Radial Paper Relief Sculptures (2015/16)

If you havn't seen Art with Mrs.Nguyens posts on these babies (this is just one of her many posts on it) then you have been seriously missing out. Her TpT lesson for these is worth every penny and worked perfectly for my 4th graders. I did change up the powerpoint a bit to fit my style but other than that I used all of her resources, including the video teaching the folds. 

I Can create a relief sculpture using paper that has radial symmetry.
I Can use color in an organized way.

Before you do anything to start this project, cut about a billion* pieces of 3x3 construction paper in all different colors. After cutting I divided up into ice cream buckets, one for each table.
*There is really no way to know how much of what colors they will use. I started with 4 pieces of 12x18 construction paper of every color that I had and cut more as they used them.

Day 1: Learning and practicing radial symmetry.
Using the awesome powerpoint by Mrs. Nguyen and modified by me, I introduced radial symmetry to my students and then we spent the rest of class with my buckets of "junk" making radial symmetry on big 24x24 sheets of paper. The paper has basic radial symmetry guidelines drawn on them and students work in table teams to create the most interesting radial symmetry.

My only warning with this is sometimes they get carried away with the "junk" and start getting in fights about what table has what and who can borrow and who can't. Squash it fast.

Day 2: Review radial symmetry and learn the folds. Talk about organized color.
After a review of radial symmetry I show them the handouts that teach the folds and we watch the video of learning the folds (both by Mrs. Nguyen) together. Then they grab one piece of 3x3 paper for each fold and go back to their seats. We watch the video again, pausing where needed to follow along making the folds. This process worked really well because those that got it right away kept going and those that didn't followed slowly with the video.

 After we finished all the folds they went nuts folding whatever they wanted to use for their project and put them in a big envelope with their name on it for next class. Students that had more difficulty with the folds met me at the carpet and we went through the video again (maybe 1 or 2 kiddos per class). A little ways through I brought them all back up front to talk about our I Can statement of using color in an organized way. They had a choice of either using color symmetrically or using patterns and balance with color. I showed a lot of examples from Mrs. Nguyen's powerpoint.

Day 2: Another review, folding the background.
We reviewed radial symmetry again by looking at a variety of pictures and they had to use plickers to tell me if the image had radial symmetry or not. Check out the video below to see how plickers works. Its seriously the best. AND FREE. AND students LOVE it.

 After that they grabbed the black paper (12x12 square) and we walked through the folds together as a class to get the folded guidelines for their paper relief sculptures.

At this point the workflow became different for different students. Some wanted to fold everything before gluing and some folded and glued at the same time. It didn't matter to me as long as I could see them making smart choices in their art.

I highly recommend using glue sponges for this project. It allowed for such clean and beautiful work. We used popsicle sticks to rub down the paper that was in a tight space if their fingers wouldn't fit.

Days 3-6: Workdays and extensions.
Give them a lot of time on these, it is so very worth it and hopefully they will love this project as much as mine did. Towards the end when some were finished and some weren't, I had two follow up activities they could do. Make a radial symmetry drawing out of their favorite things, or make a group radial symmetry paper relief sculpture on 24X24 paper.

Symmetry Twins

Did one of my favorite portrait projects again this year with my 2nd graders. Here is my original post on the lesson, no changes were made because it's just that awesome.

Really the best part of this project is the element of surprise when revealing that they are creating a twin on the other side!

So here are my questions...
Number 1, is tracing okay in the art room when this is how it's used? And, number 2, how do you feel about letting them make themselves as devils?

Symmetry Twins with 2nd Grade!

"One is a ninj from ninj gibin 3 the other is normal"

Continuing with my all grade theme of portraits I found this project on Pinterest from this post. I decided to stick with 2nd grade on this one and I'm glad I did. I think it is pretty obviously to most art educators that as students get older in elementary school and middle school, unless they are "art kids", they really loose confidence in their drawing, especially when it is of people. I myself am a victim of this! Still don't think I can draw people worth a dang! I am really glad that I ended up doing this with 2nd graders because they still have a lot of confidence in themselves. Luckily, I only had a handful of kiddos who dropped the "I CANNOT draw myself" line filled with the much implied CAPS LOCK sass...

I CAN statement for this project: I CAN draw a self-portrait and use symmetry to create a twin.

"One likes basket ball and the other like to dance"

Day 1: Started the class of talking with the 2nd graders about drawing self-portraits. The conversation sounded a lot like my conversation with Kinders and 1st grade for our Ain't Gonna Paint portraits, but we talked about how each person has really specific shapes to their face, eyes, hair, etc. and how we were going to use mirrors to draw ourselves. Like the blogger whom I got this project from, I also decided not to tell them about the "twin" and just instructed them to fold the paper in half and draw in pencil on the right side. I told them there was going to be something very special on that side and that they had to wait for the surprise. I did see a few actually using the mirrors but most just took off and started drawing without glancing into once (pick your battles!!). When they were finished they had to trace everything with sharpie. When the first kiddo was finished with sharpie we took a "field trip" to the biggest window area I could find in the school, at one school it was the art room :), and revealed my twin and then showed them how to trace using the light from the window. *Make sure the original is sharpie to the window otherwise the twin won't end up next to the original drawing!* Back in the room we talked about symmetry and I had a PDF of lots of examples from nature and otherwise. Lucky for me they had done some symmetry work with their classroom teachers so they totally got it ;) After our discussion it was back to drawing and as they were ready to trace I sent them to the windows with our assistant so I could stay in the room helping with drawing. ALMOST everyone finished sharpie!

Normally a drying rack and a table take up this space, this is more fun!

Day 2: Refreshed on symmetry. Talked about different things we could do with our twins...

Good vs. Evil
Human vs. Non-Human
Small Differences
Big Differences
Exact Same

Let me tell you....those top two were BY FAR favorites....The rest of the time was spent coloring with crayons or colored pencils and doing a short writing piece about how their twins were different or the same.

Check them out! Excuse the spelling in the captions. I'm just copying them :)

"One likes to be pretty and likes to be inside and one likes nature and getting dirty"

"One is Evil and one is good"

"They both like hocky football baseball and basketball and they're both good at all sport's even wiffle ball"

"One is a popstar and win gold medels. the oter twin love sumer and partys."

"they look like the same. but one like's cat's and the other one like's rabbit's."

"the oun with black hair likes maceup and julrey"

I cannot read this one!

"She is evil she alwez taks ovre my buding and she hats avry thing and she hats pets and she ehs red but most of all she is a vampiur" This is the sweetest little girl every cracks me up she wrote this!

"one is a vainpier and the other one is a tengger"

"we hate eachother I love legos he loves a girl"

"one is good one is evl"

"One is a ninja and the other is regular. The ninja has black clothes and the other has green clothes. The ninja has a mask and the other doesn't have a mask"

"One is a vampire"

100% doing this again, what a hoot!