4th Grade Clay Boys

This year my grade school chose a theme of "Oh the Places You'll Go". For Family Literacy Night in the fall, each grade had a different country to learn about- the students gave reports, performed dances, and just generally showed what they knew in a fun way. 4th grade chose Russia so I set about trying to design a lesson connected to Russia. I was first researching Russian art and getting a lot of depressing works but then a friend reminded me that she always looks at children's books- duh! I was able to request a few folktales from our library network and the one that gave me the best idea was Clay Boy, a folk tale retold by Mirra Ginsburg.

In the story, an old couple fashion themselves a little boy out of clay and he comes to life!- this reminded us of the Little Gingerbread Man. The big difference is that the clay boy eats EVERYTHING and everyone with a goat saving the day at the end.

I recently posted the lesson on the smARTteacher so feel free to check it out!

Completion time:

2 sessions; 40 minutes per session

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Objectives:

1. SWBAT understand what a folktale is.
2. SWBAT create a simple figure out of clay
3. SWBAT add details to their projects to personalize

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Materials:

1. red earthenware clay
2. clay tools
3. fabric scraps
4. scissors
5. glue (students used elmer's and I used hot glue when needed)
6. yarn

Need these materials? Visit Blick!

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Procedure:

1. Introduction
-The teacher will explain that folktales are stories passed down through generations
-Clay Boy is based off of a Russian folktale
2. Read Clay Boy or show video
-discuss: does the story remind you of anything else? Some will say it reminds them of the little gingerbread man
3. Work with clay
-demonstrate forming clay into a figure starting with a fat cylinder or rectangular shape
-cut clit to free legs and arms
-pinch to form appendages and shape head
-pose figure into sitting or standing
4. Let clay dry and fire in kiln
5. Finish sculptures
-students cut fabric scraps and form into clothing
-glue in place

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Related Resources:

1. Clay Boy by Mirra Ginsburg
2. Youtube video of Clay Boy reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ7Fuy-wnOU

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THE STANDARDS

Visual Arts Standard 1:
Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes

[K-4] Students use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories

[K-4] Students use art materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner

[K-4] Students know the differences between materials, techniques, and processes

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Visual Arts Standard 2:
Using knowledge of structures and functions

[K-4] Students know the differences among visual characteristics and purposes of art in order to convey ideas

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Visual Arts Standard 6:
Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines

[K-4] Students identify connections between the visual arts and other disciplines in the curriculum

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THE FEATURES

Elements/Principles:

Form, Texture

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Media:

Ceramics

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Cross-Curriculum:

Multicultural Studies

CHW India: Mehndi

India was our focus for Cultural Heritage Week this year. My 4th-6th grade students chose a starting point from the "Art is Culture" bulletin board and were free to branch out from there with their own ideas. One of the most popular starting points was mehndi. Mehndi (henna) is applied on the hands and feet of Indian brides and can also be used for other special occasions. There's a nice article about Mehndi in Indian Marriages here. 

We talked about how the ink is made from leaves, how the designs are applied, that the designs are temporary so not really "tattoos", and what elements are used to create the designs (lots of lines, organic shapes and images, repetition, etc.) I created a "cheat sheet" with different kinds of shapes and lines I've observed in looking at many, many, images of mehndi and some tips for getting started. The cheat sheets were really helpful for the students. I will try to scan the cheat sheet and share it later.

Most students interested in mehndi chose to start by tracing their hand and wrist, then planning out their designs with pencil. When I watched the application of mehndi, there was obviously no erasing. The students were more comfortable with the safety net of a pencil. After the designs were planned, most traced with sharpie. Many students used construction paper from the Pacon Multicultural Construction Paper pack. It was nice to have 10 different skin tones so students could choose one that matched their own if they wanted. Some students used white paper instead with the intention of adding color.

Some designs were left clean and simple, either with a blank background or cutting out the arm and gluing to a new piece of construction paper.

Some students combined the idea of mehndi with what they learned about block printing in India. Craft foam and cardboard were used to create stamps. Metallic gold paint was the most popular choice for stamping.

Metallic anything is usually popular at my schools. The student below used metallic colored pencils to create a border of different patterns. 

Many students also used bleeding art tissue on top of their mehndi designs. You can see more tissue examples here!

Rangoli Drawings

This year the focus for Cultural Heritage Week in my district has been India. Each art student in the district, K-12, has made artwork inspired by the culture of India. My K-3rd grade students each had a set assignment and the 4th-6th grade students had multiple starting points from which to branch out and choose a direction. 

3rd grade students learned about rangoli, which are created during Diwali celebrations. You can find the lesson plan on the smARTteacher, but I'll go ahead and post the basics below.

Start with square construction paper. I cut down 9x12 inch paper to 9 inch squares. I went ahead and chopped the scraps into 1 inch strips that will be used for paper weaving.

Trace a circle in the center of the paper. We used big cans from the lunch room. Place a dot in the center of the circle and 6 or 8 dots evenly spaced around the perimeter.

Next, students create radial designs. I describe it to them as making a pizza where each slice is the same. After the designs are planned in pencil, students add color with construction paper crayons or color sticks.  True rangoli are usually created by drawing with sprinkled powder or paste onto the ground. I wanted students to be able to get part of that experience so after they finished coloring, students had the option of tracing part of their designs with glue and sprinkling sand over the top.

 Only one or two students decided not to add sand. Sand is always a big hit!

We loved how this project turned out. India is such a colorful culture and the students have been so excited to learn about it.

CYOA: Embellishing Pottery

Each year the art teachers in my school district choose a different part of the world or culture as a K-12 focus. We try to get other departments involved as well for interdisciplinary connections. The efforts culminate during Cultural Heritage Week- a week of speakers, performances, and a K-12 art exhibit. This year our focus has been Native American cultures. Since I had already decided to experiment with choice based art instruction at my intermediate school, I used the "Choose Your Own Adventure" method that I tried out with 5th grade when studying fibers last spring. I came up with several open-ended ceramics projects and each student choose a direction. 

The first direction I wrote about was Effigy Pots. The next direction, and the most popular, was embellishing pottery. We talked about how Native artists did/do embellish their ceramic artwork. We categorized the different techniques as Painting Designs, Etching Designs, and Adding Texture.

The idea for texture came from a webpage detailing clay tools used by Native Americans of New England. Many of the tools were things found in their part of the country, so I used some of those ideas and found a few things outside that could also be used for texture. Students pressed the tools into the wet clay, some just experimenting, others consciously making designs. It was a big hit!

To etch designs, students put a layer of paint (we used tempera cakes) on their dry clay and used a paper clip to scratch designs. We found that etching while the paint was damp but not too wet made smoother lines than etching into totally dry paint.

Example of etched design: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/42995371413986740/

The last technique was painting designs. We talked about how the idea was more to get inspiration from the Native American artists and art forms than to make something that "looks Indian". That is an important concept that we kept reviewing!

Example of painted design: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/42995371415641666/

I created a Pinterest board to keep track of all my research and images to show students. You can check it out here: http://www.pinterest.com/katiemorris/native-american-art/

4th Grade Asian Dragons

I saw an Asian style dragon on Pinterest a while back that was made with a coil. That seemed simple enough, so it was one of the first ideas I collected for our East Asian study this fall. The coil dragon I saw came from A Faithful Attempt. To begin the project, I showed an East Asian dragons PowerPoint to my students. I'd be happy to share this resource later if anyone is interested*. It's not the prettiest PowerPoint ever, but I did put a lot of work into finding specifics on dragons from China, Japan, and Korea so could go beyond "uh, they have dragons in Asia." We spent a couple minutes talking about the differences between Western and Asian dragons- there are quite a few! Did you know that Asian dragons didn't usually have wings? They could use magic to fly without them. Also, the bodies are more serpentine and Asian dragons spent more time being benevolent than, oh, burning down castles and the like. 

*Here's the PowerPoint!

Dragons

*I had a couple students ask me "Are dragons real? You're talking about them like they're real!" I just told them that some people think they were, some people think they were imagined after discovering dinosaur fossils or something like that. But, they are part of the culture and the legends, so it's easier to talk about them as if they are real.

Also, did you know you can tell if a dragon is from China, Japan, or Korea by counting the toes/claws? Each culture claims that dragons started in their country and has a reason for the different number of claws. Chinese dragons have 5, Korean have 4, and Japanese have 3. In China they said that dragons lost toes as they traveled east, in Japan they say that dragons grew toes as they traveled west, and in Korea they either lost a toe from traveling east or grew a toe from traveling west. You may notice that our dragons don't have feet (and therefore look more like Nessie, our underwater ally, than an Asian dragon). This was due to time constraints. By the time most of the students got their coil dragons secure enough to stand, they maybe had time to add scales, but most did not have time to add feet.

For the studio portion, the students rolled their clay into a coil, shaped it in a way that it supported itself and stood up, then added details- all in about 20 minutes! I only see my intermediate kids for 40 minutes every other week so they have to complete their handbuilding in one class period. In the second class period, the students used acrylic paint to add color and detail to their dragons. My intermediate school was randomly selected by an area Walmart for their teacher appreciation program and EVERY teacher in my building received a $50 gift card for classroom use! How awesome is that? I used a good chunk of my money to buy acrylic paint, even some metallic paint which was a BIG hit.

3rd Grade Oaxacan Inspired Drawings

This lesson was one of my student teacher's greatest hits. The students learned about Oaxacan wood carvings then made drawings inspired by the artwork. The students had to think about composition, colors, and how to fill their animals in with patterns. You can see some amazing wood carvings HERE and read more about Oaxacan artwork HERE.

This project also made me think of a piece of advice I wish I had thought to mention earlier: Don't give too many examples! When asking the students to think about an animal to use, she threw out several random animals in each class. The problem is that a big chunk of students in each class latched on to one of her examples. We had classes with LOTS of jellyfish and snakes. That's something I'm filing away for if I ever have another student teacher!

6th Grade (Bubble Wrap) Dot Painting

If you want a sure way to motivate 6th graders, try using bubble wrap! This project started as an attempt to speed up the Aboriginal-inspired Art lesson I'd taught to my 6th graders the last 2 years. After learning about (Australian) Aboriginal artwork and culture, I'd always had the students draw a favorite animal in a sort of x-ray style and fill in the negative space with symbols and dots. The animals would turn out great, but the students would lose interest during the dot phase and we'd get some half-hearted attempts. This year, we tried using bubble wrap to create the dots! There's something funny about using a material as plastic as bubble wrap to learn about such an old Art form.

I've always been a fan of bubble wrap- it's super fun to print it for texture in mixed media artwork. I made myself a note after last year's lesson to try printing bubble wrap to create the dots in the background. I found some of the most beautiful dot paintings I'd ever seen on this website (seriously, go look NOW!) I think the students were just as impressed by the artwork as I am! With the addition of the new reference images, the rest of the lesson introduction was the same. My original plan was to spend one class printing bubble wrap backgrounds, and the next two adding animals and/or symbols. You'll see if you read on that the lesson evolved as the students' needs and interests came into play.

I have no trouble painting and printing the bubble wrap fast enough. The average student, however, does. We discovered that using a damp sponge to moisten the paper prior to printing yielded better results. Most students were much more intrigued by the dots than by the animals so in the second class period, I gave them a choice. The students could either try the dot painting again, or they could go ahead and add an animal and symbols to their first painting. I had intended for the students to draw, cut, and glue their animals and symbols, but after one student tried painting them directly on top of the dots, everybody really liked that technique!

 I stressed that there was to be ABSOLUTELY NO POPPING OF THE BUBBLE WRAP! And we really didn't have a problem with it. I had purchased a roll of bubble wrap that could be torn into sheets. Recycled would have been great, but this way I was sure to have sheets big enough. The same bubble wrap sheets were washed and reused in each class. By the end of the 2nd class period, after being used about 10 times, the bubble wrap is still in good enough shape to use.

 Here's a 6th grade student showing how to wash the bubble wrap. We gently rubbed the sheet together then laid it bubble side down on sections of newspaper to dry. If there were a way to hang the sheets, they would probably dry faster.

White Rabbit

This student is a cancer survivor and wanted to make a ribbon

This student traced her hand with paint after we learned that Aboriginal artists sometimes used their arms and hands as stencils.

This was made by a student who finished early.