Dream Rocket- Space

My 6th grade students participated in the Dream Rocket project last fall, making artwork with a "Space" theme for a show at the Cosmosphere. When I read about the exhibit, I knew I wanted to sign up my students who spend the first 9 weeks of school studying astronomy in their science class.

Since we are trying out choice based art this year, the students had the option of participating in the Dream Rocket or continuing with something of their own. I had the interested students come over to me for more details after the whole class watched a video about the Dream Rocket and discussed some space images from one of my Pinterest boards.

The interested students divided themselves into small groups and set to work brainstorming. This was really cool to watch! They had ideas from their studies earlier in the semester so I saw a good balance of imagination and "real"science.

Most of the artwork was created with regular old tempera paint but some added homemade spray paint or collage elements.

  97 cent spray bottles filled with diluted tempera paint make cool galaxies. The students above worked together to swirl the runny paint.

 My school is in the middle of a big vocabulary experiment. Each month there are 10 words that we want all 4th-6th grade students to "own". It worked out really well that in December two of the words fit perfectly with the Dream Rocket project so I used them in the hallway display. "Look What We Can ACHIEVE When We COLLABORATE". Some of the words a bit hard to read in the photo.

Now if all goes well with the final stages of planning, my students space artwork, as well as the other Dream Rocket paintings my 2nd and 3rd grade students made last year, (see them here) and others submitted from across the US and all over the world will be used to wrap the Saturn V Moon Rocket at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. How cool is that?

You can see the rest of the paintings in our Artsonia gallery and check out our short Animoto video below.

Dream Rocket

4th Grade Butterfly Life Cycle Clay Sculptures

This year I wanted to try something new for my 4th grade clay lesson. I was having a hard time making a decision with lots of possible ideas, so I asked the 4th grade teachers for important topics they cover. The one that caught my eye, was studying the life cycle of butterflies.

The students' assignment was to use slabs and/or coils and attachments to illustrate at least one phase of a butterfly's life cycle. We also talked about 3D vs. 2D and how they should really give their project some form or it might as well just be on paper. Most of the students made a slab that looks like a leaf and attached eggs or a caterpillar to it. The slabs were curved up to make a shallow dish. Some got more sculptural. The students had one class period to build and the next to paint. I did not give any requirements about paint colors since they didn't have to represent a real species.

 I can't wait to try this again next year... because I kind of messed up this year. I thought I had leftover air dry clay from last year, but it was only a box or 2. The rest was accidentally from 2 YEARS AGO! Needless to say, it was very crumbly and the students had to work lots of water back in to it. I did manage to improve some of the clay after I got the tip to wrap it up tight with wet sponges in the bag.

This student made his caterpillar the same color as his leaf on purpose and called it a "Camo-pillar."

 This student tried to show every stage. I think there was a chrysalis on the back side.

Did you know that caterpillars eat their eggs after they hatch? The students taught me that!

4th Grade Shape Paintings

Last year I had all my 4-6th grade students vote on their favorite projects to help me decide which ones were "keepers".  My 4th grade students voted for Geometric Shape Op Art (click on the link to see last year's projects) and landscape paintings that blended watercolors and had salt sprinkled on it to make bright colors with cool texture.  I wasn't totally satisfied with either project.  The landscape idea came from my cooperating teacher during student teaching and though I changed it a little bit and loved the bright, finished paintings, I thought it was lacking.  The Op Art project was very frustrating and didn't turn out the best even though I felt I had good intentions of covering lots of material- shape, complementary colors, math tie in, etc.  I decided to combine the two projects and I am much happier with it!

I got a list of the geometric shapes that are on the 4th grade math assessment to start.  I printed the shapes off on colored card stock, laminated, and cut so that each table would have a set of tracers.  I also had compasses available to make larger circles.  At the beginning of the first class, we reviewed organic and geometric shapes and the students named the geometric shapes as I held them up in the air.  I explained the first step: trace geometric shapes on your paper to create an interesting composition with overlapping.  The students traced with pencil then traced the pencil with fine point sharpies.  I was looking at the drawings and saw something that would become a problem with the next step- the negative space was one giant shape!  I had the students get rulers and use the straight edge to make 3 or 4 lines at different angles go clear across their paper.

On day 2, I introduced analagous colors.  I showed the students the colors that are next to each other on the color wheel are also next to each other in the watercolor paint trays.  I spent a couple minutes quizzing them to check for understanding.

Iif you are only using analgous colors would you ever use red and green?

If you are using orange, what two colors could you combine with it?

Etc.

I pointed out how new shapes are created when the geometric shapes or lines overlapped.  I told the students that each shape should have two analagous colors in it.  I demonstrated carefully painting in half of a shape and then while the paint was still wet, painting the other half with an analagous color so that they would blend in the middle.  I showed the students how to sprinkle a TINY bit of salt on the wet paint to create a texture.  They always think it's like magic to see the salt soak up the paint.  I suggested that the students skip around their paper instead of painting shapes that were touching for two reasons.  1- That gives the paint a chance to dry so colors don't bleed into other shapes.  2- It's one of my "artist tricks".  If you run out of time and things are balanced, it looks like it's on purpose.  If you run out of time and one half is painted and the other half is empty, it's obvious that you ran out of time!

I was only planning on 2 classes for this project but had to add another one.  Some students achieved a nice balance between the colored and white spaces but most did not and they looked unfinished.  About 2/3 of the students were able to get every shape painted in the 2nd class.  Learned helplessness is a big problem at my school.  We have discussed it as a staff and try things like encouraging the students to see what others are doing bore they ask the teacher for help.  I had lots and lots of students coming up to ask me if two colors were ok to use together after we spent a good amount of time on it.  I didn't want to just say yes or no, I wanted the studnets to figure it out!  I started asking them "Are they next to each other on the color wheel?"  Then they would go look and get to work.

I have one 4th grader who is quite a character. He LOVES Art (last year he asked me every single time he came to class if we were going to do an Art contest!) but is not the best at following directions or using good craftsmanship. Needless to say, he kind of struggled with this project.  I also had a student turn his wet painting totally sideways up in the air to show me.  He learned cause and effect as his paint blurred together and dripped down his paper!