Australian Aboriginal Dot Art (2016)

This project was a total hit last year so I used it again with 3rd grade. Check out the original post with lesson break down here.

 The only thing I changed was paint distribution. I have 3oz cups with lids and I put one of each color on a tray and a stick for dotting with each. Each table got one tray and it really kept paint from being wasted and DRAMATICALLY helped with cleanup. No washing paint palettes like last year!

Once again, this project was a hit and turned out just beautiful!

Japanese Koi Fish with 3rd Grade

200th post! Woohoo!

Inspiration for this project came from this post via pinterest...

I Can statements: I Can tell you something about Japan. I Can draw and paint two or more koi fish in an environment. I Can use watercolors correctly.

As i've mentioned in other 3rd grade "travels" my goal is to give my students the biggest picture of a culture or country as I can in a one project time frame. I would love to spend months on one culture/part of the world but with our curriculum as is--this is the best way that I have found to frame the lesson. To help my students track their new found knowledge, each time we "travel" to a new place I have them fill out a passport page. You can read more about this process from this post.

Day 1: Intro to Japan, passport, and practice.

We started by looking at the Japanese flag, looking at Japan on a map, and then 5 facts about Japan!

1. Japan consists of over 3,000 islands
2. There are more pets than children in Japan (this BY FAR was their favorite fact)
3. Around 24 billion pairs of chopsticks are used in Japan each year
4. Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, is also an active volcano
5. Koi fish are symbols in Japanese culture for good fortune, success, courage, and perseverance. They appear often in Japanese art.

Students shared experiences where they have seen koi fish before and what they looked like and made them feel.

Then the first part of their passports were filled out and it was time to start working. I provided them with the handout I created below and they practiced 4 times (or more) drawing the fish.

 I put a really big emphasis on this sketching process because their final painting was going to be on watercolor paper and they were only going to get one piece (front and back) so they really needed to be prepared and practiced in drawing koi fish. When they had it down I gave them their piece of watercolor paper (only a few students got to this on the first day).

Day 2: Final drawings, crayon outlines.

During the next class everyone moved on to the watercolor paper and to help control their watercolors they outlined everything they drew with pencil in black or white crayon. 

I found some really great and LONG youtube videos of koi fish ponds to play during work time this day and on their painting days...they also were great inspiration for when it came time to choose colors to paint their fish.

Day 3: Painting and salt demo, painting work day!

We kicked off with a demo of painting using watercolors and how to apply salt for the best results in creating one of my favorite watercolor effects. Once students started using the salt I swear it was all over my room for the next month. I put up the image below for students to look at while deciding on colors for their fish. They were also allowed/encouraged to make up their own breed of koi fish ;)

Day 4: Last workday and wrapping up Japan passport entry.

The last full class workday was spent painting and adding tissue paper flowers.

I am SO PROUD of the quality of work that came out of my students on this project. I think I have to thank the watercolor paper for that-- which really encouraged them to focus, slow down, and take their time working.

 

End of the Year Paper Sculptures

The last few weeks of the school year are in full swing. All 400ish portfolios are handed back which means one day-no grade-"Take it with you please!"-projects are happening all over the place.

THIS is my favorite. Any class that was caught up and had a day or so left with me are making these wicked awesome paper sculptures. HUGE thanks to the ever brilliant shine brite zamorano for the inspiration via this post from pinterest.

These were done with a variety of K-4 classes and were incredibly open ended. I made the video below (Sorry I don't do sound!) to show them some of the basics and just "required" them to do two pieces of paper as the base. The two paper rule was to give it a little weight so they wouldn't lift when they started gluing. Everything else they did was up to them. Most students went abstract but I had a few do playgrounds, roller coasters, houses, and masks.

The only two negatives were the prep of cutting all the paper and having K & 1-ers wanting to do the cylinder and having difficulty gluing it down with enough glue to keep it on. There was a lot of end of the world tears when that happened.

My FAVORITE thing that happened was no one asking to do free art in my 3 & 4 classes because they were so completely engaged (which says a lot for the last 3 weeks of school).

HIGHLY recommend this as an end of the year project, if you have any paper left that is!

Texture Polar Bears (2015)

3rd grade took a break this winter from their official world travels, to travel to the North Pole to make these texture polar bears...inspiration came from Pinterest via this post.

I Can tell you the different between visual and real texture.
I Can create a polar bear with multiple textures.

Day 1: I did a fun project reveal using this video...

We kicked off the creating with a demo on creating the polar bear with a sponge. They went right for it without drawing first. Then I had an awesome station set up with protective paper on the walls and a cart and they took a spray bottle with watered down paint and went nuts to make the rest of the background.

 Day 2: This is when we really dived in and talked about texture. I had a variety of examples of real versus imagined and flipped through images and held objects and they had to shout out what kind of texture they saw. After, we explored how we were going to incorporate texture into the polar bears using a variety of materials. Before they started to add things, they drew faces with black crayon and I walked them through creating paper patterns using newsprint. This was the best strategy I had for less waste of felt and fabric. They set a piece of newsprint over their polar bear so they could see through it, and drew what they wanted to add. Those pieces got cut out and were traced on the felt so they had the perfect sizes. It was also a great way to talk about the process of fashion design and clothing making.

Day 3: Reviewed texture and the continued to add to their polar bears. They also added snowflakes with either glitter and glue or paper snowflakes.

I am in love with all the different personalities of the polar bears. Thinking of mixing it up next time with a variety of animals to choose from...

3rd Grade Australian Aboriginal Dot Art (2015)

3rd Grade's Elementary Art curriculum of world cultures allowed me to "travel" with them to Australia to learn about the country and create some Australian Aboriginal Dot Art!

This project came from the ever brilliant Mrs. Nguyen over at her blog.

I Can statements: I Can tell you something about Australia. I Can create an artwork in the style of Aboriginal Dot Art.

As i've mentioned in other 3rd grade "travels" my goal is to give my students the biggest picture of a culture or country as I can in a one project time frame. I came up with framing my lesson in a way that gives them small background knowledge and then connecting one of those background pieces to artmaking. To help my students track their new found knowledge, each time we "travel" to a new place I have them fill out a passport page. You can read more about this process from this post.

Day 1: Intro to Australia, passport, animal practice, and set up.

We started by looking at the Australian flag, looking at Australia on a map, and then 5 facts about Australia!

1. Australia has over 10,000 beaches. You could visit a new beach every day for 27 years
2. There are more kangaroos than people in Australia
3. There is a lake in Australia called Lake Hillier that is known for its pink color
4. The top 10 deadliest snakes can be found in Australia
5. Australian Aboriginals make artwork using dots to tell stories about their tribes and land.

Obviously the fact we dived into the most was about the Aboriginals. I was trying to get them to use textual clues to figure what Aboriginals meant and we finally got it! However, their favorite fact was probably the pink lake!

We watched part of this documentary from 37:02 to 40:23 as an introduction to the Aboriginal culture and their dot art.

Then the first part of their passports were filled out and it was time to start working. I provided them with the handout below and then they practiced different animals they wanted to create. When they had one down comfortably they drew it on a 6x9 piece of bright construction paper, cut it out, and glued it to a 9x12 piece of black construction paper.

Day 2: Starting the Dots!

Kicked off the day with another short video...

After the demo they got to work making dots like machines! Some students had to finish drawing and cutting their animals before creating dots. Each table had a pallette with a full set of colors and enough scratch art sticks for each color. They used the back flat end of the sticks to create the dots. We talked about using just the right amount of paint and how many dots were just enough before dipping again and what the best way to go about laying down dots was. The first workday everyone was really focused and into it....

Day 3 & 4: Workdays!

Started off each day with a little review about what we remembered from Australia and then they got to work. As time went on they started to lose motivation and focus but not finishing was not an option. I did allow friends to help (if they wanted help) once we got down to the last few minutes on the last workday.

 When they were finally done the last job was finishing their passport and turning in their project.

I am so proud of their perseverance and quality that came out of this and REALLY glad I didn't go bigger than 9x12. I am thinking next time that early finishers could do a really big group one!

Looking for feedback on two things....

Do you think it was okay that I "made" them finish and not quit?

Do you think it was okay that I allowed friends to help (if they wanted) at the end?

3rd Grade Indian Elephants (2015)

In my district, the Elementary Art curriculum for 3rd Grade is World Cultures. Each year it is alternated between the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. My goal is to give my students the biggest picture of a culture or country I can in a one project time frame. I came up with framing my lesson in a way that gives them small background knowledge and then connecting one of those background pieces to artmaking. It really is a fun process for me because I am learning things I didn't know before about these parts of the world when I research for the lesson. To help my students track their new found knowledge, each time we "travel" to a new place I have them fill out a passport page. You can read more about this process from this post.

One of the first places I had my 3rd graders "travel" to was India. Indian elephant projects are all over Pinterest (via here, here, and here) which gave me a good idea of what I wanted to do.

I Cans Statements: I Can tell you something about India. I Can plan designs for my elephant and use them when creating my elephant. I Can create an elephant inspired by the Holi Festival in India. 

Day 1: Intro to India, passport, and elephant planning.

We started by looking at the flag, looking at India on a map (love using google for this because it becomes interactive) and determining if it's closer to China or the United States. Then we move on to the 5 facts!

1. India has 1.2 billion people, the United States has 320 million and is larger in area.

2. Because of pollution, breathing the air in Mumbai, India, for just one day, is almost the same as smoking 100 cigarettes.

3. 70% of the world's spices come from India.

4. The Hindu festival of Holi celebrates the victory of good over evil.

5. Elephants are very important to India because of India’s cultural history and Hinduism.

I try to mix in religion, interactions with other parts of the world, and something mind blowing in the facts. That way, I'm giving a bigger span of information for them to connect to and giving them something to remember. I always use the last fact to branch into our project.

We looked at photographs of Elephants embellished and painted for Holi and talked about how people might feel about doing this to animals and watched clips of the Elephants... 

After they filled out their passport page, they started planning out how they were going to decorate their elephants using this sheet...

Day 2: Creating the elephant.

Before we kicked off the day I showed this for a little inspiration...

Did a draw along for the Elephant on 3 different sizes of construction paper. A full 12x18 for the head and trunk (no ears), a 12x12 for the body, and a 12x6 folded in 1/2 for the ears. I had the sheet below for them to follow along with or work independently.

After drawing the pieces out the rest of the time was theirs to cut, glue, and continue planning.

Day 3 & 4: Designing and Embellishing. Passport wrap up. 

They spend the next two classes using oil pastels to design their elephants and a bunch of fun things to add some glitz and glam. Their goal when designing their elephant was to actually use their sketches. I really emphasized this and actually included it in their grade. For the embellishing I had three areas set up with trays of all different things they could use and tacky glue. We really spent a lengthy amount of time talking about how sometimes "less it more", a concept easily forgotten in Elementary School.

Their last job was to complete their passport for India. 

3rd Grade Passports (2015)

The Art curriculum for 3rd graders in our district is to explore other cultures and parts of the world through Art. To help track our world "travels" I created a passport with help/inspiration from here. Students use their passport each time we start and finish a project or as I say when we "arrive" and "depart" from our destination. When we took our first "trip" to India at the start of the year they got their cover page and first entry page of their passports.

Typically for a project I do my big intro and then together (on the SMART Board) we fill out the side 1 of the entry page before we start the artmaking portion of the day. The top portion is straight forward but the last part asks "How is this place connected to Art?" Now that we are almost 1/2 way through the year I no longer write word for word what they need to write and just give them some vocabulary that I want them to include.

Side 2 is totally independent when they finish their project. They can either write a fact they remember about where we traveled, something process related to the project, or even along the lines of if they overcame any challenges. 

The pages are hole punched and held together with brad fasteners making it easy to add each new page with each new destination.

My favorite part is reading their responses and stamping their pages with my compass stamp from Hobby Lobby!

Holiday Art 2015

Wanted to share what my students did the few days leading up to break....

 I really like the way I managed my holiday projects this year. The last day I saw each class before break (unless they were really behind on projects) we did holiday art. Kindergarten and 1st grade did the trees and I set up 2nd through 4th so they could choose from a variety of projects.

I have been doing video demos of projects this year where I record myself ahead of time.... I didn't want to take the time to do that for these projects, butI did take pictures and showed them a step-by-step slideshow. K and 1st just saw the tree and 2nd-4th got to see the step-by-steps for each project so they could decide which ones they wanted to do. I have a really large room so it was was easy to set up each project in different sections of the room.

The tree inspiration came from this image via pinterest. I pre-cut the strips and then hid the scissors so they had to approach it like a puzzle. The bottom right was done by a 1st grade kiddo with special needs and I about cried when I saw how awesome his turned out! This was the project for K and 1st but 2nd-4th could do it as one of their choices.

The name in lights project was the definite favorite. This one also took the longest depending on how many lights they drew. Everything in black is draw with sharpie and then the lights in washable markers. A little water with a paint brush over the top of the markers and it looks like they are glowing. Too much water was an issue for a lot of kiddos who didn't seem to hear the warning about too much water and the water dripped all over the page and took the marker with it. I cannot for the life of me find the Pin on pinterest that inspired this project.

 Paper quilling is seriously one of my favorite forms of art. I wish I would have taken more pictures of these! I started with them using a heavier paper (80lb) and the paper was not holding great, so I switched to a 50lb and the results were much better. The students that chose to do this were VERY into it.

I did a little quilling of my own during one of my really well behaved classes and turned it into an ornament!

I had a group of 3rd grade boys that asked to do legos for a majority of the time and I agreed only if they built whatever I challenged them to build. This was the Santa challenge. I am blown away what kids can do with legos. Anyone who says legos don't belong in an art room needs to reconsider!

These are the ornaments that the other two elementary art teachers that I am SO blessed to work with made for me this year!

And my hand-made ornament for family and friends this year!

Hope you have time to get a little creative yourselves this break, even if it's a new adult coloring book you got as a gift! I got 3!

Turkey Art 2015!

For my classes that were ahead before Thanksgiving we created Thanksgiving Turkey Art...

Kindergarten and 1st grade made Turkey Hats and 2nd and 3rd graders were challenged to make extraordinary turkeys by changing their feathers or dressing them up!

We watched this AWESOME art Thanksgiving story called a Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman Illustrated by Jeff Shelly. It is about a town tricking a Turkey to come to town to be eaten by having him model and judge an art fair! Save this one for next year, it is THAT good.

I love seeing their creativity burst at the seams with this one day project!

Halloween Projects Round Up!

We had a very busy and creative few days in the Art Room before Halloween! I had a sub day and early release day mixed in to Halloween week and the week before so we took a break from current projects and did some one day create and take drawings/projects.

Second, Third, and Fourth graders were given the challenge to take the basic Frankenstein and take it to the next level. I had the draw along you see below to help get them started and then they were left to their own devices! Inspiration for this came from here via Pinterest.

Kindergarten and First Grade took two classes on these, one to talk about texture and create the main pumpkin (using texture plates) and then finished up the next class with the string and leaves. Inspiration came from here via Pinterest.

 When Kindergarten and First were finished with their pumpkins, we read the hilarious book Monsters Love Underpants and did a collaborative monster drawing on the SMART Board and then some quick monster drawing on their own.

Last but definitely not least I bought pumpkins for my small group of High School Adaptive Art students and we taped them off with masking tape and used acrylic paint to paint different sections. The paint peeled some but no complaints from that group :)

And a few bonus artworks...one class of Kindergarten and First did the the spiders on an early release day and the pumpkin man was a bonus drawing a 4th grader did with some extra time. Spider inspiration came from here via Pinterest.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!