2nd Grade: "Sakura"- Cherry Blossoms

This was a lesson I had started about a month ago to decorate our halls for our Japanese culture night we have every year at our school.  It just so happened to coincide with the very unfortunate events that have been taking place there now.  The school walls look lovely and at the same time in a bittersweet way, seem to serve as a reminder of the beautiful and fragile relationship the people of Japan have with nature.

For this lesson we talk about the first sights of Spring and how exciting it can be to see buds on a tree start to blossom this time of year in parts of the world.  (not Chicago, quite yet!)  We look at Van Gogh's blossoming Peach tree paintings, http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/vangogh/flowering-plum-tree-after-hiroshige-44 (you can see one here) and I also show the brilliant illustrations from the fabulous book, Zen Shorts, by Jon Muth:

The first day we create the branches of the tree.  I explain to the kids that we are making a close up of the tree.  I give them each a piece of cut-up cardboard small enough to fit easily in their hand (cardboard boxes that all my supplies come in).  I give them brown and black paint on a tray and show them how to scrape paint on the tray and then onto their paper to create a branch.  Then they use the cardboard piece almost as a stamp to add small twigs and branches sprouting out.  (This is the same technique I use for my winter birch trees lesson, filed under 4th grade).  The second day we use chalk pastel to add color between the branches and a paper towel wrapped around a finger to blend it all together.  Finally that same day, they add white, pink, or red tempera paint using a q-tip- which they think is just sooooo funny, and although I tell them many times they are not "used" q-tips they still think it is gross for some reason! ha!  I added the black construction paper to give them a scroll painting look. 

Thinking SPRING!

With just one full week of school left before spring break, I have been looking through all of my "spring projects" files to come up with some great new lessons for spring.  On the agenda so far: some kind of flower project (of course), maybe a panda drawing lesson, and definitely a recycled materials project for earth day.  I am very inspired by these photos I took last year of my parents koi pond in their back yard- the colors and beautiful shapes found in nature never cease to amaze me.  So here's to a little SPRING inspiration! 

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

6th Grade: Chuck Close Self-Portraits

This project is finally complete and I am very happy with the results!  I began by showing a powerpoint presentation on Chuck Close and his style of work.  That same day I photographed each student casually as they were working at their seat in their sketchbooks.  I used http://www.dumpr.net/ to turn their photo into a sketch and printed them out.  Students outlined the major lines of their face with sharpie, then used a light box to transfer it onto a blank piece of 9x12 construction paper, again in sharpie.  Next step is to draw a 1"x1" grid over the top of their portrait with a ruler and pencil, covering the entire page.  In each box, with a pencil they drew a simple design, pattern, or object.  Finally they used colored pencils to color in their designs.  For each section (background, hair, skin, and clothes) they had to use a different 2-color combo.  They did a wonderful job with these and were very proud of them!

4th Grade: Japanese Woven Kimonos

This was a fun project for my students.  We spent one day learning a little history on the kimono, and I talked about how kimono designers get to choose colors and fabrics when designing these beautiful and functional works of art.  That same day, students printed designs on 2 different pieces of paper (9x12 white construction paper).  They used tempera paint and sponges to cover their chosen texture plate and then printed the plate right onto the paper.  The second day, we cut the printed papers into strips and they picked out more construction paper to weave their strips through.  The kimono is just two different woven rectangles glued together and the seam is covered with the "obi" or sash.  They embellished the sash with ribbon, and the last day they created a "hanko" or stamp with the characters of their name in Japanese kanji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji) or katakana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana).  All of our dual language students at my school luckily already knew how to write their names in Japanese, which made it easier- but that would be a fun lesson to teach as well!  I did all of the stamping at a printing station (using red ink and a brayer) once they carved their names into the styrofoam.

2nd Grade: "Have-a-Heart" Collage

This was a fun lesson I got from Mrs. Picasso's blog (http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/) We spent a whole day painting paper with tints and shades of red, purples, and pinks.  The next class we cut out 2 different hearts using tracers (one large, one small) and glued them onto our background. Finally, students traced their hand and wrist and glued that on overlapping with the heart- these turned out so cute and were a big hit with the kiddos and the grown-ups! :) Thank you Mrs. Picasso!

6th Grade: Finished Value Snowmen

6th Graders finished their value snowmen, and they turned out great!  We used colored pencils, and I taught value, hatching, cross-hatching, cast-shadows, etc.  They had fun with these. It was a simple 1 day lesson done on 9x12 blue tru-ray.