3rd Grade Fall Project- Warm Weaving/Cool Leaf Printing

It took me so long to get all my fall lessons photographed last year that I just decide to save them up to post closer to the correct season. It's still technically summer while I'm typing this, but

1. I start back to school in 2 days.
2. The drought is making the leaves turn brown and fall to the ground so it looks a little bit like fall today.
3. I'm already thinking about lessons for the fall semester and you might be, too!

Back in my very first year of teaching (3 whole years ago seems like a long time now) I had planned a very similar lesson for 2nd grade but it took so long to weave, and I had a disastrous experience trying to print leaves with another grade, that it just stayed a weaving. I decided to be brave and try it with 3rd grade last year. We reviewed warm and cool colors (I tend to incorporate a lot of color theory) and the students identified warm colors as "fall colors". I explained that the students would be weaving using warm colored construction paper then printing leaves on top using cool colors. All except for a couple new students had learned to weave in Art class the year before so they didn't need much review aside from how to hold the folded paper to cut the warp and I had my early finishers help students who were struggling. I'm pretty sure we did this in one class period since I let the students choose from 6x9 inch construction paper instead of a full 9x12 inch sheet. After the strips were woven as tightly as we could get them, students with extra time added glue to the loose ends for extra security.

After the weaving was complete, I passed out trays to each table with green, blue, and purple tempera paint and 2 brushes for each color. We didn't want to make a mess on the tables, so I passed out some odd sized paper scraps for the students to brush on top of. It didn't take long for us to realize that the negative space of the leaf had possibility so we reviewed positive and negative space and turned this into a 2 part project! The students tried to make a nice composition with their overlapping negative space leaves as well as printing on their weavings.

Snowflakes and Blog of the Year

 I posted last week about the Art Ed Blog of the Year contest going on over at the Art of Education. Jessica posted the finalists today and I was excited to see that my blog is a finalist! The good part is that you can vote for several blogs, though you can only vote once. I was also really happy to see the three blogs I nominated were in the finals as well. If you have a minute, head on over to the Art of Education and vote for our friends! 

Some of my Kindergarten students worked on a snowflake drawing together during a shortened Art class before their holiday parties started back in December. I showed them this image

Source: theartofed.com via Katie on Pinterest

(which I think I saw for the first time on the Art of Education) after the students told me everything they know about snowflakes (like they are made of ice, come down when it's cold, they are all different).

We talked about how there were a lot of different designs made from lines and shapes. I rolled out a long piece of paper on the floor and students who were already done with their previous project went over to draw snowflakes using cool colors. I love how Kinders will automatically lay down on the floor to draw or play with things.

For most of the time they worked very nicely together. When more students finished it started getting crowded so I had to ask for some volunteers to go read a book so new students could get a turn. Some switched out and the problem was solved. They really enjoy working together on projects like this.

Klee-Inspired Geometric Shape Fish

My K-3rd grade school started off the year with a "Fish" theme.  The Kindergarten teachers suggested it last spring and we all just kind of went with it!  I planned a fish project for each grade.  Up first is 2nd grade, just because I finished editing their photos first!  Check out the Artsonia exhibit here, and please don't judge me for the colors being really funky, I am finding that editing with Artsonia's website is time saving since I can do it at school but not the most true to life when Auto correct and Brighten are the only ways to adjust color.  But enough about that, read on for my jabbering about the project.

  Paul Klee is an artist that I honestly didn't know very much about before starting this project.  I knew the name and knew that shapes and abstraction were involved in his work but besides seeing some lesson plans based on him, I never gave him very much thought.  I got ahold of some Art for Children books that the library was discarding and one of them was about Paul Klee.  I looked through it and mentally filed away a few ideas.  For the fish project, I showed the students three of his paintings.  

We started by looking at Klee's painting, Castle and Sun, and discussing the shapes which the students were able to identify as geometric.  (I always remind them that geometric shapes are the kind they learn about in Math class and that seems to help them remember.) I explained that they would eventually be making pictures of fish so with that in mind, the background was going to be made of squares and rectangles printed in cool colors to remind us of water.  I used my handy dandy box cutter to cut squares and rectangles out of cardboard.  I didn't worry about using a straight edge or measuring, I wanted a little variety.  The students painted tints of purple, blue, and green on the cardboard and then stamped the shape on their paper, black construction paper.  I think the added white helped the paint show up better.  The little art history lesson, introduction, and printing took the first 40-minute class period.

The best way I found to handle the paint was to put a little tray of each color at each table.  I put it on top of this weird vinyl-y stuff that I have packs and packs of.  It made a pretty good placemat and contained most of the mess.  My tables usually have about 5 students at them so I put two brushes in each paint color.  I asked the students to keep the brushes with one color so I didn't have to worry about water.  The cardboard pieces just stayed on the vinyl stuff when not in use.

During the second class, we looked at two more Klee paintings: Fish Magic and The Golden Fish.  We saw how Paul Klee used geometric shapes to construct his fish.  I actually used a Pinterest board I created about Paul Klee as a way to organize the images I wanted to show the students.  It worked really well.  I just pulled up the board at the beginning of class and it kept track of the "bookmarks" for me.  (The Philadelphia Museum of Art's website was really great because it lets you zoom in to focus on details of the paintings.)  Next, we brainstormed some different geometric shapes and I was going to draw them on the chalkboard for reference when I remembered I didn't have to!  Instead, I projected a poster that I had saved on, you guessed it, Pinterest, and the students could just look at it for ideas!

Source: awesomeartists.com via Katie on Pinterest

Afterwards, each student was given a quarter page black construction paper and asked to draw a fish as big as they could fit on on the page made out of geometric shapes.  Of course I had lots of students tell me they didn't know how so I just reminded them that they were imaginary fish and they could keep it simple like an ellipse and a triangle.  The "I can't"s and "I don't know how"s seem to be a lot worse at the beginning of the school year...

After they finished drawing in pencil, construction paper crayons were used to fill in the shapes then the fish were cut out and glued down on the printed papers.  There ended up being a little extra time in most classes so I let them have the "bonus step" of adding some sand (yes, REAL SAND) to their artwork.  They get so darn excited about sand... and I do a little, too!  Calling it a "bonus step" seemed to be really motivating.

My schedule can end up being a big mess if I don't change some lessons for classes on certain days.  My Tuesday classes hardly ever miss but days off school tend to be scheduled on Mondays and Fridays.  Labor day was obviously on a Monday so my Monday classes had 1 1/2 class periods instead of 2.  They drew their fish at the end of the first day and colored and printed on the second day.  There was no cutting involved.  Here is a result from one of those classes:

Kindergarten Does Dine

I needed a quick project for Kindergarten waaaay back in February.  I wanted to do something with hearts to correlate with Hoops for Heart/Jump Rope for Heart the kids were doing in PE.  I managed to do this whole project without mentioning Valentine's Day, I just reminded the students in February we talk about having healthy hearts!

I have seen lots and lots and lots of lessons on Jim Dine so I tried not to look back at the lessons others have used, I wanted to try to come up with my own version.  I did an image search for Jim Dine hearts and the students and I looked at several examples, focusing on the texture he often creates in his artwork.  After the introduction on the first day, I let the students choose a piece of 6x9 inch construction paper in a cool color.  I put markers and crayons at each table and after introducing cool colors, the tables worked together to separate the cool colored supplies.  (I did double check to make sure they didn't have warm colors mixed in.)

Next, I asked the students to do something that I have never ever asked them to do before.

I asked them to scribble all over their papers!  I showed the students that scribbling was going to create really cool visual texture on their papers.  I didn't expect it but I actually had some students resist scribbling.

"But our moms and dads won't like it!"

I promised the students that scribbling was just going to be one part of the project, to create texture, and that we were going to add to the artwork in the next class.  The students scribbled with markers for a few minutes until I told them to stop and then scribbled with crayons on top of that.  I didn't let students finish the scribbling early, though some told me they were done a few times.  I said that the more layers of scribbles, the more interesting the project would look.

In the second class, I passed out paper cut the same size as the scribble drawings.  This is a great time to use up old, faded construction paper!  I showed the students how to fold the paper "hotdog" style, and then demonstrated drawing a candy cane shape starting on the crease and ending on the crease.  The students drew the candy cane (half a heart) with pencil and I checked it to make sure that 1- it was drawn  on the crease not the open side, and 2- it was big enough.  A lot of my students tend to draw really, really tiny, and I knew they would have a hard time cutting a tiny shape and be sad when their hearts were too small to show up on the finished artwork.  Since the students drew in pencil, I used a sharpie to help them fix the shape, if needed, so they could see the new line to cut on.  We were going to use the paper as a stencil to make a heart.  

After the students cut along their lines, many thought the heart shaped paper was the important part and started to throw away the piece we really needed, the rectangle with the heart-shaped hole in it so I had to really watch them!  I asked them to set the heart aside and put the stencil on top of their scribble paper.  I had placed a tray of red tempera paint at each table and showed the class how to brush the paint in towards the middle of the heart so paint would not end up under the paper.  I think I taped the stencil paper down for a few students who were struggling, but most just held it down with one hand and the brush in the other.  On my example, I pointed out how leaving some brush strokes and letting the scribbles show through created even more texture.  When students finished, they brought their papers to me to put on the drying rack, folded their stencils and threw them away, then I let them decorate the hearts that were cut out with crayons until the other students were finished.

I might do this project again next year.  When researching Jim Dine, I was most interested in his drawings of tools.  I decided to do a project with 5th grade inspired by those drawings.  That lesson is coming soon, since "soon" is a relative term!  I still have a bunch of lessons to post so even though after Friday I won't go back to school for approximately 80 days, I will still be blogging this summer.

Everyone Knows Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

The saying "money doesn't grow on trees" and Gustav Klimt's Cartoon for the frieze of the Villa Stoclet in Brussels: central  part of the tree of life. 1905-1909 were the inspiration for this lesson. I thought that this would be a good way to find out what my students were interested in and give them some choices while still having structure.

The students discussed Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life". Klimt was very interested in creating patterns and visual texture using shape. We discussed how the tree was abstracted and stylized with the lines of the branches forming spirals. I also showed the students "the Kiss" and a couple other paintings of trees but I left it at that since it is not uncommon to find nudity in Klimt's artwork. When discussing the artwork, I asked for initial reactions and then we went through each of the elements of art. I have the poster series posted on one of the classroom walls so we just covered one at a time. My students are still getting used to critiquing art but they did pretty good with the structure of each element. I reminded them of what each element means and then called on random students to try and describe how each was used by the artist.

First, the students drew a stylized tree with something unusual growing on it- something that THEY wish would grow on trees. The thing growing on trees could be a real object or an idea. "Love" was a popular choice with the girls and I think the most common choice with the boys was video games. Next, the students traced over all of their pencil lines with crayon and finally, watercolor paint was applied to create a wax-resist painting.

My SMART goal this year is basically about color theory so I decided instead of just painting trees, I also wanted to teach the students about warm and cool colors. Either warm or cool colors were chosen for crayon and the opposite was used to paint creating more contrast.