5th and 6th Grade: Keep Calm And...

This was a great lesson that focused on problem-solving and graphic design.  We learned about the history of the very first Keep Calm and Carry On poster from this awesome video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHkKXFRbCI) and then discussed the story and also the art occupation of graphic design.  Students had to come up with their own Keep Calm slogan, including a creative and effective logo or symbol that represented their slogan. They did 4 sketches, chose one, and used stencils to trace and cut their letters.  Then they drew and cut out their symbols, composed their poster, and glued it all together. 

5th Grade: VDay Weaving with a little Splatter

I've seen this project done a few different ways by a few different art teachers and thought I'd give it a try.  It is a quick, two day lesson.  We started with 2 pieces of construction paper (any color of their choice) in a 9x12 size.  We made concentric hearts on each of them using different colors for each page and trying to make them close to the same size.  Second day, we cut the papers up, wove them together, and finally added a little splatter paint action for the finishing touch!



5th Grade: Cropped Winter Portraits

This was a project I saw on Pinterest, and was originally done by artsy_T and posted on flickr here.  I did a step by step drawing with my students on my marker board as they followed.  We started at the top and worked our way down to the bottom.  They sketched first in pencil, traced in black sharpie, and finally colored with markers.  Love the details and variety they used!

5th Grade: Zentangles

We started this as a filler project for students who had finished their project early, and now everyone has gotten into it!  They are addicting...for those of you who might not know anything about this whole zentangle thing, here is the website: http://www.zentangle.com/index.php

5th Grade: Stained Glass Windows

This example is a little old and weathered, but this is a project my 5th and 6th graders are working on right now.  I let them pick from a few winter objects and they began by folding a piece of 10" x 16" black paper in half like a book, so when folded it is 5" x 8".  They use a straight edge to trace a border around their paper, then start drawing the candle or other object, making sure to leave wide black spaces in between each shape.  They create shapes in the background to fill in the empty space and then they start cutting out the shapes through both pieces of the folded paper.  They open the folded paper and start measuring and gluing in different pieces of tissue paper for each shape (using a mini glue stick works best).  Once all of their shapes are filled with tissue, they close the "book" and glue it shut.  When taped to a window light shines through both sides.

5th Grade: Matisse Winter Collage

This is a variation on the Matisse "Fall" project I did earlier this year.  (http://artiswhatiteach.blogspot.com/2010/11/5th-grade-fall-leaves-wind-matisse.html) 

A couple of my classes were 2 weeks behind the others, so instead of making them do a Fall collage in December, I changed it a little. We swtiched from warm colors to cool colors and instead of leaves, they created cut paper snowflakes.  Organic wind shapes worked for both seaons!

5th Grade: Fall Leaves & Wind Matisse Collage

5th graders finally finished their fall collages, just in time for winter! I will be starting this same project with a couple classes that are behind next week, and we will be using cool colors and cut-paper snowflakes instead of leaves.  This can really be done for any season!  First, we looked at a a powerpoint about Matisse and his cut outs, and discussed geometric and organic shapes.  After the powerpoint, students filled one whole page in their sketch books with organic shapes, and one whole page with geometric shapes. They also did sketches of various types of leaves (I had tons of visuals, books, printouts, and real leaves for them to look at).  The next class students chose 6 different colors of rectangles (4.5x6") to glue down onto 12x16" black paper (overlapping the rectangles).  Next they chose a 7th color rectangle to create 3 organic leaf shapes. With their scraps from their leaves they made organic wind-like shapes to glue in between.  We discussed good composition and layout briefly. They had to have three leaves and at least 7 pieces of wind  For the border shapes, they drew a wavy line down the middle of 2 different long strips of paper, cut down the middle on their line, and glued these four long curvy strips onto the back of the black paper so they were sticking out like a border.  Then the whole thing was glued onto a large piece of construction paper (overall the size of these are 16x21").

5th Grade: Pop Art Prints

For this project, I showed a powerpoint on Pop Art and Andy Warhol's famous prints.  We defined what popular culture was in his day and what it is now.  Students brainstormed a pop culture object that would best represent them and drew it on a sheet of small paper 4 1/2" x 6". Then they placed a styrofoam printing plate under their pencil drawing and traced over it again so it would carve into the foam.  Once their drawing was transferred and carved deep enough, they cut it out and we began to print.  I had them pick 4 analagous color papers, and  ink colors that were somewhat complimentary to their paper colors.  I set up a bunch of printing stations and let the students walk around the room to each station.  At each printing station I mixed two colors of ink together with a brayer (Red/Magenta, Blue/Turquoise, Yellow/Orange, etc.) to get a two-tone effect.  I always stress team effort with the print making process (each person at a station is responsible for a particular job), and they are pretty good about realizing that everyone needs to pitch in to print successfully.  Students had a lot of fun with this one!

(styrofoam printing objects)