3rd Grade: Fall Birch Trees

The next finished elementary project is another oldie but a goodie...the fall birch trees in 3rd grade.  I also happened to have my first observation this year during this lesson and it went swimmingly well! As with the 1st grade pumpkin patch drawings, I've blogged about this project before, so I won't get into too much detail about how we did them.  I will say, however, that instead of using pan watercolor paint (or liquid watercolor), we used watercolor pencils this year, which was a first for me.  Watercolor pencils was a new thing I added to my requisitions this year and the kids loved using them!

Basically, we taped off our birch trees, drew in our horizon lines, added details, colored with the watercolor pencils, painted over with water, ripped the tape off, scraped the birch tree lines and then dabbed the fall leaves...phew!

Up and Coming Elementary Projects

Elementary project posts are going to be far and fewer in between this year.  Since I only see them once a cycle, it's just going to take that much longer for us to finish quality projects.  Here's an overview of what I am currently doing with the elementary grades.  Some projects are repeats of last year, and some are brand new projects that I am starting off with for the first time.

Kindergarten
The kindergartners just finished up their first listening and learning strand of nursery rhymes.  I decided to forgo my usually beginning projects of the primary and secondary colors to start with shapes.  To go along with their nursery rhyme unit, we are doing "Hey Diddle Diddle" drawings.  So far we have worked one day on this. I gave students my shape practice sheet and then together, we drew a cow jumping over the moon, and the dish running away with the spoon (made sure we got two rhyming components in the drawing...).  Next class, I'll have them trace all their pencil lines with Sharpie marker, we'll talk about craftsmanship when it comes to coloring with crayons, and they will finish up coloring their projects for display.









1st Grade
In 1st grade, we are starting out with the pumpkin unit, just slightly altered to try and fit it into 2 1/2 class periods instead of 3-4.  We've so far worked one class on this.  On the first day, everyone got a piece of Manila drawing paper and I asked them to draw a pumpkin patch in 15 minutes.  We talked about how they drew their pumpkins vs. how a pumpkin really looks (most drew them perfect circles and didn't attempt to show the texture).  Then, I demonstrated on the board how to use flattened circles to draw pumpkins.  Students then turned their papers over and spent the rest of class drawing more realistic pumpkin patches.  Next class, I'll show them how to use more than one horizon line (and we'll talk about size) to create depth.  They'll draw their pumpkin patches and start blending on them with oil pastels.

2nd Grade
In second grade, the students have also just finished up their first listening and learning strand, which was fairy tales and tall tales.  I started this art project with them when they were reading Beauty and the Beast, so their project is designing Beast's castle.  We are VERY lucky to have a real Louis Tiffany stained glass window in our school.  It was bought and donated to the school by one of the original founders of the old school building (in memory of his mother).  I took this as an opportunity to talk about stained glass windows and to educate the students about how lucky they should feel to have a REAL artwork by a FAMOUS artist in their school!  So, for this project, students have to design a radial stained glass window (we are using transparency paper and Sharpies).  I created a simple castle pattern that students traced and then sponge painted brick patterns on (similar to how we did it for our 3rd grade castles last year).  So far, we have worked two periods on this project.  For the last class, students will cut a hold in the top of their castle to add their colored stained glass window, and they will get to cut out a draw bridge door and roofs for their castle towers out of construction paper.




3rd Grade
For 3rd grade, I'm sticking with an oldie.  We're doing our fall birch trees.  Only change is that this year I bought watercolor pencils, so we will be using those instead of crayons.  So far, we have worked one class on these and we have taped off our birch trees.

4th Grade
4th grade is also doing a repeat.  We're starting off with value and will be doing fall value drawings and then doing the linocut leaf prints around the border.

5th Grade
Another repeater.  I'm skipping the painted color wheels this year (because those took forever last year).  We've spent one class doing the plate color wheel so they have a color wheel to reference and take notes of the different color families on the back, and now we are going to jump right into the complementary colored checkerboards.  Next class, we'll roll out our slab boards.  This year, instead of glazing/underglazing them, I'm going to have them paint the boards with acrylic paint.  Less waste of the more expensive materials.  They'll also be making their checker pieces out of model magic instead of kiln fire clay.  Again, less waste of the more expensive materials.

6th Grade
Finally, 6th grade will be starting off with cave art.  They are currently doing geography in social studies, but afterwards they will be doing the prehistoric world.  My unit should give them base knowledge for that (great way to connect curriculum and get common core points!).  Last year we didn't do a cave art project.  This year, we've spent 1 1/2 class periods on it.  For the first 1/2 period, I gave my power point and we talked about cave art and took the virtual tour through Lascaux Cave.  For the first whole period, we rolled out a huge piece of brown butcher paper, wrinkled it to make it look like a rock, and then used chalk pastels to "age" it.  Next class, we are going to mix our own egg tempera, so they can get a feeling of what it's like to make their own paint.  I will be hanging their rock on my display strips and we'll go down and actually paint on the rock wall, just like a real cave artist.

Special Education Classes
I have two separate special education classes this year; a K-3 class and a 3-6 class.  The K-3 class did complete their first project all in one class period, and I must say that I was extremely impressed with the progress (and maturity) they found over summer!  In their classroom, they made leaves for a bulletin board, so I continued with that theme.  I asked them to draw a fall tree with good details (similar to what I have 4th grade do).  I was SO HAPPY to see them using the "y" and "v" technique to draw realistic trees!  Then, I pulled out my rubber leaves and I had them make a leaf print border around their drawings.

The 3-6 class is starting off with learning about the history of NYS in their classroom, so on a whim, I decided to do a Statue of Liberty project with them.  A majority of the students in the class have been there for a year or two, and they learned about the Statue of Liberty before, so this was a bit of a review.  We talked about the statue and then I taught them a little bit about Keith Haring.  We ended on Haring's Statue of Liberty artwork.  I am having these students do a Keith Haring-like rendition of the statue on Styrofoam to my Styrofoam prints.  This should only take one

Spring/Summer Birch Trees

Here's our last 3rd grade birch tree project.  For this one I didn't give them any directions, other than it had to be a spring/summer landscape with birch trees!  This was like the "test" birch tree project, since we didn't review depth before starting.  I don't have any watercolor pencils, but I decided to let the kids use regular colored pencils if they wanted instead of crayon.  They worked pretty well!  If you haven't already seen them, here are all of our other birch trees from this year:

Fall Birch Trees (Students received full instruction and demonstration.)

Winter Birch Trees  (Students received review of depth.)

I wish some of the students paid more attention!  I had a few really great landscapes that had blank birch trees!

Finished Winter Birch Trees

Here are some of the finished watercolor birch trees.  As I'm grading them, I'm doing some reflecting on this particular version of my project.

1. I need to do some more practice painting with the watered-down watercolor paint for painting snow.  I don't want to "baby" the students by giving them already watered down paint...I want them to learn how to do the technique themselves, therefore it appears I need to give them more practice to master the technique.

2. I need to get my classroom some watercolor pencils!  I figured out what it is that I don't like about the coloring...it's the crayons!  I think these would look so much better with some watercolor pencils instead.

3. I noticed quite a few more students being successful with the depth aspect in this project compared to the fall birch trees...hoorah!

4.  We need to work a little more on shadows from a light source...some of the shadows are on the wrong side of their trees...

P.S. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I GET THE CODE TO EMBED MY ARTSONIA GALLERY ONTO MY BLOG?  I've seen other blogs with the little button that says "check us out on Artsonia" but I can't figure out how to add it to my own blog!

We'll do one more version of these come spring time...

 I hate to say it but these two boys are my star art students in 3rd grade...they have a really great grasp on how to use watercolor paint! 

I wish the artist on the left had used less birch tree lines and the artist on the right had used more birch tree lines!

Winter Birch Trees Continued...

All righty.  Here is the continuation of my previous post for winter birch trees.  This is what the students have been working on for the last class.

Once students paint the sky and the watered down shadows in the snow, we pull off the masking tape.  I think this is the one time that cheap masking tape is actually a good thing!  Less ripping of the artwork!

1. Rip off the masking tape.  I tell the students to pull the tape at an angle from the tree, not straight down the tree.

2. At the sinks, I put two or three paper plates with some black tempera, and paint scrapers.

3. We use the flat side of the paint scraper to add the birch tree lines.  Dip it just a little bit in the paint.

4.  Lay the scraper on the edge of the tree and pull it in one direction.  Do this on both sides of the tree.  

You can definitely see where I had more paint and less paint on my scraper.  You don't want to go overboard!

My first year of teaching, we did winter birch trees, and I can already see how much I've grown in how and what I teach.  We did birch trees on a separate piece of paper with sharpies, cut them out and glued them to our painting before adding the shadows.  I like the paint scraper technique I found much better!  Though, I did just realize, as I'm posting this, that I completely forgot about having the kids use the salt technique in their sky! :(

In Progress: 3rd Grade Birch Trees

The next few posts will be about what we've started and finished this short week after break.  Just before break, my 3rd graders began their second birch tree painting.  This time, we are doing winter birch trees.  On the first day, we reviewed how to create depth using this power point. In the same class, students taped out their birch trees.  

During the second class, which was also before break, they drew in their details and horizon line.

 For the first class back from break, I created a power point about how to paint a winter scene. It encourages students to look beyond the white snow and to "see" the other colors snow can look like from shadows and the reflection of light.  One class really seems to understand, the other not quite as much, so they will take a little more work.

I don't have photographs of their artwork yet to share, but this was my demonstration piece that I did to show students how to blend colors in the sky (to make a Northern Lights sky at night) and how to water down the black and blue paints to create the shadows on the snow.  I did a day sky demo for the other class but forgot to take a picture of it.

I plan on giving them two more class periods for this.  Most students only got the sky painted, if that because they needed to finish their details.  We need to pull the tape off our trees next class and add the birch tree lines, and then paint the shadows on the trees themselves.