Mouse Color Wheels

This has been a project four class periods in the making...much longer than I intended to spend on it, but as we got into it, I changed my mind as to how it was going to be finalized.  Originally, I was just going to read Mouse Paint with my K-3 12:1:1 class and then have them make mice in the primary and secondary colors, and then place them in a circle to create the color wheel.

But then...a light bulb turn on in my head and I thought..."Why not create a color wheel based on the art in the Frederick book?!"...and ta-da!  This painted collage project was born!

This is my example of the project.

So, on the first day of this project, we read Mouse Paint.  This was a good review of primary and secondary colors for those who have had me for two years already, and a good, quick way to introduce them to the new students in the class.

On that first day, we first colored this worksheet which I found through Pinterest.  Another great example of incorporating Common Core and color sight words for these students.

Also on the first day, I gave students a piece of manila tag board that I had split into six squares for them.  They painted the first three squares the primary colors (good practice for these students to paint the outline and then paint inside their lines) and then mixed the secondary colors on a plate to paint the other three squares.

On the second day, we read the book Frederick.  I had students then paint a piece of manila paper with white and black paint.  We tried to recreate the look of the rocks in the Frederick book.  We also used paint scrapers to add some cool texture to the paint. (In my first year of teaching, I actually did a Frederick project using a worksheet from the Leo Lionni website, which is where I got the mouse pattern from for this project.  You can see those projects here on Artsonia.)

After we cleaned up the paint, we had about 10 minutes left on the second day so I showed students the video of how Leo Lionni made the mice for his books.

On the third day, we drew our rocks and boulders on the back of the grey painted paper and cut them out.  I had the students glue them to white tag board.  Then, they started tracing the mouse shape (like Lionni's version) on each of their six painted colors.  They cut those out too and placed them in the order of the color wheel on top of their rocks.

Finally, on the last day, the students added legs, arms, ears and eyes, just like Lionni did in his video.  This was also good fine motor skill practice for some students to cut out those small pieces and glue them.

5th Grade: 3-D Color Wheel Tutorial

When I left on my maternity leave, my 5th graders were still working on their complementary colored checker boards.  Unfortunately, they took them home while I was gone so I don't have any pictures of what their finished products looked like.  (If you didn't see last year's checkerboards, here's the link to those posts...)  Currently, my 5th graders are creating 3-D color wheels.  If you've been following me for a while, hopefully you remember that I decided my curriculum for 5th grade would concentrate entirely on color theory.  This is a project I did my first two years of teaching with 6th grade (before I started blogging) but did not do last year.  I thought it would be fun to bring it back and move it down to 5th grade where it seemed more appropriate to my curriculum.

Now, this is not something that I came up with on my own.  I saw it in an art magazine publication but for the life of me, cannot remember which one.  I tried to do a search to find it before I blogged this post, but could not.  What I will share, however, is a link to a rubric for this project that I did find in my search, as it is what I am using to model my rubric after for this project.  So, if anyone happens to know or find the publication where this comes from, please let me know so I can link back to it!  I want to say it was from an older publication of Arts & Activities, but I'm not sure...

Ok, here goes.  For this project, each student needs four paper plates.  First, you need to fold all four paper plates in sixths.  

Next I have the students label each plate what colors they should be painted and where.  Folding and labeling the plates usually takes one whole class period.

Front                  Back

Blue    ~     Blue green / Blue Violet

Red Violet     ~      Violet / Red

Orange     ~     Red orange / Yellow orange

Yellow green     ~     Yellow / Green

Next we take two class periods to paint these.  At this point, I still have not found a clean, tidy way to do this, nor a way that prevents wasting paint.  I've done this two ways...in the past, we have painted one side of each plate on one day, and painted the other side the second day.  This time around, I tried to waste paint less by having the students start with one color, say blue.  Then we mixed green, and finally blue green all in the same paint cup.  We cleaned out the cups and brushes and started over with yellow, than yellow-orange, then orange, then red-orange, and so on and so forth.  The only problem with this method is that you end up having to paint directly on the back side of the wet plates, sometimes causing you to get other colors on your plates.  I'm thinking next time, I may set up stations at each table for students to independently move around to.  (The only problem I would foresee with this is students not paying attention to their labeling and painting the plates wrong, but I suppose that would end up being part of their grade...being able to pay attention and such...)

Also, with regards to mixing paint, I tried to let the students mix their own paint, but TONS OF it was wasted because they wouldn't listen properly when we discussed using more yellow and red to make orange, more yellow than blue to make green, etc. etc.  I found that it was better to review how to mix each color with them and then I would squirt the paint into their cups for them to mix at their tables.

The fourth and final class is when we put these together.  First I have the students refold on their fold lines as the paint tends to stiffen the plates back up.  Then I show them how to make their plates into bow ties by pinching them together.  We clip them with paper clips.  In the past, I have used bobby pins, however that can get expensive, so this year we are just using metal paperclips.

Next comes the part where students are on their own.  They must figure out how to get their plates together in the correct color order.

Finally, before clipping the last plate on, I have students tie a big know on the end of a string and stick it in the middle of the plates before attaching the last one.  Now, I have something to hang them from.

And here is the finished product!  I can't wait to share the finished ones with you...I always hang them in my corner display case by my room and they always look so awesome and colorful. I never want to take them down!

I have one class who has all of their plates painted, and another who has one more painting day.  Hopefully I'll be sharing their end products in the next week or so.

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

5th Grade Cookie Color Theory

Every year since I started teaching, my cookie color theory lesson has been a staple in 5th grade...something the students always look forward to doing.  Usually, however, I do this lesson in the beginning of the year as an attention grabber.  Due to the "excitable" nature of this year's 5th graders, I decided to hold off on this lesson until the students were able to better control themselves, and I think it was for the better!

In the past when I've done this, it took a lot of yelling to get students to calm down enough to listen and review what the primary, secondary and tertiary colors were.  However, since I held off until the end of the school year, the students already knew what these colors were, so I gave them my "if you eat or lick any frosting off your fingers during this process, you will not finish the project" speech and let them go to town in groups.  I didn't have to interject about how to mix colors in any groups because if a student STILL didn't know how to mix tertiary colors, their group mates helped them out!

 Before the students come to class, I have a tray for each table ready to go.  There are there empty Dixie cups (for color mixing) and three Dixie cups filled with the primary colors in vanilla frosting.  I count out and pre-bag 13 vanilla wafers (bought in bulk from BJs Wholesale).  I give them a handful of Popsicle sticks for color mixing, and these 12"x 12" laminated color wheel place mats I made three years ago.  The place mats clean up real nicely with a squirt of hand sanitizer and a paper towel!

At the end of class, students have to clean their table up, wash off the tray and throw out any remaining frosting.  Then they get to split up the cookies.  Depending on teacher preference, they are allowed to eat their cookies after I have photographed their group with their color wheel or they take the cookies back to their room on a paper plate to eat during snack time.

Students each received a grade out of 15 points for this project based on the following:

          Is the color wheel ordered appropriately?

          Did you work well with your group members?

          Did you follow directions and have good self-control with the frosting and cookies?

I definitely think that next year I will not being doing this project at the beginning of the year.  It will be an end of the year review given to students based on good behavior!

5th Grade: Color Wheels and Clay Checkerboards!

My 5th graders have FINALLY finished their color wheels!  Amen to that!  This project took forever...and I'm not entirely happy with the results...I am at least happy that about 80% of the kids know their primary, secondary, tertiary and complementary colors.  Craftsmanship was not at its highest for this project...

This color wheel was probably the best quality one that was made.  I wasn't too thrilled with the creativity of it...as there were a few other jerseys that were made, but his craftsmanship was great!

I really liked this one...This was a lot of work for her to cut out all the little toes!

This one was supposed to be art smocks...

This one would have been awesome if the student had been a little more careful with paint!

Robots...another original design...I just wish he had used the complementary colors to add a face instead of random dots!

Eyes...

Another good craftsmanship piece...just not very creative!

This one was made by a perfectionist...it took him two extra days because everything always has to be perfect!  I had to eventually cut him off and make him move on, so he didn't do the outlining with Sharpie marker.

Loved this one...game controller!

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Now that we're moving on, I decided to go with a clay project.  It's always a risk doing clay with this group because there are so many kids in one class and they are always bonkers, especially when we do something fun like clay!

Today I did a quick demonstration to remind them how to roll out slabs (they've done it before).  I handed out 8" square tracers so they could cut out the checkerboard square.  I also showed them how to carefully put a mark on the clay at every inch around the edge, and use the ruler to put the grid lines in.

All in all, it went pretty well.  Some have extra checkerboard spots, but I can't baby them and remind them to check, especially when it was written on the board!

The only negative thing that happened was that a student decided to take some clay from the classroom (and of course, I decided to spare them the threat I usually give about not taking clay from the classroom...or else you sit out for clay projects). His teacher saw him with during after school and made him apologize to me.  To top it all off...he didn't even want to give me the piece of clay back! *eye roll*  Now I need to decide...do I make him sit out of the rest of the clay project...oooooh!  Or should I make him give a little presentation to his class about not taking clay out of the art room!?  Hmmmm, I think I like that idea better...