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.

Organic Shape Monsters

The inspiration for this lesson came from Joanna Davis at We Heart Art- Organic Shape Monsters. I love (LOVE!) her idea of using yarn tied in a not to teach organic shape.

Source: ourartlately.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

I pinned the idea for the yarn, intending to do something different with it, but my 1st graders and I were kind of on a monster/wild thing kick so it stuck in my head! I do try not to look at many photos when I'm planning that way it's easier to kind of put my own spin on it. Not that there is anything wrong with not spinning, or that I really spun this one all that much.  Each student got a piece of yarn that I had already tied in a knot and moved it on their paper until they got an organic shape that they liked. They traced with pencil then added details. I told them that their monsters had to have a mouth and at least one eye, some sort of pattern, and a way to get around (does it walk, fly, swim?) After planning in pencil, the students used markers to add details. I always have to remind the students to use the right size tool for the job. I put out regular size markers for coloring in big areas and skinny markers just for tracing lines and adding little details. Of course you'll always have a few students trying to color in their whole monsters body with a teeny tiny marker. I like to just hand those students a marker of the right size and walk away.

The first class was for drawing and starting to add color. I didn't want to keep these as plain drawing since the students had already made Wild Thing drawings and I was trying to decide what exactly to do when I saw a photo my Art Teacher friend, Miss Ihrig, posted on Facebook of her students monsters cut out and glued onto bright colored construction paper- perfect! It was also good since I hadn't cut or glued much with 1st grade yet this year. I took the opportunity to talk to the students about contrast before I let them choose their construction paper. I have a bunch of little girls who LOOOVE pink and would make everything with pink markers and pink crayons on pink paper if I let them. The problem is that monochromatic artwork when everything is the same color is a little hard to see. (They can't quite pull off the subtlety of Rothko's black on black paintings...) I encouraged them to try holding their monster up to different colored backgrounds to see what looked best. Most just pretended to consider other colors then picked their favorite anyway. :)


After carefully cutting and gluing, I asked the students to write a story about their monster. If they needed more prompting, I asked them to tell me their monster's name and something they like to do. I printed off a half sheet writing paper template so they would have the lines they are used to writing on. When the writing was finished, I taped it from the back so their story is visible below their artwork. Students who were super speedy added details to their background with construction paper crayons. Or markers if I didn't notice in time! I think the story was the most interesting part of some. I have some leftover writing paper that I held onto for future lessons because it made their writing so much easier to read.

2nd Grade Kalahari Animal Silhouettes

 This is the lesson my 2nd graders completed for the African Art themed project the Art teachers in my district were doing K-12.  I found another artist whose work I really enjoy and the students respond to on the Art of Africa.  The painting (image from Pinterest below) is called "Crocodile and Elephant" and was created by Andry Kashivi, an artist from Southern Africa.

Source: theartofafrica.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

This lesson ended up taking three 40-minute class periods.

Day 1: Introduction.  View and discuss the artwork with lots of emphasis on description and breaking the painting down to elements.  After the students identified the animals, they learned the word silhouette (ok, some learned it) and identified the shapes in the background as organic.  I told them that they would be creating artwork inspired by Kashivi's paintings with brightly colored organic shapes in the background and the silhouette of Kalahari Desert animals on top.  After the first class, I realized that I would need to guide the students through drawing their organic shapes or they would never, ever finish painting. I asked them to draw two lines from side to side and one line from top to bottom that were a "medium amount of curvy".  I had to get kind of specific or some went crazy with lots of loops and I knew it would take too long to paint.  I did tell the students that their shapes did not have to look exactly like mine, they just needed to use the right kind of lines to get a good amount of shapes.  Most classes had enough time to begin painting at the end of the first class.

Day 2: Finish painting! I put trays of tempera paint in bright yellow, orange, magenta, and green at each table.  Students who painted fast added a second coat of paint.  We all really enjoyed the bright colors.

Day 3: I showed the students images of Kalahari Desert animals and put black and white copies at their tables.  The students were given a half sheet of black construction paper on which to draw their animals.  Originally I was going to have the students paint the silhouettes but they acted freaked out and said they would rather cut.  I'm undecided on if this was a good move or not.  In my demonstration I showed the students how to just draw the outline of the animals, not all the details on the body.  I spent a few minutes modeling cutting the shapes and showed them my tricks for tricky areas.  I also asked them to flip the animals over when they glued so that no pencil marks would show.  Some remembered, some didn't. In the last few minutes of work time, I showed the students how they could use the end of their paintbrushes to make dots for eyes with white and red paint.  You can see in the picture below that some went a little crazy with the dots!

The next picture is a comparison of 2nd grade cutting skills. The student on the left was really careful and didn't chop off any limbs. (I did show students who accidentally cut off legs how to glue both pieces on their paintings so that they touched "like puzzle pieces".) The student on the right... well, I'm not sure what kind of animal it was supposed to be.  Even though some students struggled with cutting, most were trying hard.  Some just cut out blobs of shapes and didn't cut in between legs, for example, until I asked them about it.  Then they acted confused!

I think if I were to teach this lesson again, it would be with older students.  These examples are probably the best results from the grade.  I think it was just a bit too tricky for most of my 2nd graders to translate the shape of animals, and not so familiar animals at that, into silhouettes.  I think the silhouettes would have been easier to see if they were painted instead of cut out but then the drawing would have been a problem.  But, we reviewed shapes, learned about some new animals, and had fun making some colorful artwork so in that way, it was a success. You can see the rest of the student artwork in our Artsonia gallery.