Displays

Sorry - 2 posts in one day after weeks of nothing! I just got some artwork hung in the hallways and feel the need to post some pics.

Kindergarten and 5th grade have artwork displayed. I finally got my excel sheets the way I want them and now can easily mail merge them to a label form so that I can label all work with first and last name as well as teacher name. I think I should also add the grade level and maybe the table name just to make it easier for me to get them back to the students. But for now just teacher name to get them back to the correct class, I'd hate to have lots of art hanging around with no artist to claim them!
These are Kindergarten Shape People using crayons and watercolor:

5th grade crazy hair days:

The people in the window are famous people who like to check out our room on a regular basis...

Square 1

We've been working on Square 1 projects for that past cycle. I have exactly 3 classes with these kiddos on this project because they have to be sent in on a certain date. I'm a little stressed about getting all of them done, but they are turning out great:
Kindergarten is doing painted hands made into horses. After the first class I decided to pair up 5th grade with these little guys in order to not miss a step.

I had them sign their name and then add 2010 - we won't be adding the date again!!! I put the numbers on the board, but forgot that numbers are really difficult for many young ones this early in the year.

1st Grade are doing happy suns. The sun should be done in warm colors and around the outside should be cool colors.

2nd grade are working on self portraits. We read about Frida Kahlo and used a template for the shape of the head so that they couldn't be too small or too big.

3rd grade are doing animals. These animals have pattern in them and we looked at the illustrations in I Feel a Foot by Rinck and van der Linden.

4th grade are doing radial designs. These are super cool, but I'm also really worried about the time line! These must be done!!! Next year I'm starting these day 1! Stress....

5th grade gets to choose their design. Since this is our first year doing Square 1, some of them are choosing to do animals like the 3rd grade because they really liked that design. 

I can't wait to see the finished, published pieces! I will also breath easier when they are all finished and mailed off!

Kindergarten Shape People

Have you read that I've been away from teaching art for 9 years and was teaching computers during this time? Well, there are times when I really remember that I feel like a first year teacher again. I wanted to do shapes with Kindergarten and decided to do shapes that they make into people. My great idea was that they could draw the basic outline in thin markers and then we would paint them with tempera paint. As I thought this through (after I had started the project of course) I realized that this just might be beyond what the kindergarten can do at this point and maybe I should wait until later in the year. There is NO way that I could tell the kids that we would not paint these, so I decided that we would go over the marker with crayon and then do a watercolor wash on top. This is just stringing along the project and I really wish I would have just done it correctly in the first place because some of the kids are having a hard time switching gears with it and just scribbling color all over their shape people! Oh the things that I have forgotten that are coming back to me! So, here's some of the pictures where the kids added crayon in order to do the watercolor resist:

4th Grade Op Art

Remember those black and white Op Art pieces that were just pencil lines in my first post about projects in progress? Well, we've gone through a ton of Sharpie markers, but some of them are finishing up and they look really nice! Here's just a few:

This lesson plan was found at: http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com/

3rd Grade Flowers

3rd Grade are working on their glue and chalk flower vases. We started by looking at Van Gogh paintings and focused on his Sunflowers paintings. 

The first step was to draw the flowers, vase and table line with white crayon and then glue.

 

Now students are using drawing chalk to color their own masterpiece! I love how they are looking!

2nd grade Warm and Cool colors

My PLC team is sharing projects that we do to teach the elements of design. We started with color and the grade level I needed to work on was 2nd grade. I decided to work on warm and cool colors with this age level and found a project that I wanted to try on Artsonia. Cedar Creek Elementary had published the work and it showed how cool colors recede and warm colors advance. I started by talking about the warm and cool colors and then analyzing paintings to see if they were mostly warm or mostly cool. These are the paintings that I put in my iPhoto to show:

Since this project looks much like Keith Haring's work, I also showed some of his work:

I decided to use oil pastels, but I don't think I will use them next time I do this project. I really wanted to get the students using different media as early as possible and had just come off a marker project. I don't think it gives a clean enough line and I don't want the kids to blend the line because I think the colors would come together. They turned out pretty good for the media we used:

Added on Sept. 28th

So, more students are finishing, but I must admit that I'm a little worried that some of these are going to take a LONG time! Those that are taking a long time do look great, I just can't see then end in sight. Again, I'm wondering if oil pastel was the best choice. On another note, check out all those silly bands. These are all the rage in our area right now, some kids have so many that it shocks me! Of course, my own children felt they needed them too.

Projects in progress

This cycle everything is in progress, some students are finishing projects, but I don't have any classes that have completely finished a project. I tried to make everything about line to start out with. Most of these projects were taken from other blogs:

Kindergarten:
patterned turtles - I read ish by Peter H. Reynolds to them before starting the project. I love the book ish!

1st Grade

This class also read ish - I told you I love that book. We also looked at work by Joan Miro and decided that he really did ish kind of paintings. We then make Miro inspired ish people! They are still working on them:

2nd Grade

I found this in the files of the former art teacher and thought it was a fun idea for line. Students drew landscapes with very basic shapes, then each shape was filled in with line. Students could not have 2 shapes right next to each other match, so they needed to have different color and the line needed to go in a different direction.

3rd Grade

This one came from a book about teaching art to children. This came from the line section and is a continuous line drawing. The students ripped 3 holes in the paper and then began with line.

4th Grade

We looked at OpArt - it was a hit! Now the students are working on first deciding on a background. I've seen some really great ideas for this one. After the background is drawn in pencil, 3 shapes are chosen and traced on top. Black marker will be used to fill in pattern in each area:

5th Grade

This is a fun idea that many, many art classes have done. It's a hair raising day in the art room... check it out:

Here's one that a special needs student started. We decided to glue shapes so that she could feel them. She will have very colorful wild hair when she gets done!

Document Camera??? Not really, but it works!

I am VERY fortunate to be in a brand new building that invested in projectors for each classroom, including the art room!!! YEA!!! We are also supposed to get document cameras, but I don't know for sure if I get one or not. I've come up with an interesting solution and here it is....
I have an old Hi8 video camera that we were thinking of selling at home once we got a digital video camera. I decided to set it up on a tripod and use it to steam video through the projector. I'm not a fan of having students crowd around a table to watch a demonstration. The only students that can really see are the ones in the front row and those that are behind and can't see become a discipline problem because they are tired of stretching to see and get bored. Check it out...

Busy Bee

I bought these child skirts at the dollar store and figured they would be good for the back of the seats to show who is the helper at the table. I decided to call them the busy bee for obvious reasons.
I soon found that many times when the child got up the skirt would come off the back of the chair so I put it on upside down which works better, but looks strange. Now I think I may end up just cutting them into strips and tying them through the hole in the back of the chair. We'll see...

Table Names

I have always named the student tables with artist names. Each year I try to pick new artists so that students hear different artists throughout their years in elementary school. This year I have Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Leonardo DaVinci, Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Vincent Van Gogh and Joan Miro. I have a bulletin board where I showcase each artist throughout the year.

First Cycle

Well I made it through my first cycle with 723 students and 28 sections! The first day was exhausting, but I  realized later that it was just because of the first day craziness that was added to with the opening of a new building! We love the new building, but still have a few students who get a little lost. The first class with each section was all about the rules, finding the nearest bathroom, getting seating charts and coloring the folders that will hold each student's artwork. After 28 classes, I was sick of talking about the rules!!! Thank goodness we can get on to the fun stuff now!
Here's a picture of my room, I am still working on a few posters: