Cinderella Stories

Part of the scope/sequence for this 9 weeks here in Nashville is Narrative Artwork with 1st grade.  Since we had used Cinderella as a jumping point for our observational shoe drawings, I decided to keep going with a good thing.  We talked about our favorite parts of the story- we summarized, talked about important details for particular parts.  We also had a quick talk about action, and using lines to show action.  Then, I turned them loose, and had them sketch out their scene.  When they came back the next session, I had the paints ready, and they just went to town,  Honestly, I haven't met a 1st grader who doesn't like to paint.  In their enthusiasm, the painted scenes were a little hard to decipher, so when they returned the next session, I had them trace their pencil lines with Sharpie.
 

Trying on the Slipper while the jealous step sisters look on. 

Preparing for the ball with the help of the Fairy Godmother

Running away at midnight

The loss of the slipper

Still Life

Done by one of my more advanced students- my challenge was the bowl of shells.

Drawing by the same student for comparison.

Ahh, the dreaded still life. It's not that I don't see the value, but it is hard to jazz it up for the elementary crowd.  We started with just a basic drawing.  The 2nd graders just blew through it, without much concern for my oh so careful directions/instruction on scale/proportion and size.  So, I considered that a warm up, and we did the same still life again, only using a very simple view finder.  I introduced it as a tool, and asked that the students try it- even if they never used one again, just to have the experience.  Since the drawings were much bigger, and much clearer the 2nd time around, I broke out the tempera cakes, and let the students paint.  We then compared/contrasted our two finished works with a simple questionnaire, where I asked questions like which was easier, which was more challenging, which was more fun, etc.  I think they got the idea of a still life, and we are all ready to move on to the next thing.  On a side note, I have been working on challenging the more advanced students, so when I set my still life up, I included some harder items, which were strategically in the view of the students in need of a challenge.  I also know that I need to put things in place for the ones that struggle.  An example of this was that I put blue tinted water in the bottles, to make them easier to define.

Amate Paper Painting

My Example

"King Cobra" and since it's a king, it needed a fancy frame says my student.

Horse (and girl- (not sure about the bikini thing going on there)

Lizards

I've been wanting to try this project for some time now, and with TCAP testing in full force this week, I decided to try it with my kiddos as a carrot to keep em' quiet while the testing goes on around us.  We learned a bit about how the paper is made from the Bark of Mulberry or Fig trees, and we looked at some samples.  When we made ours, rather than strip bark from a tree and boil it, we just used brown construction paper- however we did tear the edges to give it a more organic effect.  I only allowed black paint for details/outlining, and I encouraged animals as the subject matter.  I think they are very sweet, and a fun little art project with potential to be a bigger one. This gave me a great opportunity to discuss Positive/Negative space.

Kindergarten Art

I'm working on introducing my kindergarten students to the variety of materials in the art room. They immediately think paint, and not much else, but I like to work into that. I was pleased with this line lesson. It introduced a lot of great art vocabulary, and allowed the students to experiment with cray-pas AND a little bit of paint!

3rd Grade-Real/Abstract

Each 3rd grader had to make 4 paintings or drawings. One realistic, and 3 abstract in some way. They chose their realistic, and their best abstract to turn in. This allowed some personal choice, and some criticism skills to enter into the lesson. We looked at Christo, Picasso, Warhol, Duchamp and Franz Marc to see a wide span of abstract art.