Welcome Back!

Welcome to a new school year! This school has kicked of with a lot of exciting new projects I’m going to be sharing with you right now!

Kindergarten and First Grade started the school year off by looking at the book “Lines that Wiggle” they made a collage after discussing the different types of lines they saw in the book. They spent one class gluing on different types of lines and then the next class they added more color onto their work.

The next artwork they made was creating a torn paper collage. They ripped the papers into different shapes and used their imagination or things from memory to create it into an abstract picture.

Second and Third grade have been working on monsters since the beginning of the school year. First they were making up there own monsters based off an attribute brainstorming activity.  Then they worked on a collaborative work about monster faces. Now they are painting monster mashups to complete the unit!

Fourth and Fifth grade have been working on a shapes and form unit. They first turned shapes into forms and created artworks based off brainstormed ideas of what the forms could be. Then they worked on bubble letters in a variety of different ways. Right now they are creating paintings using bubble letters in some way.

Seventh Grade is coming close to a close with their quarter with me creating several different kinds of artworks. They have explored the elements of art, kaleidoscope designs, bubble lettering, line drawings, and redesigning their own campbell soup. 

Thanks for reading! 

Mobiles

Eighth grade had made mobiles after discussing how themes have related images. The students were to come up with a therm and create 4 or more illustrations for the theme. Here are a couple results. 

Castles

4th and 5th grade were practicing painting by creating castles with dragons and other creative ideas. Here are a couple while they were being worked on. 

Popsicle Stick Art

The eighth graders requested to do a 3d art project so they were given a table full of different types of materials to choose from. Several students chose to make art out of Popsicle sticks. 

1st grade Collaborations

The students in first grade were given the assignment to make patterns. One day I visited a store called Hobby Lobby where  they had art that inspired these projects. A student helped add all the glitter to the silhouette of the sea horse and students used paper strips to add their own patterns which were glued to a white board. 

The horse was also made of paper strips by another first grade class. 2 students managed for the gluing down of all the pieces. 

Shoes Shoes Shoes!!

The 2nd and 3rd grade students.

Weaving

2nd and 3rd grade students are creating weavings using the over under pattern.

Figure Drawing

So I wanted to have my fourth and fifth grade students to take a different kind of approach to looking at human form. They used a paper doll person template and had to assemble the body parts to show a person in some kind of motion. I told them they could pose the person anyway they wanted to and even trade to incorporate multiple figures. 

Kandinsky inspired Art

8th grade looked at Kandinsky's artwork and created their own style after analyzing him. We created a list of what should be included in the picture. 

Origami Frog

I challenged 4th and 5th grade students to create form not just the what we have been studying which is the illusion of form. The creativity in this challenge was designing the character for the frog. Some students took their frog to the next level by adding personal touchs. 

Mashup Monsters

If you tell a student they can mix things up a bit boy do they get shocked. I was surprised when my  2nd and 3rd grade students who normally come up with super off the wall creative ideas struggled 
to come up with something completely brand new. I said to them come up with a person plus an animal and if you wanted to be even more creative something extra. So many of them wanted to create mermaids or fairies. After plenty of discussion in both small group and whole group we came up with more ideas. 

Kinetic Carousels!

Kinetic Carousels have to be one of favorite my newer STEAM projects. I recently presented about this at the Maryland Art Education Association conference but realized I have not made a blog post about it! I stumbled across them while looking for more ways my students could utilize the milk caps we have been collecting. I thought they were cool but need to let the students have a voice in the design some how so I started making prototypes and came up with a blank one that could allow the students to add their own idea. The example is from one of my 8th grade students that was given the challenge to design one.

Practicing Trees

Kindergarten and first grade were working on the concepts of landscapes and talked about how some trees can be structured. The students looked at a few paintings of landscapes. We connected back to the book we read a few weeks ago called Lines that Wiggle and talked about how lines can be seen in the environment. Here is a kindergarten example for the first day of practicing landscapes. 

From 2-d to 3-d: Bubble Letters

Students are moving along thinking about how shape comes from lines and form comes from shape. The students felt challenged by the idea that putting a bubble around a letter could create something new. We practiced first making bubble letters and then created form by the repetition of sides. We went through the ideas from the impulsive students that were like Ms. Johns I got this but rushed through missing some of the accuracy from paying attention to the construction of the shapes. We also talked about how value could elevate the complexity within their designs. 

Monster Collaborations! How would a Monster look if it were stuck in a hexagon?

Ah monsters! Second and third grade answered the art question of how would a monster look if it were stuck in a hexagon as class collaborations. They discussed different monsters and looked at a teacher example about how one could be created. They were super psyched to begin. Several students wanted to create several hexagons and also felt challenged by the size of the hexagons itself. The students had Micron pens available for them to use to bring out details and also used colored pencils. They created all kinds of monsters. We talked about using up all of the available space and trying to use colors other than white and blue to create the background for the monster.

Shape Collage: Cutting out Shapes like Matisse

So kindergarten and first grade geared up for their next challenge: Scissors and Shapes! They looked at a book about Matisse and how he used shape cut outs to create art. They worked one class to cut out shapes and then a second class period to put the shapes together into a collage. Many of the students created non-objective art and a few of the students created abstract works about people and robots referencing Matisse's Creole Dancer and the work about Icarus. Students were saying things like look at me, I'm cutting out shapes like Matisse. We practiced a reading strategy of any time they heard the word Matisse they would shout it. The students even seemed to remember his first name too.

LED Watercolor Paintings

My 8th grade students were asked how they could incorporate an LED light into a painting. The students brainstormed and got to work. I was glad to see that they came up with a wide range of results for this. I feel like making the brainstorming list on the board helped the students see that there were several answers to the question. I told them to draw out their idea then paint and after all that learn how to create a circuit for the light.

8th Grade Kaleidocycles and Thaumatropes

Part of the beginning of the year is reviewing key vocabulary. This year I decided to take a different approach. The students used kaleidocycles and thaumatropes as tools for using the elements of art. I was excited to try something different with the kaleidocycles because they are so versatile for the classroom. The students were experiencing building form after emphasizing each art element except space.

This is where the thaumatrope comes in because their whole reason for working is understanding the use of space. Many students struggled with the abstract concept of negative space but when it's changed into a math problem of a+b=c they seemed to understand it more. Most of the students wanted to take the route of reverse engineering as opposed to figuring it out from the step by step handout we went over so if you want to try it maybe you might want to look at quite a few built thaumatropes to come up with an idea.

We will be moving on soon to look LED painting next!

3-D Shape Drawings

Students in 4th and 5th grade are working on form with 3-D shape drawings. First they discussed with their tables ways to turn a square into a cube. Then, they created their own drawings to paint.

Monster Paintings

AHHHHHH!!!! Monsters! 2nd and 3rd grade students are starting off the year with a monster project! First we talked about how monsters looked and boy were there some surprising monster ideas from clowns and zombies to Five Nights of Freddy characters. I had no idea they knew so much about monsters. Their task was to draw a crazy eyed monster with some kind of story going on. They drew them for one class and then are paint them.