2nd Grade Paper Plate Weaving

2nd grade finished their paper plate weaving projects. I put them up in the hallway yesterday and really got to look at them. They turned out great, here's some examples:

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!

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!