Color Wheel Eyes

A upper-elementary project combining Art, Science, 

and even Math!

My 4th and 5th grade students enjoyed this project. They all were quite successful with it!

We spent one art class learning a little about the human eye. Students learned to identify the sclera (the white part of the eye), the iris, and the pupil. We also discussed the lines and shapes of the eye lid, brow, and lashes. We started drawing an enlarged eye by tracing a circle stencil I made from tagboard. Since we were going to do a color wheel on the iris, I wanted students to start with a good circle that was the same for everyone. I guided students in sketching out the rest of the eye.

The next class we spent some time dividing the circle of the iris into 12 sections. We had a bit of a math lesson on fractions during this process. Some of my classes were better at it than others, but all accomplished what they needed to do. We also reviewed how Primary colors mixed to make Secondary and then Intermediate colors. We lightly marked out what color went where on the color wheel and I demonstrated mixing and painting the color wheel in the iris.

The following art class most students were able to complete painting the color wheel and most of the black painting. A few finishing touches were added the first 10-15 minutes of the next class before we started our next project.

Here are a few finished student examples - 

Ink-Blown Trees on Warm and Cool Backgrounds

3rd Grade students reviewed Warm and Cool colors as they painted two 6x9 papers with watercolors. We discussed the wet-on-wet watercolor technique to blend colors together. Some students tried this on their background papers.

The next art day I demonstrated how to use a dropper to apply ink to the painting and a straw to blow the ink into tree-like shapes. I love the "Ooos and Ahs" that happens when you demonstrate something the students get excited about!

I set up the tables with small cups of India ink on a paper plate with the dropper. The students placed their papers onto a "placemat" (12x18 contraction paper that we reuse under paintings). When they were set up they got a straw and began to do their trees.

Students were on task and had fun watching the ink roll the direction they blew.

A couple of my classes worked extra well and were finished with their trees early. I had a plan if this happened and I was glad to be able to give it a try. When I saw students were going to finish early I stopped the group and showed how to do an ink monster. I dropped some ink on the center of a 9x12 paper and then blew the ink until it had soaked in and couldn't go anywhere else. This excited the students even more. I told them next class we would add to these ink blobs to create monsters.
Students that had a bit of problems trying to control the ink to create trees were more relaxed and were able to find success at the free-form blown ink blob.

The next art class I helped students glue their warm and cool trees onto a black paper for display. As I worked on this the classes that had time the week before to do an ink blob for a monster began to transform them using googly eyes and colored pencils. 

I honestly think the ink monsters were a huge hit and many came out even better than the trees!

See more of our trees here -- http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=557644

and here -  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=557651

 See some ink monsters here --http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=562087

Hands Up for Creativity! A handy way to review line quality

I'm about to enter the last week of the first quarter and just now getting around to blogging about one of my first projects of the year! Keeping up with 3 schools can be a bit hectic...but lots of creative fun is happening in my Art Rooms and I get at least one hug a day thanking me for it.

This year I decided to start the year by doing one line project with all my 1st graders and 2nd graders and another project with all of my 3rd - 5th graders instead of my usual different project for each grade. Of course my 3 classes of 2nd/3rd grade splits through a monkey wrench in that...so some 3rd grade students did the younger one.  My goal was to introduce, discuss, or review (depending on the level) line quality to all my students, while keeping the craziness of the first couple weeks of school to a minimum. There always seems to be schedule changes, students moving from one class to another, or waiting on numbers to settle before possibly getting another teacher, splitting a class, or even unsplitting a split class these first couple of weeks. So I thought less planning and prep would come in handy...and it did!

I called the 1st/2nd grade project "Hands Up". I got the idea from a Pinterest post and adapted it to fit what I wanted. After discussing Line as an Element of Art, students traced their hands and arms. We drew as many different kinds of lines as we could think of on the Smartboard (or under my document camera in one of my rooms). Students used crayons to design their hands/arms with lots of lines and colors. I insisted they use white at least once.

The next class we talked about the crayon-resist method. Students had fun painting watercolors over the crayon. When dry they carefully cut the hand and arm out.

At each of my buildings I displayed all of these creative hands together radiating out from a bright orange and yellow spot. The display was quite striking all together!

PInwheels for Peace

At the beginning of the school year I approached one of our wonderful counselors and suggested we collaborate on the Pinwheels for Peace Project. She was excited about it and we began our mission of getting as many pinwheels spinning in our district as we could.
If you are not familiar with this project visit the website - Pinwheels for Peace.com

Most of our buildings participated in some way. We had rain on Friday so some staff decided to wait until Monday to plant the pinwheels - that meant we celebrated Peace Day on two days in our district!

Click on the picture to the right to see an Animoto video of our pinwheels! -->

Let's Play Checkers!

But First - Let's Make a Checker Set!

This is one of those projects I've had in the back of my mind just waiting to fit it in a good place. I had a fun...but super social...5th grade class at one of my buildings that I knew would enjoy the challenge and fun of making a checker set. So we spent the majority of 4th quarter working on it.

 

• Students spent some time brainstorming and planning what their pieces would look like. They sketched out the designs and discussed color choices. 
• Two class periods were spent creating the clay pieces. I gave each student a paper with a 1 1/2 inch square drawn on it so they knew what size to make the pieces.

• While the clay pieces were drying and being bisque fired, students went to work on marking out and painting their boards. I cut white tagboard to 12 inch square. We had a lesson on how to use the ruler to mark off 1 1/2 inch sections and join the lines. I was pleased that this class picked up on this pretty well for not having past experience with it. The classroom teacher and principal happened stopped in at the end of one class and remarked about how great the boards looked. My principal assumed that I had given each student a pre-marked template for the board. With the students in line at the door I proudly announced "No - they did these all by themselves!"
• Two more classes were spent glazing the clay pieces and finishing up on painting the boards. When the boards were dry, I laminated them so they would be more durable
• The came Play Day! The last art class of the year was spent playing. Students took turns using their boards and pieces and fun was had by all! It was the perfect way to send off these students(that I had taught since Kindergarten) to the Jr. High. 

Click here to watch a video highlights of this project!

An Oldie But Goodie - Kindergarten Symmetrical Drip Butterflies

I've done this project with Kindergarten students and a similar one with 1st graders ever since I can remember. But it's one of those oldies but goodies! I'm sure many of you have done something similar.

This is usually a close to end of year project. The students get excited when I tell them we are going to make a butterfly with paint, but we are not going to use brushes and our fingers will not touch the paint! We review the primary colors and I demonstrate how they will fold the paper - "short side to short side". We open the paper up and I squirt some of the primary colors in lines an drips on one side in the shape of a V.

I refold the paper and show the students how to gently rub in circles on the folded paper. They will feel the paint be squished around. I used to use say "wax on - wax off" with the students...but only the occasional aide in the classroom knows what I mean these days!

After rubbing the paper the student is excited when I tell them to open it up and see what you got. The Oooo's and Ahh's that always follow bring smiles.

While I do this with a couple of students at a time at a table, the students work on making a butterfly body on black paper using construction paper crayons.

Here's my example - 

The next class we will cut out the dried paint wings and glue the body onto it.


I do a similar project with my 1st graders. We do the same process only with one color + black on bottom and white on the top to help teach value tints and shades.  Instead of a butterfly they make a longer body to create a dragonfly.

1st Grade Fields of Poppies

This lesson was inspired by wonderful art teacher Susan Tiedemann from South Brunswick, NJ. Take a look her 2nd graders working on their poppies!

First graders really were able to understand the concepts of background, middle ground, and foreground along with how to use size to make things look farther away and close up.

We started this lesson by working on the Smartboard. I used Notebook software to create a green field and poppies in a variety of sizes - tiny, small, medium, and large. Each student got to come up and pick a poppy and move it to a spot on the field that made sense to them. We worked as a group to decide if the poppy was put in an appropriate place. The students love interacting with the Smartboard.

After working on the Smartboard students painted green lines for our field on a 18x24 paper. The large size and big brushes excited them! We let these dry until next class.
Next class we reviewed background, middle ground, and foreground along with how size makes things look near and far. They worked on painting small, medium, and large poppies in their field. Once the poppies were painted they were able to dab tiny white and yellow flowers using a qtip.

To finish off our paintings students added some lines in the center of the flowers and some more green field lines using oil pastels.

See more of our field of poppies on Artsonia - Roosevelt  & Washington