Show me the Symmetry!

Before Greg Percy visited, I made a point to use one of his songs with each grade level. 4th graders listened to the song about symmetry (I think it's called "I'm Beside Myself" but I don't have the CD with me to check.) The songs covers two kinds of symmetry- bilateral and rotational. The 4th graders were excited to tell me that they had just been reviewing symmetry in math class so I guess the timing was good! After the song and a PowerPoint I made with images for both kinds of symmetry, the students' assignment was to "show me the symmetry!" They could make anything they wanted as long as it somehow showed a type of symmetry. The overall composition could have been symmetrical or the object the drew could have been symmetrical.

We all know that student combinations can lead to classes with very different personalities... three out of my five 4th grade classes were excited, got ideas right away and jumped right into their projects. I encouraged them to play with some geometric shape tiles I inherited if they were stuck on coming up with an idea. Two classes needed a little more guidance to get started. I showed them how they could fold a paper in half, draw a shape on one side starting from the fold, cut, and open to have a symmetrical shape to turn into something. I showed the same concept but with their name forming the shape and that was a popular option. 

 Some students stuck to formal compositions made entirely out of geometric shapes while others figured out how to represent something that's important to them... like Dr.Who!

3rd Grade Monochromatic Paintings

 I shared a while back that Greg Percy would be visiting my schools to give two assemblies with his "Songs in the Key of Art". I will share some pictures and more about that experience soon, but first I want to share some of the lessons I tied to his songs and taught prior to his visit. 3rd grade students listened to a song about tints and shades before making monochromatic tempera paintings. Since I'm transitioning to giving the students more and more choices, the students drew whatever they wanted, knowing that they would be using tints and shades of only one color to paint. 

After the introduction on the first day and seeing lots of examples of monochromatic paintings, the students started to draw. At the beginning of the second class period, I gave a demo and showed a watercolor painting I made in high school when learning about tints and shades. I pointed out how the frog in real life was not red and neither were the leaves, that I had changed the colors and used different values to keep everything from blurring together. The students seemed like they understood and started painting. Then they totally forgot how to stay inside the lines. I showed again how to paint the outline of one shape at a time and how to differentiate between parts of the painting with different values, and most still struggled. 

This is a "typical" example of one of my 3rd grader's monochromatic paintings. You can see an attempt to create different values but the lizard that was drawn on the tree has been totally obliterated. I was getting frustrated and questioning how I didn't know this would be too hard for most of the students. What didn't occur to my pregnant brain until after, is that yes, it may have been a bit too hard, but the students would probably have been more successful had they been given a chance to practice mixing tints and shades before starting to paint. That's the challenge- finding the balance between opportunities for expression and technical skills. I think that the students' ideas and expression are more important, but technical skills help them to better communicate those ideas. 

I grouped the students in seats by color choice to make paint distribution quicker.

Soooo, I would probably not recommend a monochromatic painting lesson for 3rd graders. However, if you happen to be planning to teach your students about tints and shades, check out Greg Percy's song! It's still stuck in my head- "to make a tint you add some white, then your color will be more light"... "when you add black you make a shade, it's true...."

Here are some of the more successful student examples:

Greg Percy is coming!

I'm really excited that in one week, Greg Percy of Songs in the Key of Art will be visiting my schools! Last fall I wrote a grant to a foundation that raises money for my school district and they were really excited about the idea. We originally tried to find a way to benefit all the elementary students in the district but with 7 schools there were just too many students and too many bussing issues to be feasible. I wanted to make sure that the students would be familiar with some of his songs so each grade worked on a lesson that tied in to a different song. The pictures in this post are from the bulletin board at my primary school. I apologize for not checking the quality in my rush to get pictures after school!

I made a guitar for each song/grade and wrote part of the lyrics to explain. 

The Red and Yellow Blues...

 Secondary Samba...

 From Matisse to You...

Tints and Shades (can't remember if this is the real title, but it's the concept!)

I can't wait to write more about this and share some pictures after the visit next Friday!