Clay, Clay, Clay

Third Grade cupcakes

Second Grade slab bowls. They are upside down over a hump mold (styro foam bowl) student stamped texture on these slabs, which you can not see. After bisque fire we will glaze and melt glass in these. 

Fifth Grade coil pottery

All my classes are doing clay right now, well except for Kindergarten. I know I am crazy. Here are some green ware examples on the kiln cart, drying slowly under plastic. I opened it up and took a pic. Fourth grade started today face pottery, those are GREAT too. I'll include later.

Tint and Shade with a Cherry on Top!

This is my second year doing this lesson. It is so great for teaching tint and shade, which I do in First Grade. It was tough to do in two class times. So maybe three, and add a little Wayne Thiebaud? First day students mixed their values. Two tints and two shades, and also the original color. The next week we did a review, and introduction to a value scale on smart board. They cut and glued their scoops on top of a cone to create a value scale. Last were the toppings. Sprinkles, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and fruit on top!

I did this lesson last year too! Better bulletin board then :)

What's been going on the art room in February!

I take tons of photos on my phone during class! However getting them to my blog is another story. Here are some  super fun things some grade levels have been working on the past couple of weeks.

Fourth Grade: Circke Weaving on coat hanger. A NEW WEAVING PROJECT FOR ME! Great idea from Mrs. Picasso's Art Room. Her blog has a great directions on how to make the loom and get started. 

Don't let the pink shirt fool you. This is boy! He and few more fourth grade boys have  proven to be my best and fastest weavers!

Two classes hung on wall waiting.....to be worked on. Not done yet. Great way  to store  in between class times. Kids just pick them up as they walk into room. 

First Grade student working on Clay heart. This lesson was on Jim Dine. These are done actually. Ill post finished pics later. 

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Third Grade Gyotaku lesson. Student's inking and rubbing their fish. These are done too. More pics to come soon. 

Second Grade Japanese Bridges. These student's are dabbing away with quick  prints to capture Monet's brush style. One more day to wrap these up! Ill post more finished pics later. 

Kindergarten's Cool Jellies!

MOST ADORABLE LESSON YET!!!
In Kindergarten we are learning all about color.
We have already discussed warm colors with  our scribble sun  lesson and I wanted to do a lesson on cool colors as well. I found this lesson on Pinterest, from Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists blog. This lesson took three class times. I really wanted it to take two but it was just too much. I decided to let my time line go and just let the kids take their time with cutting and punching holes. It was worth the wait.

First Day
Discussion of cool colors, what they are, what that means, and examples on works of art.
Cool wavy painted lines

Second Day: Book
"I'm the best artist in the Ocean" by Kevin Scherry
cut semi oval for jelly fish body and use scrapbook scissors and hole punchers for legs/glue on paintings. This took forever! Kids had difficult time with punchers but got the hang of it. They rallied through it!  This part carried us into the next class time.

Third Day:
Smart board activity. Where kids had to sort and drag colors into warm and cool groups.
Finish up legs, the more the better. Eyes with white pre cut circles (i made from my cricut) and hole punched eye balls. A mouth, name in back ground and stamped light blue bubbles from the top of a cup. 

As you can see some of these are without a mouth! One or two classes I just ran out of time at the end of class and we left them so. No problem...still super cute. 

This one looks as if he is floating!

One of my favorites. This one is hung outside my class room  door in a frame. 

Adorable!

Scrap book scissors and hole punchers! This little girl below is actually cutting a zig zag on her own! You go girl!

Color Wheel Cows

Third Grade lesson where student's learned about the life and art of Peter Diem. We discusses how he experimented with  his paintings and student's watched a short video clip of Diem painting.

We experimented with color by using the primarys to create the secondarys and intermediates.

This lesson for me was inspired by other art teacher bloggers, such as Kids Artists,http://kidsartists.blogspot.com/2011/01/colourful-cows-like-peter-diem.html and Panther's Palhttp://pantherspalette.blogspot.com/2011/04/3rd-grade-peter-diem-cow-paintings.htmlette   . Great lesson color mixing and abstract art!! I have tons to great student examples I need to post as well. Total success!

Kindergarten Roller Coasters

 An Oldie but Goodie! I'm adding this lesson because it is so great. These are photos from the third day of Kindergarten months ago. This group of Kinders really were super at bending, folding, curling the paper. At the end of class most of that class had color exploding off their paper. So much fun. For more details about this lesson click here  http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7066642072576014944#editor/target=post;postID=7007039604688088204.

Tree of Life-Second Grade Art Lessons

 In Second grade I have always taught a lesson inspired by Gustav Klimt's work. Students learn about the life and work of the artists. We discuss his works, such as The Baby, Tree of Life, The Kiss, Adele Bloch Bower (compare and contrast both of her paintings. Usually we do a lesson on The Baby. However this year I wanted to tackle the painting Tree of Life. 

Because I have two schedules of second grade, one group first nine weeks and the other second nine weeks, I did two different lessons.

The above lesson was inspired for me by another blogger. www.marymaking.blogspot.com. Her examples were beautiful. I just couldn't resist trying it out.

The other lesson below was an idea I put together myself. The background was created with watercolor. 

1. Mixing and making all color families. 2. Black tempera tree with famous Klimt swirls. 3. tropical birds and repeated gold and shiny sequins.

I'm not sure which I like the best. Both really. However I do feel that all students were successful with second lesson. It was simple and didn't require the painting of shapes and dots. 

Which do you think?

Wow what a colorful perched bird.