Showing posts with label third grade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label third grade. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

In the Art Room: School Pride Collaborative

Last year, my third grade students worked with their table groups of four friends to come up with positive four letter words that describe our school. Guess which lame-o and lazy art teacher JUST HUNG THEM UP THIS WEEK! That's right...this gal right here. 
 This collaborative is one that I think would be a wonderful back to school activity. It really inspired conversations on just who we are as a school and who we strive to be. As a class, we sat on the floor, looked at the work of both Jasper Johns and Robert Indiana. After a discussion of their work, I asked the kids to help me brainstorm a list of four letter positive words. Once the list was complete, the kids were to go to their seats and work as a team. Their assignment: settle on their word and who was going to paint what letter. 
 I had purchased 8" X 10" canvas boards for each student. However, matte board works just as well or even cardboard primed with some gesso! Then my students used carbon paper and a printed copy of enlarged letters. I had laid out every letter of the alphabet on a table for them to find. They would then lay the carbon paper on their canvas with the shiny side down, place their letter on top and trace. What this did was insure that all of our letters were the same size and font style. 
 Once their letter was traced, every child was tasked with deciding how to paint their letter. They could either use all of the cool colors for their letter or all of the warm. Then they were to use the reverse of that color scheme for the background. Like this:
 Having looked at the work of Jasper Johns and admiring his brush strokes, we used that as our inspiration...but really I left it open to the kids how they would paint their letters and background. I love the variety of these letters by my fourth graders. They did these as initial paintings:
It was a fun way to introduce two artists, color theory, discuss our school culture and get them painting and exploring pattern and brush stroke. 
And now they are finally up in our halls (I am a bit of a procrastinator!). I framed them with 16" X 20" frames. The artwork fit PERFECTLY! I chose frames that were lightweight and had plexiglass so if they frames fell, there would not be broken glass. 
 Each is hung with 2 Velcro Command strips. The small frames were thrift store finds! I chose small black frames with each being between 50 cents to a dollar. I then removed the glass and cut plexiglass for the inside. 
 In the small frame, I wrote "A Johnson Elementary, we are...COOL" and then I wrote who painted the four letters and the year. 
I love to do legacy projects and collaboratives with my students every year. There are plenty here on my blog...and this one is my new favorite. Such a wonderful way to start the new school year! 

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Thursday, February 8, 2018

In the Art Room: Dean Russo-Inspired Tigers with Third Grade!

Whenever I share a lesson on this blog before having done the lesson with my students, I always like to share a follow-up post. Cuz, you know, lessons don't always go as we think they will. Or maybe the kids don't respond as excitedly as you'd hoped. Well, thankfully, neither was the case with this Dean Russo-Inspired Colorful Tiger lesson. My students LOVED it, they were so stinkin' proud of themselves and I was just beyond thrilled to share them with y'all! 
 In case you missed the details of this lesson and the supplies we used, you can find all that info here. This lesson took about two and a half-ish (pending on the artist!) art classes. On our first day, we did a guided drawing of a tiger after we'd wrapped up a sketchbook prompt. We worked BIG on 18" squares of paper. We also used bingo daubers filled with India ink. Here's the video lesson I created to share with you and my students:
The kids were super excited by Dean Russo's art. The loved his subject matter (animals!), bold colors and patterns. Our school mascot is a tiger so that's why we went the route we did. As my students get older, I do fewer and fewer guided drawings with them. This will probably be our only one this year. We had a blast creating them.
 We didn't draw in pencil first and we didn't get new papers if we "messed up". These guys are familiar with the book Beautiful Oops and are very good at applying that mindset. 
 By our second class, we were ready to use chalk and starch. If you aren't familiar with the magic that is chalk and starch, check out the video above. Total game changer.
About half of the kids finished the chalk portion on the second day. On the third day, they finished off the chalk and then dived right in with the oil pastels. I told them that if their paper had wet areas due to the starch not to draw on those areas with oil pastel. I gave them a deadline: THIS IS OUR LAST DAY! That seemed to inspire my pokey lil puppies to complete their masterpiece. Our carrot was that we are sewing in the following art classes so they needed to step on it!
 I was tempted to have them add something to the background but in the end, I really thought the white made their tigers look even more amazing. Plus we were ready to move on. 
 For display, I knew that if I just hung them on our blah colored walls, they would just fade into the background. So I raided the workroom and walked out with armfuls of colorful bulletin board paper. 
 Ah!! LOVE all of those line details in oil pastel!
 Obviously this artist was not havin' that all white background!
 I really loved having the kids work big. The biggest we normally work is the size of construction paper: 12" X 18". Creating bigger just might be my new favorite thing. Ima need a bigger art room tho!
 Puh-puh-puh-patterns!
 I was so impressed with each of my artists!
 So happy they were too. 
 This afternoon, I was only able to get one half of the display complete...there's always tomorrow!
Thought this quote tied in nicely. Thank you for letting me share, y'all!
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Sunday, January 21, 2018

In the Art Room: Dean Russo-Inspired School Mascot!

I'm so excited to share this lesson with y'all! My students are loving it, we are learning about a wonderful artist, using new art supplies in unusual ways and making marvelous masterpieces all at the same time!

Our school mascot is the tiger. That was the inspiration behind which animal we created. However, you could do any animal or person for this project. In fact, if you check out the artist Dean Russo, our inspiration, you'll find that his main source of inspiration are animals. Here's the lesson I created for my students...and yours! 
Here are the supplies we used:
Bingo dotters! These are my NEW FAVORITE TOOL in the art room! If you follow me here, you've seen my first graders working with these too. I have had them in my cabinet forever (they come empty) and I initially filled them with tempera paint and water...big mistake. They clogged and didn't work at all. One day, I remembered them and decided to add India ink instead...bingo! (see what I did there?) They work great, are low mess and the kids LOVE them! Check out these HUGE drawings created by my third graders in just 30 minutes!
We did not draw these out first. We had a long chat about Beautiful Oops and just going with the flow...and not getting upset with what we perceive as our "mistakes". Then we just went for it. At the end of the lesson, so the kids could see everyone's work, we all stood on our chairs and took a look around the room. Then we let out a great big tiger's ROAR! 
This week we will be adding color with a fun method: chalk and liquid starch!
Let's first talk about chalk. My absolute favorite is Faber-Castell's chalk. It's bold, bright and works so well with this process.
Please watch the video so you can actually see the magic that is chalk and starch. I learned this trick from my sweet and AMAZING art teacher buddy Jennifer Alvarado. A lot of folks have told me that they have a hard time finding this product. Try Walmart online if you can't find it in the store. 

This will be the second time we've used this method this year. Check out my fourth grader's landscapes...so pretty!
This lesson is super for teaching color theory. These laminated color wheels get a lot of love during this lesson. 
Earlier this school year, I organized my oil pastels in bead containers after seeing a fellow art teacher do this. I will be interested to see just how well my third graders manage to keep these organized without Naggy Stephens having to get on their case. 
 I actually thought the tiger looked good before the pattern. But since that's what Russo is known for, I thought I'd give it a go. I'm so glad I did! I think the kids are going to have so much fun with this part.
As my students make progress on their tigers, I'll be sure and keep you posted. 
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Monday, January 8, 2018

In the Art Room: Top 15 Fave Valentine's Day Lessons!

After winter break, I always find myself in the mood to start Valentines-y/Warm-Fuzzy/Lovey-Dovey projects with the kids. When doing a little searching on my blog last night, I discovered that I've done 15 Valentine's-themed lessons over the years. I had no idea I'd done so many! I thought I'd share them with you today. May of the links back to the original post will include an instructional video. Please let me know if you do any of these lessons, I'd love to see what you and your kiddos create!

Robert Indiana Love Prints! Believe it or not, my sweet FIRST GRADERS created these a couple years ago! It was a great lesson for printmaking and definitely one I will be doing again. If you don't have printing ink, you might want to check out this blog post where I'll show you how to print with paper and markers!
James Rizzi Love Birds!  Who doesn't love James Rizzi?! These birds are based on some of his work and is a great tie-in if you've already taught Rizzi and his fun cityscape works.
 Recycled Hearts!  Last year, I had a stock pile of messy-mats from our months of painting. We used them to make these two fun works of art (see below also) and they were such a hit! What a great way to review the warm colors, pattern and line.
So much sweetness!
Chris Uphues Hearts! If y'all don't know who Chris Uphues is, then you need to! He's one of my fave dudes to follow on Instagram. His artwork is so fun, so happy and so kid-friendly. They had a blast creating these happy hearts inspired by him.
J Goldcrown Hearts! If you need a quick one day project, I would recommend this one for sure! You can introduce your students to another street artist, J Goldcrown, and have them work in chalk! This is a great project for just about all levels. 
Sculpture Hearts! Last year, I introduced my second graders to Celluclay with this project. I have 30 minute art classes with these kiddos so we had to hustle! We spent one day covering our foil hear in clay, two days painting and the last day stringing beads. These were one of my favorite projects for Valentine's day!
 My Heart Has Wings! If you want to do a feel-good project with your faculty and staff, might I recommend this one? We did it on a PD day and it was so much fun. Of course, this would be a great project for kids as well.
Candy Heart Sculptures! My fourth graders created these candy hearts last year and they had a blast. We used plaster strips which created a super hard surface for the candy. We even made giant candy boxes to display them in!
 Woven Hearts! Every year, first grade does a paper weaving and every year we do something a little new. Last year, they nailed the weaving part so well, I thought I'd introduce them to simple sewing. They did great and I loved hanging them up like a quilt.
Candy Heart Drawings! When my fourth grade early finishers were done with their candy heart sculptures, I had them move on to a drawing of their candy hearts with oil pastel.
Britto Mural! A few years ago, I had to be out for a couple of weeks for jury duty. While I was gone, I had my students work on the parts of this Britto-inspired mural. It was great because then there was a fun masterpiece to hang in the hall when I returned. You can check out the instructional videos in the link.
Valentine Animals! My kindergarten kiddos created these fun animals last year. I created an instructional video for each one which you can find by clicking on the link. 
Collaborative Heart Mural! Collaborative pieces are a lot of fun this time of year. If you follow the link, you'll see which grades created what for this huge collaborative pieces that still hangs in our front office.
Peter Anton Box of Chocolates! This might have been a kid-favorite as it involved using EVERYONE'S favorite art supply: puffy paint! Check out how we made the faux candies and boxes by following the link.

What are your favorite projects this time of year? Love to hear! 
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