4th Grade: Paul Klee "Castle & Sun" Drawing

For this project I began by showing a PowerPoint about Paul Klee, discussing several works art that had geometric shapes and suns or moons.  I had circle templates of all sizes for them to pick from, and began by tracing either a sun or moon on black construction paper with white colored pencil.  Then, using the white colored pencil and a ruler, they began making their buildings.  They had to incorporate as many geometric shapes and patterns as they could.  I gave them the option of drawing either a castle or a group of skyscrapers (a little contemporary twist).  Being from the Chicago suburbs, many students chose to draw the Sears Tower in their picture. :)  Once their drawings were complete, they began coloring in shapes with oil pastels, and the last step was to outline every shape with a black oil pastel.  Their creativity on this projected really exceeded my expectations!  Here is a variation of this project from Dali's Moustache: http://dalimoustache.blogspot.com/2010/05/paul-klee-castle-and-sun.html

6th Grade: Value Snowmen

This was a cool lesson idea I got from an art teacher who retired last year, that I might try this winter.  It's a nice colored pencil/shading/teaching value lesson.  Medium blue construction paper is used for background, and color is added with a darker shade of blue for the shadow side and white for the lit side.  Students can choose any colors for accessories and snowflakes can be added in the sky.  I will post once the students finish!

3rd Grade: Snowman Sculpture

This was a fun one day project that the kids absolutely LOVE.  I think they are just so excited to make sculptures after all the 2D projects we've been doing lately.  They will be wrapping them up in their regular classroom and giving them as a gift this holiday.  We used model magic for everthing except for the arms. (Those were from my back yard)  I trimmed them down to size and we just stuck them into the sides.  I always show lots of options for the snowmen head wear and scarves.  One student insisted on making a "French" looking snowman.  :)

Question for Art Teachers: Cardboard Loom Weaving Advice

Hey fellow art teacher bloggers!  I have been wanting to do a winter loom weaving project with my 3rd and 4th graders for a while now.  I have tons of yarn in my supply closet that I rarely use (saved from previous art teachers), and a collection of really nice looking, never before opened cardboard looms.  I also have blunt weaving needles that are just sitting with my yarn. The only problem is, I'm not sure exactly how to do this type of project.  I know the basics of warp and weft and how to weave, I just don't really know about the set up of the yarn and how to remove from the loom once finished. If anyone has any ideas, advice, suggestions, past experiences, or links with instructions that you know of, will you please be so kind as to send my way?  I really appreciate it!!! Thank you!

p.s. The above image is similar to what I've been wanting to try.

4th Grade: Spotted Owls

I was inspired by MaryMaking's spotted owl collages from this post: http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2009/12/splatter-painted-spotted-owls.html

4th Graders just finished dissecting owl pellets in Science, so I knew they'd be into any kind of owl project.  Last year, these same students learned about Jackson Pollock and had experience with splatter painting prior to this project- let me tell you...this might be their favorite thing EVER.  We did owl sketches in our sketch books (check previous post) and splatter painted on various shades of grey and brown construction paper (12x18"). We also sponge painted some moons (white tempera with a touch of yellow).  Next class when paper was dry students began cutting and gluing shapes from their splatter paper and from scraps of browns, grays, and white paper.  I had 3 simple tracers for them to use: the body (large raindrop shape), the wing (small raindrop shape), and the face (oval).  They had to come up with everything else free-hand.  *I know some art teachers out there are against students using tracers, HOWEVER, I know that my students know how to make these basic shapes and I like to let them use the tracers for the foundation of the project to get the ball rolling more quickly (it's a time saver, too!)  I believe this gives them the confidence to be more creative with adding more details of their own to the simple foundational shapes.  They created their own tree branch, leaves, eyes, beaks, claws, and brows.

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").

1st Grade: Jasper Johns Abstract Names

This was a great 2 day art lesson for my 1st graders.  We began by folding a 12x18" white paper 4 times and opening it up to get 16 rectangles.  I demonstrated how to use the letters of my name to fill up the entire space of each rectangle ( some got it!) They used oil pastels to create a bug chunky letter and then kept repeating the letters in their name until the last rectangle.  Then we used watercolors to fill in the rest of the white spaces.  Some of the messier ones are my favorites! :)