1st Grade Book Covers (I'm still here!)

I am way behind this year. Behind on Artsonia (like I just finished posting some of our first projects, yikes!), and way behind on blogging. Instead of giving you a bunch of excuses, I'll just share a picture of a one day project I did with 1st grade a couple of weeks ago. We talked about how artists can be involved with books- the illustrations on the inside and the design of the covers. The students pretended that they had written a book and designed the cover. If they finished with that, I gave them more freedom on the inside. Some made more illustrations and some wrote the story!
One class had been given more than their fair share of second chances to correct their volume level in the week before so they "earned" no talking during this class period. That's probably why I thought this little girl was thinking of me when she designed the cover for her new book "The very mean Art teacher." I gave her a skeptical look and she said "What? It's not you!" Then she made sure her drawing had a blonde Art teacher just to convince me. :)
I wish I would have had more time to ask about her drawing!

Texture Hunt

Last week my student teacher wanted to do a texture exercise with 3rd graders to lead in to her next lesson. We were thinking about taking the students outside to find nature textures in the courtyard, but the grass was soaking wet. Luckily, there was a plethora of texture on the playground! I never thought about all the textures we would find there before that morning. We called the lesson a "Texture Hunt" and Miss Bennett showed the students how to collect the textures and create a nonobjective composition, thinking about what textures they were putting where, and how they created new textures when overlapped. 

Playground Texture Composition

Discovering texture on the bottom of the swings.

I created a grid and filled each space with textures for reference later. I could have filled several more papers.

I knew the students would enjoy having Art class outside, but I was surprised by how much they got in to finding textures. They were experimenting and discovering and collaborating. We did have to remind a couple students that it wasn't recess time, but overall, they did very well.

It was kind of a gloomy day last Friday so our 3rd graders that day found textures in the Art room. We did put out a few rubbing plates but the students found several textures that were already in the Art room.