Building Prints

This was a project that I did with my 4th graders at the end of the year last year for something quick, fun, engaging and collaborative.

This project was inspired by contemporary illustrator James Gulliver Hancock and his book All The Buildings In New York that was lent to me by one of my Elementary Art team memebers. 

Take a minute to explore his website. He is incredibly talented and does a large variety of work. I scrolled through a bit of his work with students and they loved it. I ended up buying another book of his which isn't appropriate for young students but is seriously amazing called Artists, Writers, Thinkers, Dreamers: Portraits of 50 Famous Folk & All Their Weird Stuff and I fell in love with it. You can get both books on Amazon.

So here is how the project went down, and it went fast and quick because it was their last 4 art classes of the year.

I Can illustrate a building and print it to be a part of a collaborative installation art work.

Day 1:

First we looked at crazy architecture with this video:

Then, looked at his website and listened to illustrator James Gulliver Hancock:

All the Buildings in Melbourne from James Gulliver Hancock on Vimeo.

They had to finish drawing a building that filled most of a 6X9 piece of paper, without too much detail (because it won't print), and had to remember to flip any words like a stamp. I encouraged drawing directly with pen like our inspiration but didn't require it.

Day 2:
A quick demo of transferring to a printing plate that was cut the same size as their paper (6x9) and then they had the rest of the time to complete it so they could print next class. I just use the generic packs of foam printing sheets from School Specialty and cut them down to smaller sizes. We taped a hinge to keep drawings lined up when transferring. They traced once over/on the paper to get the initial lines then flipped up the paper and did it again to make it deeper with a dull pencil.

Day 3:

Printing! A quick demo of printing from the plates and then they had to find a printing buddy to work with and to assist. I cut sheets of every color construction paper I had, black and white tempera paint, and brayers for students to use. They had to print until they had AT LEAST 3 good prints, but could keep printing the entire time if they wanted. 

Day 4: 

We passed out prints, filled out the rubric and handed in the print that they wanted up in the the farewell 4th grade village and in artsonia. If they finished that, they could trade prints with friends and make mini villages. They took extra prints and mini villages with because it was the last day of art for most!

A lot of success across the board in each step so I will likely be doing some version of this again in the future!

Winter Shape Architecture (2016)

Focusing on shapes while teaching architecture to K&1 seem to be a perfect fit. Around Christmas and during winter adds a whole other creative layer for students!

I Can identify the shapes in my artwork.
I Can tell you what an architect does.

Day 1: Intro to Architecture and Building
If you want a great story for introducing architecture read Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty it is easy to understand and just the right amount of silly.

I started our lesson with that story and then had them watch this StoryBots video to reinforce.

We talked about all the different kinds of buildings they saw in the book and video and afterwards I had them think-pair-share about what they were going to build using shapes. We did this before they saw my example and my demo video so they wouldn't be set on building a house like mine. 

Because identifying and not creating the shapes was the goal of the lesson I provided cardboard tracers of the basic shapes in all different sizes. If they wanted to draw shapes other than those basic ones they were encouraged to do so. They used glue sponges to assemble their buildings.

Day 2: Shape Graphing and Details.
To put the focus back on the shapes, we started this second day with the book Shape Shift by Joyce Hesselberth.

Then using my artwork as an example, together we graphed out on a basic bar graph, the shapes I used to build with.

They were then asked to do the same with their artwork. We did this before adding details with construction paper crayons to avoid the confusion of graphing any shapes they might draw. They could have included those shapes when graphing, but I wanted to keep it consistent and make sure I knew what they were looking at when I graded.

After they finished graphing we met back on the carpet and they watched my demo of adding details with construction paper crayons and brainstormed all the different details they could add. It was close to Christmas when we worked on these so there was a lot of Christmas related ideas. Pokemon is the big thing right now so that inspired a lot of kiddos too. Some decided on a combo of both!

Day 3: Snow and Architecture Centers.

To wrap up this lesson and unit we started with the book Snow by Uri Shulevitz. It has great pictures of a city (architecture!) during a snowfall which was perfect segway into the snow part of the project.

They watched my demo video of adding snow with a small paintbrush and Q-tips and were sent to explore the different architecture centers I had set up for them. Many were building toys like blocks, legos, straws and connectors, and also coloring sheets of different types of buildings. While they were exploring the centers I called them back in small groups to add snow if they wanted to add it. They did not have to.

Just LOVE this lesson and how they put all their awesome individual ideas into them. They are now on display at our district office because I loved them so much :)

                        

If the Dinosaurs Came Back with Kindergarten

With architecture fresh in their minds from their winter houses I wanted Kindergartners to go from creating buildings using shapes to actually drawing buildings. I knew when I saw this post via pinterest awhile back that I HAD to do this project. Who doesn't love dinosaurs!? Let me tell you, just saying the word "dinosaur" to a kindergartner gets them excited!

I Can Statements:
I can draw a dinosaur using shapes
I can talk about architecture and draw a city

Day 1: Started the project with what else but the fabulous book If the dinosaurs came back  by Bernard Most. The first thing I wanted to bring to their attention was the lack of colors in the illustrations with the exception of the dinosaurs. After some serious questioning took place they eventually figured it out and I had them focus on the illustrations while listening to the story. After we read the book I had them watch a short demo of drawing buildings and making them more interesting than just a rectangle by adding layers like a cake and interesting windows and antennas. Then they got busy drawing either vertically or horizontally.

Day 2: Looked back at a great resource page in the book that features illustrations of each kind of dinosaur. I photocopied that page so that each student could have one. We talked about how each dinosaur is created from a bunch of different shapes and then practiced finding the shapes in the dinosaurs.**
**side note: THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN THE PERFECT TIME FOR A SMART BOARD!

After practicing finding the shapes in the dinosaurs and tracing them they got a 6x12 piece of paper to draw their dinosaur on using shapes. I encouraged them to use the entire piece but that proved difficult for some. When they were ready to paint they filled in the dinosaur making all the shape lines disappear and dinosaur appear!

Day 3: Gave the dinosaurs an outline with sharpie and added details and faces. Finishing touches were put on the cities, and the dinosaurs were cut and glued down!

On display with many other animals of sorts at McDill Elementary...

 Jefferson Elementary...

Winter Houses with Kindergarten

I've got some seriously great news....This is my last project post about winter this year. Woohoo! Just in time for Spring!

Now onto the serious stuff.... Is it ever too early to start teaching certain concepts to Kindergarten? That was my big predicament with this one. I knew I wanted to explore structures and buildings with them but was the word and concept of Architecture TOO BIG? I ended saying No! Now while I'm not sure if they will remember the word next year or later on this year, at least it is planted in their little minds :)

I can statements: I can identify shapes & I can talk about architecture

This is one of those projects all over Pinterest that I wanted to try my hands on. Here is just one of many links via Pinterest...

Day 1: Started off with the beautiful story Snow by Uri Shulevitz which happens to be a Caldecott Honor Book. After reading, I turned to a specific illustration of the city and used some questioning strategies to see if they could figure out what architecture was or what an architect did. A few kiddos were actually able to figure it out!

 After a little deeper conversation we watched this YouTube video... I was a little nervous if it was too hard of language but it did a great job with the shapes which was going to be the center of our project.

This project had a lot of prep but it cleaned out my scrap drawer which was a win. I cut a TON of squares, triangles, and rectangles of different sizes and dimensions and had them sorted into boxes. Kinders had to be architects and arrange the pre-cut shapes to create a house or building. I did a demo of my own arranging shapes on the document camera. When they had their shapes laid out into their structure on their paper they had to get a thumbs up from me before they could glue. Once the gluing was done they came over to the snow station where they used a Q-Tip to add snow with white tempera paint.

Day 2: Quite a few remembered what it meant to be an architect and then we talked about counting all the shapes on our buildings. The biggest thing was that even if we covered up part of a shape, like when making a chimney with a rectangle, it was still that shape. They each got one of the papers below and counted and wrote their number shapes. I had them check with another person to see if they counted the same amount before they turned it in. If a kiddo was absent when we did the project they were "the assistants" for counting.

This didn't take more than 10 minutes and then we started our next project which continued on the architecture concept. Stayed tuned for those, you'll love them I promise!

These were displayed with 1st grade's Winter Landscape Windows

Jefferson Elementary....

McDill Elementary....