1st Grade Tornado Safety

 This is the 3rd year I've taught a variation of a tornado safety lesson. The first year it was pretty much just a collage. Last year I added more mixed media elements, and while it improved the visual, I still wasn't completely happy. This year I am much more satisfied. The difference this year, is that the students wrote their own safety tips. I was afraid to do this before because I wasn't sure if I would have time to read all of them, and I didn't want the students to write something that would actually be dangerous when we were learning about something that could be a real life and death situation. I emailed all the 1st grade teachers about having the students write tips in the classroom and bringing them to Art class ready to go. Fewer than half remembered to send them (I'll send a reminder on the day of Art class next year) but the classes who forgot were able to write them in Art class without too much trouble.

 Day 1: *Tornado safety info, geometric shape review, give students primary colored tempera paint to paint squares or rectangles for base of house at bottom of paper, students cut triangles from newspaper to form the roof for their houses, glue newspaper to background. (Start with squares of newspaper and show the students how to cut diagonally corner to corner or cut off a corner with one straight line to form their triangle. This saves lots of time and frustration if they actually listen.)

John Steuart Curry, Tornado Over Kansas, 1929, Muskegon Museum of Art

*Edit: I forgot to say that we also discussed John Steuart Curry's painting Tornado Over Kansas. We pointed out how the family is taking cover to stay safe.

Day 2: Students use crayon to color background/sky while supplies are being passed out, demonstrate tearing 1/2 sheet of black construction paper into an organic tornado shape, glue tornado onto paper, use color stick or opaque colored pencil to write safety tips directly onto black paper tornado, add more details with crayon. (The students may be frustrated by not using scissors, but push through! It's good for developing fine motor skills and makes the edges of the tornado soft which is good since they are not solid things.)

This project could be adapted to help review and prepare students for any natural disaster or safety situation. I like to do this in the spring around tornado season when we start having hallway drills at school.

 I decided to make a hallway display with the tornados this year since they were finished a little earlier- last year they were just finished in time to go home before the end of the year. When students finished early, I asked them to think of a word that they associate with tornadoes. They wrote the word on a big torn paper tornado I made out of butcher paper and labeled with "Tornadoes Are..."

Here's the hallway display. I used the big tornado and picked 10 pieces of student work that had different (accurate) tips on them. I cut out my letters and used a 1 inch round punch for the negative space in the letters. I thought it was kind of fun. Then I used the resulting 1 inch circles to make a dotted line under the word "Safety".

2nd grade Painting with Scissors

 I like to use Matisse to teach 2nd graders about shape. The last 2 years we've spent time learning about Matisse and his artwork, then the students used construction paper to create their compositions. Some of the students did a nice job but most struggled with the idea of overlapping while maintaing some sort of balance. (Gluing so many layers that you can no longer see the cut shapes was common.) To try to remedy that we painted the background with paint and created the foreground by painting with scissors.

Source: youtube.com via Katie on Pinterest

The first class period was spent on introduction- we watched the video of Matisse painting with scissors, above, then a PPT presentation of his artwork- and creating the background. The students used rulers (if they wanted) to divide their 9x12 inch paper into geometric shapes. The students were given tempera paint in the primary colors to fill in their spaces. In the second class period, the students used construction paper scraps to make organic shapes. When we discussed Matisse's artwork, the students liked to point out "ish" shapes since we had recently read the book by Peter H. Reynolds. I asked that one of their organic shapes be an "ish" shape and some could just be free form. The students this year actually did a pretty good job controlling their glue but some still can not understand (or choose to ignore) the "just a dot, not a lot" reminder. :)

This student missed the first day so I asked her to start by selecting some large geometric shapes to glue down before moving on to organic shapes.

Kindergarten Wax-Resist Kandinskys

 My original idea for this Kindergarten project was to make wax-resist concentric circles inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, then use the circles as the center of sunflowers. After the students finished painting their circles (on 6 inch square paper), we liked them so much that we didn't want to cut them! 

  Instead, I decided to display them side by side to make a gigantic Kandinsky-inspired bulletin board.

This is just about the longest bulletin board I've ever seen! I had to use some of my examples and make a couple more signs to fill the space.

We've gotten tons of compliments on this project! The artwork really brightened up the hallway. I took the artwork down on Tuesday. Tomorrow is a work day so I'll be finishing up the YAM display.

Kindergarten Tint and Shade Triangle Trees

Oh, Pinterest, you give me so many ideas.

Source: purlbee.com via Katie on Pinterest

I saw this quilt pinned a couple months ago and right away knew what I would do with the idea. I love how simple and graphic it is and the strong shape. A big part of the Kindergarten math curriculum at my school is learning the 5 basic geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, ellipse) and I like to support that however I can. Last year we did wax-resist pyramid paintings for "triangle" but I wanted to try something wintery this year, and this was an easy 2-3 class period project.

Day 1: Using tempera to paint 4 different greens. 

1. Green right out of the bottle

2. Mixing yellow and blue

3. Green with white added- TINT

4. Green with black added- SHADE

Before painting, students folded their papers hotdog and hamburger style to make a "t" down the middle. Reviewed paintbrush technique but not cleaning since no water is required for this as long as you do the shade last. Just rinse brushes at the end of class!

 Day 2: Make some trees!

We discussed the quilt picture, students identified the shapes, and pointed out the different colors and patterns. I asked the students to tell me what they were looking at a picture of and most said "Christmas trees" (it was December, after all), and I used that opportunity to put in a quick science lesson about evergreen trees. Next, we cut the papers into 4 sections and I showed how to cut triangles. I gave students the choice between drawing triangles first or "drawing with scissors". I tried to get them to cut their first 4 triangles so big that they touched the top AND the bottom of the painted paper then they could use the scraps to make "baby" trees. I had pre-cut, or more like chopped since I definitely didn't measure, some brown pieces for trunks. We covered "just a dot, not a lot" for glue bottle use and they went at it.

*Tip- Save the painted paper scraps for students who missed the painting day.

Day 3: Some students would have had time for this at the end of the 2nd class but I decided to utilize "peer tutoring" and have them help struggling classmates with their gluing instead. In the beginning of the 3rd class, we reviewed different kinds of lines and practiced drawing them in the air with our fingers. I have no actual proof, but I'm convinced that getting the kinesthetic action helps the students remember it better. And it's a little silly and fun. After our practice, the students used construction paper crayons to add patterns to their trees. I told the students about shadows and gave a 30 second demonstration. Most tried to add shadows then added other details in the background. I had a couple students who missed the first 2 classes so they just made construction paper crayon drawings of patterned trees.

Skills/Concepts Learned or Reviewed: Geometric Shapes, Cutting, Gluing, Lines, Patterns, Color Mixing, Tints, Shades, Thinking about Composition

This student said she made a whole forest. 

It may look like this student was just being sloppy by gluing every scrap of paper she could find onto her background, but she had a whole story about how all the trees in her forest fell down. 

I love the letters on this tree!

*I forgot to say earlier that this is doable as a sub plan. I was there for every painting class but was gone for one afternoon of gluing and another afternoon of adding patterns. I was afraid it might turn out too cookie cutter but I think it's ok since nobody traced anything and the students were free to add whatever colors and patterns they wanted on trees they placed wherever they wanted.

5th Grade Ndebele-Inspired Paintings

My 5th grade African-inspired Art lesson was based on painted houses in South Africa created by the Ndebele tribe. (I had to look up how to pronounce it!) The designs on the houses are so cool- definitely the most inspiring thing I came across when researching Art from Southern Africa. The houses are painted by women in the tribe and usually feature geometric shapes, bright colors, and symmetrical designs.

Source: ndebelevillage.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

I decided that the project would be creating a painting that was inspired by the house paintings. The students were to make a symmetrical design with geometric shapes and then to tie in color theory, they had to mix each secondary color and at least one tint.

Source: academic.evergreen.edu via Katie on Pinterest

THIS was the best resource I found to explain the significance and process of the traditional Ndebele house paintings. The first step in creating the designs is to divide the wall into sections by creating diagonal lines. I let the students use the straight edge of a ruler to make diagonal lines (a big "X") from corner to corner and the rest of their designs were created with black tempera paint directly on the paper. Some acted nervous about not using pencils first but once they got started, everybody just relaxed into the process.

I originally planned for this to take 2 classes (I'm always optimistic) but I had to add a 3rd. The first day was for the introduction and using black tempera paint to plan out the symmetrical geometric design. In the 2nd class, the students were given tempera paint in the primary colors and white. In the 3rd class, the students finished painting with color and then did touchups with more black tempera paint. Several finished early and had time to write artist statements about their projects:

Cole1264 says this about his/her art... I made a painting related to the Ndeble tribe with many colors. I used regular paints and geometric shapes. my art teacher told us to make them and make them imaginative. I learned how to say the name and I learned that mostly women do the painting. I think my painting is colorful and artistic. but, I think I could have used a bit more designs. I think the best part of my painting was the colors and the shapes.

Destiny2778 says this about his/her art...

I made a painting that is inspired by the people of the Ndebele tribe. my painting is a mixture of shapes, colors, and crazy designs, but I wish I didn't make so many shapes, that ws really confusing! Well... thanks for choosing my art to look at! :)

Kaelan34 says this about his/her art...

This is a painting that uses primary colors, secondary colors, and a tint color. People in the Ndebele tribe draw designs on their houses. Then they paint in the designs. Then they have a colorful house. it's pretty much what I did except on paper. This was a fun project.

I really loved this project and I think the students enjoyed it just as much as me! I'm calling it a keeper! I think it worked because the inspiration caught their attention and they were able to make personal choices within a structure. You can see more in our Artsonia exhibit.