1st Art Show....Coming Soon!

cranes~tsuru

We've been making lots of cranes around here lately.  I've always had an origami basket at my creation station (where students go if they finish early) but lately after talking about the tsunami in Japan, students have been on a mission to create as many as possible.  I've run out of origami paper, but found out that magazine paper works wonderfully and makes each finished crane unique with the colors and text found on magazine paper...plus it's thin like origami paper :)

There are many resources out there on how to fold an origami paper crane, but here is a pretty easy one to follow:

School Mural

I was asked by my school's PTA this year to design a mural that the students would paint to be hung somewhere in our school.  The mural is to celebrate our school's 10 year anniversary of our dual-language Japanese/English program.  It took me from about September until about January to complete the drawing, and I am still adding now....my work is never really finished. :)  Anyways, after drawing, I transferred them onto 4 huge canvases with my projector, and the kids are just about done painting it.  I will post finished pictures soon.  Here are the drawings- four seasons, and they will hang in order so that they connect and flow from season to season.  I turned these into coloring sheets for my students and they have been having a blast coloring them if they finish their project early...

Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer

2nd Grade: Starry Night

This is a 3 week lesson and each one turns out so cute!  First day we look at Starry Night here and I give the students a palette of sky blue, regular blue, black and white tempera.  They mix right onto the paper to make the sky.  I challenge them to try and mix as many different shades of blue as possible. Lastly they add the swirls with white tempera and a small brush.  Second day, they add the hill, tree, and moon by cutting and gluing construction paper.  They add stars, glow, and tree texture with oil pastels.  Last day, they create a village using colorful construction paper and glue sticks.  They can make houses, churches, libraries, schools, skycrapers, etc.  They get pretty creative with this part. I love the variety I get with this project!

1st Grade: Geometric Robots

We have been busy making geometric shape robots out of all my leftover paper scraps from throughout the year! This project is simple, fun, and the kids love it. They can create their robot however they want as long as they are using geometric shapes. I use a hole puncher to create lots of little circles for eyes and buttons. We have a contest to see who can use the least amount of glue so it doesn't get too messy. That helps big time!!!!

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!