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!

Kirigami Snowflakes with 6th Grade

Like I mentioned in my 5th grade snowflake fail post....Both 5th and 6th grade just finished up pretty lengthy projects before this, so I wanted to do a little more of a short and sweet/cut and dry project to re-inspire my students who get frustrated with long projects that are a higher skill level. When I saw this project via Pinterest and this post I knew it was the route I wanted to go with my 6th graders...

I Can Statement: I can use Kirigami to create advanced paper snowflakes

Day 1: Started off with an intro to analogous colors, specifically how warm and cool colors are two sets of analogous colors. We also talked about the different moods the colors created. I wanted to get them thinking a little more advanced art classes so we taped our paper to the drawing boards like I did in all my collegiate watercolor classes and the reasoning for doing so. I did a demo of approaching the painting in different ways via a more random approach or patterns and lastly, we talked about the science behind the salt's reaction to the watercolors. All this was essentially to create a background for the snowflakes but great chances for learning opportunities. When they were done with their backgrounds they had the rest of the time to see if they knew how to cut snowflakes and different methods for doing so.

Day 2: Intro to Kirigami and a little history with it. Kirigami is the Japanese art of cutting paper, named from the words "Kiru" (to cut) and "gami" (paper). Its a 17th century art form and considered a true art form in Asian culture. Essentially its Origami but with the key difference cutting and gluing. The 6th were surprised to find out it was originally a wealthy persons art form due to the cost of paper and now it is considered the cheap man's art. I showed them this youtube video I stumbled on and we were all mind blown by it...

Clearly it was what they could work up to if they ended up being freakishly good at cutting paper. I also talked about a paper cut of a horse my sister has and how ridiculously expensive it was but, to consider the work that went into it to make it that cost.

Now when it came time to cut, I wanted these to be awesome, so I did some research and found a really cool way to fold snowflakes and get some incredible results almost every time. I was able to take screen shots and create a packet for my students to look at if they got stuck on their own designs but here is the online version. I wish more would have trusted themselves to do their own designs but they still turned out fabulous...

Day 3: When they were ready to glue their snowflakes down we figured out the best strategy was to use your fingers to spread the glue while your snowflake was on the table, not the art work. Because of the nature of watercolor if enough glue got on the paint it rewetted and got paint on their snowflakes.

 When they were finished they worked together in their choice of groups to created these giant snowflakes to be hung throughout the school with different winter projects. They did these with no instruction from me just instruction packets I put together. I of course stepped in when frustration set in with some groups! You can find the steps basically anywhere if you google giant paper snowflakes. Here is one of many tutorials. 

These are displayed with 5th grades project that you can read more about here.

Jefferson Elementary....

McDill Elementary...

Watercolor Resist Snowflake Project with 5th Grade

Sometimes you get a total hit with projects and other times its a massive miss.... Luckily those misses don't happen often! Unfortunately 5th grade got hit with a miss!

Both 5th and 6th grade just finished up pretty lengthy projects before this, so I wanted to do a little more of a short and sweet/ cut and dry project to re-inspire my students who get frustrated with long projects that are a higher skill level. Snowflakes are a great answer to that predicament.

There are a couple versions of this floating around the internet and pinterest this just happens to be a primary version that I found.

I can statement: I can talk about composition and use good composition ingredients in a snowflake artwork

Day 1: Started off with an intro about composition including this great little youtube video...We also looked at some different artwork and talked about what made it have a good (or bad) composition.

Then they did this worksheet as a review of what we just talked about and to do some brainstorming for the project...

There were a few kids that even botched this worksheet and didn't get that they DID NOT have to draw actual snowflakes in the boxes. This was already making this project worrisome...

Day 2: After looking at the worksheets I knew I needed to talk about composition again and finally saw light bulbs going on. Now when it was time to start, I knew going into this there would be some frustration about not being able to see what they were drawing with the white crayon so I prepped them good and plenty for that part. I had very little complaints actually :) At this point I probably should have talked about pushing really hard and not to use the hard white crayons but they were passed out before I even noticed they were in the container...

When the first kiddo was ready to paint I did a demo on my own about taping down my painting, selecting warm or cool colors to do the wash in, and the science of the salt acting how it does with the watercolor...and then they got to work painting when they were ready...

Now I love me some crayon resist. And it almost always a guarantee success but in this case it flopped. I don't know if we weren't using the best white crayons we could of used or they didn't push hard enough, maybe too much watercolor but a lot of these projects got botched. Only a handful of students in each class ended up with a great project.

Day 3:  I tried to ease the pain by letting them add fake snow or glitter to one of their snowflakes. They were pleased and accepted my apology! And while they started on their next project I called them over to add the finishing and somewhat "fixing" touch.

They were displayed with 6th grades snowflake project which was a total hit! You win some you lose some! Learning moments!

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...

Okay so looking at them now in pictures, they didn't turn out as poorly as I thought, just not as great as I wanted them to be.... 

Radial Symmetry Junk & Snowflakes

Now that I have repeated a few projects since I have started teaching it is easy to see what goes right and what goes wrong. While my 4th graders last year loved this project, I felt like the concept of radial symmetry didn't really stick so I wanted to do things differently the second time around. Here is what I originally pinned on Pinterest and here is my original post of this project.

I can statement: I can use radial symmetry when printing a snowflake with found objects.

Day 1: We started off with a discussion about radial symmetry and where it is found. We explored the below PDF and talked about some being real radial symmetry and others not, as well as, from nature vs mathematically exact radial symmetry..they also shared other examples they knew of personally...

After our discussion I introduced them to my giant bucket of junk and how we were going to make temporary radial symmetry art with this junk before printing snowflakes with different junk next class. They had a freakin' blast! Lots of questions about where my junk came from/why I had so much and I told them that most art teachers are magnets for junk. These are just a glimpse at the awesomeness of it all...

I truly believe it was this group activity that made them so much more successful this year than the previous and really ingrained in them what radial symmetry is and looks like up close and personal.

Day 2: Before I demoed printing and they got started, we had a little review of radial symmetry and I showed them these images from Russian Photographer Alexey Kljatov.

These photographs are an amazing insight into how insanely complicated and beautiful snowflakes are and I wanted it to inspire them to work a little more outside the box. After they finished one snowflake, they chose glitter to go over the wet paint. Some of them were so into it they did 3 or more snowflakes :) Check out these beauties hung with the ever-adorable snowman Kinderbeaners made that I'll share later...

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...