3rd Grade: Wayne Thiebaud Cake Drawings

Hopefully I'm going to be playing catch-up these next few days!  I've got SO MANY projects to share from before the winter break, it's not even funny!  Things have been insanely hectic with the holidays, conferences, and committees at school.  I also recently became a consultant for Jamberry in order to help pay medical bills from last year.  My blog has unfortunately taken a back seat to all of these things, but it's my goal to make sure that stops happening!

This next project I'm going to share is probably one you've seen on Pinterest.  My students in 3rd grade LOVED making these oil pastel Wayne Thiebaud cakes!  (Did you know his last name is pronounced "tee-bow"?  Like the football player?  I didn't until I presented this project!).  This is the first time I've used this artist as a reference in my classes, and the students just loved it.  I find that they always love oil pastels anyways, because it's so easy for them to be successful with color blending and value, but the added fact that they were designing cakes like the Cake Boss just made it even cooler!

I am in LOVE with this one!  There is a local, elementary art show coming up and I wasn't sure if I'd have four pieces to send to it, but I do believe that this one may be going! :)

This project even correlates with Common Core math, as students were turning basic shapes into 3-D forms.  We used vocabulary such as cylinders and cubes to describe the shapes of our cake tiers.  Students practiced drawing their cakes on a worksheet for the first day.  Then, they drew them on 12"x18" black paper the second day, and I demonstrated how to blend the colors together on the cake tiers, adding in a little black for shadows.  On the third day, students finished their tiers and colored the background, finishing them up!

Kindergarten Mondrian Collages

Reverting back to a good-ole staple in my Kindergarten curriculum!  We did these Mondrian collages as a review of cutting and gluing, but also of geometric shapes, with corresponds with the Common Core math standards in kindergarten (identifying shapes).  Another thing that corresponds with those math standards?  Vertical and horizontal lines!  Boy, if you could have seen the shock on my face when I presented Mondrian to the students.  I asked the question, "What do you notice about the lines that Mondrian uses?" and the first response I received was "They are vertical and horizontal!"  WOW!

I'm not going to get into how we created these because I've posted about it in the past.  You can also read up on how I've used Mondrian in previous projects here.

3rd Grade Mondrian Unit (Part 4): Our Finished, Glazed Cubes!

Sorry about the wait in sharing these!  Here are those glazed Mondrian Cubes my 3rd graders created at the end of the school year.  They look awesome!  This is definitely a project that I will be doing again.  It's an awesome way to incorporate Common Core Math (using a ruler, 3-D objects, horizontal and vertical lines, geometric shapes, etc.!).  Again, students could choose to glaze their cubes with primary colors like Mondrian, or secondary, warm, or cool.  Love these!

If you missed my past posts on this project, check them out below!  Part 1 is the introductory lesson, part 2 is how we built them, and part 3 is glazing!

Mondrian Cubes Part 1

Mondrian Cubes Part 2

Mondrian Cubes Part 3

3rd Grade: Mondrian Unit (Part 2): Clay Cube Tutorial

So here is the clay cube tutorial.  Once again, I have resorted to using my slab roller to pre-roll the clay out for students.  In this case, we had to assemble our cubes in one class period because I wasn't sure that I would be able to keep the clay wet enough over a 8 day time-span in between classes.  In reality, I was able to keep the clay moist enough that we could have done this in two days, but I didn't want the students to drag it out either.

1. First, students had to cut out 6 squares from their clay slab.

2. Next, I had students bevel their edges.  That is, cut the edges (all 4) of each square at a 45 degree angle.  (This makes it easier to connect all of the pieces together.)

3. After the edges were beveled, students then had to score all four edges of each square.

4.  Next, students rubbed some slip onto the edges that they were connecting and pressed them together.  During this process, I went around and showed students how to use their fingers to simply press the clay together to get rid of the cracks from where they were connected.

5.  Lastly, the final piece was laid into place.  Students used whatever time they had left to start smoothing out their cube.

6.  Don't forget to add your initials AND poke a hole through at least one wall of clay to create an escape hatch for the air trapped inside during firing!

7.  This final step came during the second class period.  First, students smoothed out their surface and made sure their cube was shaped into as much of a cube as possible.  I showed the students how to gently drop their cube onto the table on each flat edge to help shape it back into a cube.

8.  Next, students simply laid their ruler parallel to the edges of their cube and drew in vertical and horizontal lines.  

9.  Students then made sure everything was still smooth, they picked off the "clay boogers" they made from carving their lines into their cubes, re-carved their initials and re-poked their hole on their cube for safe measures.

Part 1: Introduction to Mondrian & Color Theory Review

Part 3:  Glazing the Mondrian Cubes Coming soon!

Part 4:  Finished Cubes Coming soon!

3rd Grade: Mondrian Unit (Part 1)

Currently, my 3rd graders are in the middle of a Mondrian unit.  I've posted before how I've used Mondrian, and in this case, the final project is something new I'm trying out this year.  Before we get to that, however, here is how I opened up the unit.

This unit was started with a substitute as it was during one of the weeks I had to take my husband to his chemo treatments.  My substitute used my power point to introduce the works of Mondrian and to review the mathematical vocabulary that corresponds with Mondrian (i.e. horizontal line, vertical line, squares, rectangles, geometric shapes...COMMON CORE MATH!). 

Students then created these Mondrian animals on white paper using markers and rulers.  This was great practice for them on how to hold a ruler. 

Students cut out their animals and glued them onto black paper to make them look nice and crisp.

After the Mondrian animal project, I was back to introduce students to the final project, which is a clay cube project (something students are currently working on in math...3-D forms).  

On the front of this worksheet is color theory review.  These students already knew what primary, secondary, warm and cool colors were.  The complementary colors were a new addition.

On the back of the worksheet, students once again used a ruler to draw in their lines.  This is where I pushed students to not just simply draw a grid, as many of them did on their animal above.  We looked again at Mondrian's work and students realized that he used a variety of sizes of squares and rectangles.  The final aspect of this worksheet was that students had to color their cube using the color scheme of choice.  Mondrian used primary colors, but I didn't want to hold students to that color scheme, thus the color theory review.

Part 2 of this post will show you how we built our clay cubes.

Part 3 of this post will show you how we glazed our cubes. Coming soon!

Part 4 of this post will be our finished, glaze-fired cubes! Coming soon!

Shape Cows with Patterns

Hi all!  I feel like it's been forever since I've posted!  With everything going on lately, it's been very difficult to find time...plus, my internet has been down at home!  With that being said, I have A LOT of stuff to share with you.

The first thing I'll share is what my kindergartners just finished up.  We did shape cows and practiced our patterns.  This was a project that I did last year with them as well.  The one little change I made was to have them use black crayons instead of black Sharpie to outline everything, in part to reinforce the wax resist technique and also because I'm running out of Sharpies this year!  I also had them make their patterns in black instead of allowing them to use colored crayons...just to change it up a bit.

Again, this is one of those projects that aligns with the Common Core Math standards...the one where kindergartners are supposed to be able to identify shapes.  I didn't know this, but apparently they don't do patterns anymore in kindergarten!  Patterns are supposed to be learned in Pre-K now, so this was also a good review of patterns.

I must apologize for the photographs of these.  They are very wrinkly because my students started these with a substitute, who grabbed the wrong paper.  If you ever want to know what watercolor paint looks like on cheap, 60 lb. drawing paper, here it is!

Currently, my students are participating in the Common Core Listening & Learning strand about weather and the seasons, so our current project in the works right now is a spring project.  Students are drawing themselves under an umbrella, and then we will be blowing blue paint with straws to make the rain!  Hopefully I'll be able to share those finished projects next week! :)

Kindergarten: Secondary Shapes

The first project I did with kindergarten as I came back from my maternity leave was my secondary shape project.  This one is a staple that I do every year.  This year it didn't change much from last year, other than the fact that I found purple and green metallic paper for the students to use with the gold instead of plain construction paper.

So, here is the gist of what happens and why I like to do this project every year.  This does align with the kindergarten Common Core Math Standards...specifically with the geometry standard of knowing shapes.  This is usually a follow-up lesson to my primary lines project where students are introduced to tempera paint.  This year my substitute did not do the primary lines lesson to teach primary colors...instead she chose to do Mondrian collages instead (which I have yet to photograph and share with you), so this project introduced my kinders to painting with tempera paint.

The first day, we reviewed shapes.  I had the students draw a square, triangle, rectangle and circle on the back of their tag board while I got the paint palettes ready for them.  Next, I demonstrated how to dip just the tip of the brush into the paint before applying it to the paper.  We talked about rinsing the brush off in between colors, how to WIPE the brush on the edge of the water bucket instead of banging it and causing splatter, etc. etc.  I then tell the students that I want them to paint a variety of shapes, including big, small and medium shapes.  While I circulate the room, I tell students to create a good composition by filling the entire paper with different shapes and spreading out the colors they use.

On the second day, I gave each student three sheets of metallic paper.  We review scissor safety and I reviewed how to glue with "just a dot, not a lot" around the edges of each shape.  I have my little kinders glue one shape at a time, holding each shape down with their hand and counting to 10 (great for practicing counting too!).  Again, as I circulate, I encourage students to be creative with their placement of the paper and remind them of using up the entire piece of paper.

I have lots more to share with you...both from my maternity leave and what has been accomplished since I've been back.  This last Friday was the end of our 2nd marking period and I was FINALLY able to catch up on grading and photographing most of the artwork that has been completed so hopefully there will be plenty of more posts this week!

Kindergarten: Jasper Johns' OIl Pastel Numbers

The second official project that kindergartner's finished up before my leave was this Jasper Johns number project.  This is a repeat project that I did from last year, with some alterations.  Last year I was able to spread this out into more of a complete unit because I saw students twice a cycle, but this year I didn't feel I could spend that amount of time on this project, so I shortened it and altered it a bit more to fit within the Kindergarten Common Core Math standards. 

This project took about 2 1/2 days for most students to complete.  On the first day, I showed students my power point about Jasper Johns and we talked a bit about pop art.  One of the math standards for kindergarten is being able to count objects that are in a row, a column, a grid and in a random assortment, and then write the appropriate number.  To mirror that, I paired students up and gave them a brown bag filled with 9 wooden beads of different sizes.  One at a time, I had the students pull out a handful of beads, count them and write the number down in the first square on their paper in pencil.  Their partner was supposed to double check their counting and the number they wrote.  They alternated until each partner had their six squares filled with a number.

For the second class, I passed these back and showed the students how to turn their numbers into bubble numbers.  For their next set of directions, they were asked to choose ONE oil pastel color to color in their numbers.  For the most part, everyone followed that direction quite well.

The final portion of the second class and the subsequent class was to color in the background.  My directions were that students were supposed to choose THREE oil pastel colors to color in the background behind their numbers.  This is where some students didn't follow directions, or appeared to not be able to follow directions.  Many students grabbed an oil pastel and started coloring right over the top of their numbers.  Some colored around but used more than three colors.  I gave multiple demonstrations at each table to try and show students how to color AROUND their details, but many still struggled, so I sense that this is something that this group will need more work on!