Paint Chip Game

Paint chips are all over Pinterest! I've seen all sorts of projects using them and while I would feel guilty taking enough from the store for 100+ students to use, I didn't feel too bad taking just one of each primary, secondary, and neutral color.  (I also took an extra black to help illustrate value.) I laminated the samples, cut each strip apart, and put them in a pencil case with the following directions to be used during an 8 minute rotation.

1. Sort the rectangles by color (al the reds together, all the blues together, etc.)

2. Put the colors in order of the color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)

3. By yourself, pick a pile of one color, like all the oranges. Put the rectangles in order from dark to light.

4. With extra time, invent your own game to play with them!

In the photo above, the directions are just taped to the bottom. I have since laminated the directions and added another piece of laminated paper with some vocabulary on it. Since I just had groups working on this for about 8 minutes, it was a good activity. The students were proud when they accomplished 1-3 and got pretty creative inventing their own games with #4. One group invented a game that was kind of like Go Fish but with colors and I'm sure there were several other good ideas. 

This was a good way for students to work together to play with color and value and use their imagination and creativity to invent a game.

Cardboard Construction and Water Painting

I'm sure we've all read a lot about using stations or centers in the Art room.  I don't use them regularly, but I do utilize them at least a few times a year.  I used stations last week with some of my 3rd grade students.  I wanted the students to type artist statements for their first projects into Artsonia so while one student at a time was doing that, the others were rotating to different stations.  I wanted to come up with stations that did not involve drawing, just for something different.  One, geometric shape tile pictures, I had used before but I tried a couple new things.  I had 4 stations total and the groups rotated to each during the class period.  They ended up with about 6-7 minutes at each station.

1. Water painting on the chalkboard!  I read about letting Kinders paint with water on sidewalks at the beginning of the school year and that idea stuck with me. (I first read about it on B Art Z but I think the original idea came from Hands Head n Heart)  One day I was trying to explain to some students how to turn their brush to cover a wider area and it popped into my head to show them with water on the chalkboard.  I guess this is one time I prefer it to a whiteboard.  For this rotation, I just put styrofoam cups with a little bit of water in them and big brushes on the chalkboard tray and let the students paint lines with water.  I didn't tell them what to paint, just let them explore and be amazed at their temporary paintings.  It worked pretty well besides when a couple students decided to use the brushes to fling water instead of "painting" with it.  We just wiped with paper towels to speed dry time for the next group.

2. Building with recycled materials.  This was so obvious that I can't believe I never did it before!  I save all my paper towel tubes.  I like to use recycled materials for projects, I just have to have over 100 of anything before I have enough for each student to do a lesson.  I pulled out some paper towel tubes, cardboard pieces, plastic trays that someone gave me, and the little "ladders" I saved from old watercolor trays.  I told the students when they were at that table, they just had to build something from the materials working together with their group.  I did not set a specific challenge.  Some used it to create architectural designs, some decided to see how tall of a tower they could build.  I did put a stop to the tall tower thing temporarily when students started to climb on top of the tables to reach higher.  Honestly, they were being careful and I think it would have been pretty safe (my brother and I were always doing stuff like that when we were younger) but I figured since we were at school and I don't want to get in trouble, they could only build towers as tall as they could reach from the floor.  It was cool to see them learn about balance and figure out how to make the structures more sturdy.  The students asked when they could do it again!  There was definitely lots of critical thinking and problem solving happening!

I found a big tub of blocks so one other station was individual building.  This student wanted me to take a picture of her tower, too.

I have plans for other non-drawing (not that I don't love drawing) stations but I have yet to test them out.  I promise to share the results after I do test them with students.