1st and 4th grade still life

4th grade has created these wonderful contour outline still life drawings and then added blended colors to them. Super proud!! 

The still life paintings below are made by first grade. 

Love my kiddos and how hard they work! 

5th grade cakes

Every year we do square 1, which is a fundraiser that helps pay for art supplies and other cool things we do in the classroom. This year fifth grade is creating colorful cakes. Here are some not yet colorful cakes. 

Week 5..back into the swing of things

Kindergarten names. I used large sequins. This is great for fine motor, clue control and name practice. They all did pretty well and overall I'm impressed with this years kindergarten classes. 

Second grade busy cities.. They are finally finishing coloring them. 

1st grade still life. I was a bit skeptical and have taught this lesson differently each time. This time I had the best results, I'm very proud of my first graders I can't wait to paint these. I'm making the same still life with the fourth graders but they are using oil pastels and incorporating shadows and high lights. 

Third grade worked on some free form monsters. This was a quick one day project to catch everyone up - but still teach the material. They had a lot of fun with this one I may turn it into a full scale project. 

Fabulous Fourth Grade

Fabulous fourth graders have been creating mood and depth through the use of line. They decided on the mood they wanted to represent and used appropriate colors. Then they are working on their brush Line skills by painting birch trees and cutting them out and gluing them on to the back ground. 

I'm really proud of how hard they work. I will post a complete one soon. 

Week 3..

This week had a little more printing and stamping for the kinders and first graders. We were discussing the direction of lines and some shapes. 

Kinder made prints of their homes. 

I always find these spectacularly special. I love the child style thinking and how they represent things. 

They used laminate samples to practice printing their vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines and used sponges cut into shapes for different details. 

First grade, using the same method created city scapes that they will color in next week with pastels. 

This building has many many windows but is the overall idea of what they are trying to accomplish. 

 

Second grade is creating busy cities but they are drawing them. We have discussed the directions of lines and various geometric shapes that can be found in buildings and their surroundings. 

I don't give too many parameters because I feel like they should be thinking these things up. I tell them the direction to hold their paper, skills they will need like "draw light, until you've got it right" and how to organize things to look best. The rest is up to them. As long as they can explain their learning goal and artistic decisions I'm a happy (and proud) little art teacher. 

Third grade is creating LineScapes. They are learning the three parts of a landscape and then using line to decorate the areas within their landscape. The one below isn't complete but is in good shape to have the lines added next week. We are studying wavy, curved, dotted, broken, curly types of lines and they are free to make their own up. 

It's the third week of school. I'm super proud of my kids. They are adapting well and following my very organized routines. 

I love being an art teacher. Mostly because I'm always impressed with what my kids come up with. 

"Every artist is a child. The problem is staying one once you grow up" Picasso 

On to week 4! 

Line prints with 1st and 2nd

First up we have the lovely first graders learning about horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. 

They wrapped rubber bands around a hard piece of card board, rolled ink on and made a print. They were encouraged to fill their paper. Some went as far as trying more rubber band designs. They also learned that they can make multiple copies with a print. It was messy and they loved it. 

The second graders had fun make calm and busy lines with paint scrapers. I put paint directly on their table, let them roll it out and then use the scrapers to make calm vertical and horizontal line designs and then busy lines using diagonal, curved or swirly lines. Then they pressed their paper down on to the paint and lifted the prints. They thought I was crazy for putting paint on the table but they loved it. 

Forgive the blurry photo- I was moving quickly 

They all did really well and were pretty independent and patient since only one person could go at a time at each table. 

Hooray for more printmaking! 

Week One, Done!

The kids and  I have survived our first week together. I'm still super excited to get to know my kids better and make amazing art projects with them. Next week is going to be a little tougher, we start our first projects and I will be testing 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. That's right, testing in art. Not something I agree with but it starts this year with a Baseline Test and ends the year with growth score. The state has mandated that districts develop pre and post test for every subject taught and here we are. Makes my heart sad for the students but it is what it is. We will move forward and thrive because thats what artists do, we problem solve and find new ways.

Week two is an exciting week for the primary grades who will explore print making in various forms like mono prints and monotypes. They will learn about lines, line direction and quality. Our curriculum focuses on the Elements and Principles of Art. In order to get through it all this year I have decided to pair an element with a principle. So Line will go with Unity because all the images will be unified by their use of line.

Already excited :)
Have a good week, everyone!!

Art Supplies..

So this is the third time I'll writing this post because my Ipad keeps deleting it...

I always ask art teachers what their favorite supplies in the art room are. I think that you have to find a nice balance between cost and quality.. Last year I had a few things that I swore I would never buy again. Here are some things that I love using..

The newest thing in my room are these crayola color sticks. Bright, durable, great for rubbings. The only bad thing is that you don't sharpen them so it is hard to get in small detail. 

These are bright on construction paper. I buy the chubby ones, they last longer. The only thing is that the red throws the kids off because it looks pink. However on paper it looks petty good.  

My tempera paint last year was terrible, the colors were bright but transparent and it didn't give the effect I wanted. I saw another teacher using Versa and her colors were better. These are a bit more expensive but worth it if the colors are a bit more opaque. 

When liquid tempera isn't an option, this is a great solution. The colors are bright. It can teach the kids about water to paint ratio. The more water, the lighter the color. Less water, brighter color. These are also super classroom time efficient and can be used by all ages. Plus this lasts ALOT longer than the watercolor palettes. (I do buy Crayola semi noise refills for water colors projects)

I wish I had money in my budget to buy Gelli printing plates. There is another way to make Gelli prints but they have to be kept in the fridge and with the busy class schedule that isn't always an option. It would be almost $300 for a class set. 

I obviously use a lot more and always want to try new things but these are my new and favorite supplies.  What are yours? 

Organization is key

So my kids know I'm a little crazy about clean up, but with reason. I see 730 kids a week- I do more dishes at work than I do at my house. So cleaning up is important. I have given all the kids jobs that help out in some way. I even organize the caddies with their day to day supplies. Each color goes to that color table, it is picked up at the beginning of class and returned at the end. Even the spots are labeled. (See I said I was crazy) 

Only thing missing are the pencils. 

I finally came up with storage for the art journals. Only 4th and 5th grade are doing them. They  will live on this shelf 

Each class has a code. 

Hooray for organizing. 2 days til kiddos! 

Lesson plan

I guess there are issues trying to open the lesson plan format I posted a little back so I took a picture of my kindergarten plan for the unit on line. These are all the things required by my principal. I don't do step by step because no one else does my lessons, however I do have a separate file that has the basic instructions and materials. 

Art Room tour.. Pt two

As promised! More pictures. Things are finally coming together. Below is my door. The window was a last minute touch once I realized I had vinyl cling. 

The chart is for when each class receives a star (this is our positive behavior system) for every 9 stars the class gets- we have an art party, which is a free choice centers day. They LOVE THIS and compete with all the other classes. I made my window look like a paint palette. I'm pretty happy with it. I leave happy notes on the white board like "be sweet!" The kids thing it's cute. 

Stole this from Pinterest. I needed a way I direct my early finishers without having to repeat myself 30 times. On the last one I'll add a rainbow board with options including the observation station and writing an artist statement. 

These are paper 3d forms I made that hang above the table and serve several purposes. 1. Color codes the tables. 2. It tells the kids what their jobs are. The jobs are velcro'd on so I can change the jobs every 9 weeks. 3. This should also keep the kids from picking the tape off the table. 

I was at a loss what to do with this bulletin board that's right behind my desk. I decided to use the rainbow chevron pattern to write the essential questions. I may go back and add paint

Splats- just to make it a little more interesting. 

This is a partial view of my classroom from my desk. You can sort of see the cubes hanging. 

Still much to do but I feel like I've got a good hang on it so far. Tomorrow is an inservice for art teachers in the county. It's pretty cool that we all get spend time feeding off each other's creativity. 

4 (week!) days til the start of the school year. 

Mini classroom Tour

So I caved.. I went back early because I just couldn't help myself any more. I wanted to set up my room! 

Here are some pictures of the in progress set up. I have a clear theme this year - Rainbow- which you would think is pretty obvious being the art room. 

I finally inventoried all my glazes. Thank goodness. I had some many that were old, dried up and useless. Sorted by glaze/underglaze. I swear to glaze more ceramics this year. 

Visible supply bins! Now I can direct the kids to get their own things and they don't have to check every cubby to find it. Woohoo! 

For early finishers as described in earlier posts! They can sit and draw the image in front of them. A little bit of extra practice goes a long way. I make sure to tell them to concentrate on line, shape, and value as they only have a pencil to work with. 

I have a shape and form version of this simple poster so I decided to make a simple line one. This will help in the first few weeks because most of my units cover line first. 

This is my semi-done front board. Learning goals are all the way to right and hung. But I don't have the grade level printed off yet. Next to them will be the essential questions. To the left is the art rubric I'm using this year. Below the board are the jobs. I have decided on a nifty way to get the kids to NOT PICK THEM OFF THE TABLE.  Which makes me absolutely crazy! And I'm going to hang them from forms from the ceiling. Pictures on that later.

A closer look at the jobs. 

Here is the rubric a little closer. 

Another early finisher station.. 

I wish I had better wall space to hang awese artwork in my own room. This will do.. For now.. 

Well I feel very accomplished for 6 hours work. Can't wait to officially go back on Monday! 

Found some other project pictures in my Ipad...

So, after months of searching I found my iPad charger. I refused to buy a new one for a while and magically ended up finding it. Thank goodness because I found some great pictures of lessons from this past year..

This is a lesson I based off of Wayne Thiebaud. We learned to draw the ice cream cone using shapes that we had learned about. I'm always trying to get them to see simple shapes and that way the object becomes easier to draw. We used the primary colors to do the background using the big tempera cakes- which I love. Then we used the secondary colors to color the ice cream using oil pastels. I don't think I have a picture of a complete one. This project was for kinder and first. 

The first class used watercolors, which used a lot more of the paint and didn't have the brilliant colors that the tempera did. 

I let them do the background in whatever pattern or design they wanted. I was really impressed by how methodical some of the really little ones became with their patterns, 

This project will definitely be repeated this year. We can talk about shape, line and color with this one project.  Oh and patterns in the background. :)