety of textured materials such as paperclips, cotton balls, ribbons, foil, and beads/buttons.  After that all dried, I squirted a paint/glitter medium mixture onto their papers, and they spread, mixed and swirled with their paint brushes.  Our final step was to use black glue to "draw" the hearts back on top.  Very fun way to use a lot of textures, and bring in the always fun Jim Dine Hearts.