2nd Grade- Low Relief Sculptures

This was a 2 day project

Day 1-

We talked about low relief sculptures. I taught the students a rhym to help them remember what relief means. "2-D is flat, 3-D is fat, relief is in the middle because it sticks out a little." We then started making our project. We glued a 9 x 12" black paper to cardboard for added support. We then drew a large pumpkin in the middle of the paper using a pencil. After the pumpkin was drawn, students traced over the pumpkin with glue and glued down thick yarn on top. I taught the students how to measure and cut. After the yarn was glued, students went back with glue and added lines and different designs to sections of the pumpkin. I also told them they could add a background and they needed to include a horizon line. Here is how the project looked after day 1. 

Day 2-

We looked at artwork by Romero Britto and discussed how his artwork is abstract because he changes different patterns and colors of the object. Students then colored their pumpkins and backgrounds using chalk pastel. The glue repels the chalk allowing viewers to see the designs that were made with the glue. 

1st Grade Bats

To begin this lesson, we read Bat Jamboree. This book was pretty cute.
Next, each student received a 9 x 12" piece of brown paper to draw their bat. I told the students to draw their bat the size of the paper so it would be easy to cut out. We drew the bat right-side up; I felt like it was easier than upside-down. We stated with the head, the ears, the neck, and then the body. For the body, I told students to draw a heart with a flat bottom and then a diagonal line through it. Lastly, we drew the face and feet. Students drew the body with pencil first, and then traced over all their lines with Sharpie.
We then cut out the bat and glued it to a 9 x 12" black paper. Students then used construction paper crayons to decorate the background.

Adaptive Art- Rocket Ships

To start this lesson, we read the book Moon Dogs. I then asked the students what the character in the book used to get to space and they all replied a rocket ship.
I already had squares and triangles pre-cut. I had the students get one square for every letter of their name and glue them on their paper going up and down. They then wrote their name on the squares. Next, we glued a triangle at the top and little strips of paper coming out the bottom. Lastly, we used a q-tip dipped in gold paint to make the stars.

Adaptive Art-Coffee Filter Worlds

For this project, I wanted to do a basic mono print with my students. To start, we read the book titled, In My World. After reading the book, each student received a coffee filter and blue and green markers. Any shades of blue and green will work as long as the markers are washable. Students hen scribbled on the coffee filter using the markers. I wanted them to color as much of the coffee filter as they could. After they finished coloring, we placed the coffee filter on a 18 x 12" paper and squirted it with water. The ink from the marker will begin to soak through the coffee filter and make a print on the paper. To speed up the process, we placed a 9 x 12" paper on top of the coffee filter and rubbed. Here is the finished product.

5th Grade- Perspective Cityscapes

This was a long lesson, but the students were very successful at creating a 3-D cityscape.
Day 1-
To begin, we started by discussing perspective, vanishing point, one-point perspective, and converging lines. I gave students a handout to practice on first. The students added details to the handout as well.

Day 2 and 3-
We started on our 12 x 18" paper. I had students draw a horizon line, a road that connected to the vanishing point, and 4-5 rectangles or squares on their paper. (it is easiest if the rectangles and squares pass through the horizon line). Students then made their buildings 3-D and added details to their picture including a background

Day 4-
Students traced over pencil lines with skinny Sharpie and colored in buildings and small details with crayon, colored pencils, or marker.

Day 5-
Students water colored the grass, sky, and road.

1st Grade- Sky Tree

We begin this lesson by reading the book Sky Tree. After reading the book we talk about landscapes and our project will be a landscape because it is a picture of outside.
All students then recieve a 18 x 12" piece of white paper and we draw a horizon line on it a little below the halfway point. We then start drawing the tree. I tell students that "trees are made up of Y's and V's" so we draw a big letter Y above the horizon line. We then add little Y's for the branches and V's at the tips for smaller branches. As of this point, our tree is a stick tree, but then we fatten it up with a brown crayon.
Next, we take natural leaves, place them under our paper, and rub the leaf to create a leaf texture rubbing. We do this in the branches and on the grass. Lastly, students paint the sky and grass using tempera cakes.

4th Grade- 3-D Houses

To begin this lesson we talked about relief sculptures since this project is a relief sculpture because the back is flat. We then too a 9 x 12" white paper and began the process for folding the house. I found a great tutorial for this on http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2009/11/spooky-houses.html

After we are finished cutting and folding, students decorate their houses using crayons and markers. This allows the houses to fold up easily for easy storage.

On day 2 we whipped  out the construction paper. We first add a piece of paper to the back for support, this is also the color inside of the houses. Then We add details such as fences, roofs, etc. with construction paper. I talk about adding tabs to make the construction paper stand up.

2nd Grade- A Look Inside a Home

Part of the second grade curriculum includes studying private and public buildings. After talking about the difference between public and private buildings, students created their own private buildings. In this case it wase a home. This was a two day project.

Day 1:

Each student received a 9 x 12" paper. On that paper they drew a large rectangle in the middle for the door. We talked about double doors and single doors. After drawing the rectangle, students added details to the door such as windows, doorknobs, house numbers, doorbells, etc. Students then drew stairs and doormats. We used architecture texture plates and crayons to create the exterior finishing a of the house. Lastly, students traced over their lines of the permanent marker and colored in their details with crayons.

I cut open the doors with an exacto knife.

Day 2:

Each student received a 9 x 6" paper. They placed this paper behind their house drawing, they open their door, and trace the rectangle onto the 6 x 9" paper. Students then drew the inside of their house and this rectangle. We talked about using a lot of details in the house. They then colored the inside of their house as well. After they're finished on the inside their house, they glued the paper to the back of their larger paper. Lastly, they decorated the back of the door. Here are some of the final examples.

3rd Grade- 3D Scarecrows

This was a two day project.

Day 1

We first painted the background, this only took about 5 minutes 

We then decorated a brown paper bag for the scarecrow head. We decorated the side without the bottom flap and made sure the opening was on the bottom. We Kent's the heads flat for easy storage. Here is how the heads looked after day one.

Day 2

We stuffed the head with newspaper. 2 sheets of newspaper was plenty. We then tied it shut with a pipe cleaner. 

Next, we glued the bag to our background. Students then added shirts, bandanas, and other details if they had time.

Here is a side view. They do pop out quite a bit.

Student examples. They turned out great!

3rd Grade- Country-scapes

In third grade we created country-scapes by learning about tints and shades and perspective.

Day 1- We discussed landscapes and how these include a foreground, middle ground, and background. We looked at some examples of landscapes and noticed that if the sun is setting, the background is lighter than the foreground. This then pulled in the idea of tints and shades. We drew 3 wavy-ish lines on our paper and painted it using tempera.

Day 2- We discussed perspective more and made a list of things that might be seen in the country. Students then drew on top of their paintings with pencil and oil pastel. The final projects turned out great.

1st Grade- Monoprint Corn Wreaths

In 1st grade we made corn wreaths. This took two class periods.

The first day of class we discussed printmaking and mono-prints (a print that is only printed once because the next one will be slightly different). We used a  4 x 4 inch piece of bubble wrap to make our prints. Students painted the bubble side with orange, yellow, red, and gold paint. They then stamped it on their paper and repeated this until a piece of 12 x 18 inch white paper was full.

On day two, We used a corn template (I cut out pieces of cardboard for the template) and traced it 8 times on the back of our mono-print paper from the previous class period. We then traced the corn template on a piece of green construction paper as well. We cut out all of the corns. Students then cut the green corn pieces in half vertical wise- this became the leaves. Next, students received a paper plate and we folded it in half and cut the middle out to create a inner-tube shape. Lastly, students glued on the corn pieces. We talked about cardinal directions to help the glue them and then they glued a piece of green paper on each side of the corn.

It can be a wreath or a hat :)

Kindergarten- Pumpkins and Gourds

We started this lesson by reading the book Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson. We then discussed how pumpkins and gourds and how they are both harvested in the fall.

Each student received the following papers
9 x 12 inch purple
9 x 6 inch orange- drew 3 pumpkins (one big and two small)
4 1/2 x 6 inch yellow- drew one gourd
4 1/2 x 6 inch lime green- drew one gourd
4 1/2 x 3 inch dark green- used to make the stems and vines. Students cut the green piece into strips and wrapped the paper around their pencil to curl it.

We did all of these step by step and glued them to our purple paper as we worked. Students really enjoyed curling the paper. If students wanted to add faces to their pumpkins, they were allowed to do so with a permanent marker.

Kindergarten- Fall Cubism

Two 50 minute class periods

Day 1:
In Kindergarten we talked about Cubism art and how it is usually made up of straight lines and looks similar to broken glass. We then created a landscape drawing with pencil. We drew a tree, leaves, and pumpkins by using only straight lines. We then traced over our lines with crayon.

Day 2:
We painted in our drawing with watercolor. This was the students first day using "big kid" watercolor, so we had to go over procedures of that. The most challenging part was getting the students to paint the entire page.

Here are some of the finished products.

4th Grade- Crazy Hair Abstract Portraits

Have you ever woken up with bed head? These students have. We did this project to connect our Zentangles to our realistic portraits (which is a project coming up soon). Students drew the face, hair, and shoulders with a pencil and then went over the lines with crayon. They then added details and patterns to the hair with crayon.

During our second class period, students painted in their portrait using water color. The crayon and watercolor created crayon resist.

2nd Grade- Weaving Still Life

During our last lesson, second graders drew still lifes from observation. I wanted to continue with the idea of still lifes but in another form. So for this project, we created a still life using mixed media. This was a 2 day project

Day 1-
We took at 9 x 12 inch piece of brown paper and folded it hot dog style. Students then cut slits from the folded edge of the paper to about one inch from the open edge. I have students use a ruler to make sure the lines are straight. We then take a 6 x 12 inch piece of light brown paper and cut it into 6 strips of paper, each one is 1 x 12 inches. We then weave the light brown paper through the dark brown. The first strip with be over-under-over-under, therefore, the second one will have to be under-over-under-over, for it to look like a checker board.  After our basket is woven, we cut the two bottom corner so they are curved.
We then glue a 18 x 6 inch manila paper to a 18 x 12 inch paper for our table. Lastly, we glue the basket so it is sitting on the table.

Day 2-
Students decorate a triangle for their piece of cloth that is hanging out of the basket. While they are doing this, I call over individual table to pick out at piece of 9 x 12 inch colored paper for their flowers. They glued the triangle to the edge of the basket. We then traced a yogurt cup six times and cut it out for the flowers. We cut slits along the edge of the flower to make the petals. Then we glued down the flowers and put buttons in the centers. Lastly, we drew the shadow with a black crayon.

1st Grade- 3D Pumpkins

Let me start by saying that I love fall projects. Here is the first fall project we did.

We started with a 9 x 12 inch orange paper and folded it hot dog style. We then cut slits along the folded edge of the paper (like a Chinese lantern). Next we took a 7 x 12 inch green paper and rolled it into a cylinder in glued it. We then added a strip of paper across the top of the cylinder to create a handle (this is also where students wrote their name). I then showed students how to curl paper by wrapping it around their pencil and warming it up with their hand. Students glued the curls (vines) and paper leafs to their handle. While students were working on this, I went around the room and stapled the orange paper to the green paper (the green paper is used to keep the pumpkin permanently plump). Students also added faces to their pumpkin if they wanted to make it into a jack-o-lantern.

1st Grade- Origami Dog

First graders learned about Origami by creating Origami Dogs. I began this lesson by reading Cool Dog, School Dog; it is such a cute book. We then created the dog heads by using 6 x 6 inch paper. Here is a quick tutorial.

Students then decorated the dog face with pencil and then went over the lines with marker and colored in. Next we glued the head to a light blue piece of paper. I talked to the students about where to glue the head depending if they want their dog to be sitting or standing. Students then added a dog body and details using pencil, crayons, and markers.

5th Grade- 1 Point Perspective 3-D Letters

Students are introduced to one-point perspective by viewing city-scapes, inside buildings, landscapes with a road down the middle, and 3-d letters. I demonstrate how all these examples have a vanishing-point, a horizon line, and converging lines.

Our first one-point perspective project is creating 3-D letters. We start with a vanishing-point, or a dot, in the middle of the paper. Students then draw block letters around the outside of the paper. I am sure to remind them to create letters with corners on them (these work better than curved letters) Students then connect all of the corners or the most out-ward point of the letter to the vanishing point. When drawing converging lines, students need to be certain to use a ruler. After their lines are drawn, they are allowed to color. Here are some of the results. 

3rd Grade- Symmetry

This ended up being a 3 day project. One the first day we discussed how some things are symmetrical, they are the same on both sides like a mirror image. We then took a piece of paper, folded it in half, and drew half of an image along the fold. Students were very creative during this, I had a lot of monsters, robots, and animals. After they drew half of the image, they took the paper to to window and traced it to make both sides the same. They then traced over all their lines with a crayon.

On the second day, students painted in their object using watercolors.

Finally, on the third day, students cut out their image and glued it in the middle of a piece of colored construction paper. We then folded the construction paper in half and cut around the image, but made sure to leave some space to decorate. Students then decorated the edge of the construction paper with construction paper crayons.

5th Grade- Apple Still Lifes

We began this project by continuing what we practiced last class, we created value with colored pencils. I made handouts for the students to shade. We looked closely at a real apple and noticed that we don't only see red, but also red-orange, brown, dark, red, light red, yellow, and black.  Here is a before and after picture of the hand out.

During our next class period, we drew an apple from observation and shaded it in using oil pastels. Students were then allowed to add their own background.

Finally, on  the third day of this lesson, students painted the backgrounds with watercolor. Here are some student examples.

Kindergarten- Self Portrait

We started this lesson by talking about picture day and discussed that you want to wear your best clothes and to smile. We then read the book Picture Perfect. The students love this book because it is written and illustrated by second graders.

We then drew step by step and looked at our neighbors face if we had questions, fore example to draw the eyes we drew a football shape, then a circle, and then a dot. We first drew everything with pencil, then went over the lines with black marker, and then finally colored. Here are some of the results.